JOHN NEWTON
From Disgrace to Amazing Grace
By Jonathan Aitken . Continuum. 308 pages. £16.99
ISBN 978-0-8264-9383-5
This is by no means just a popular biography of Newton, well timed to coincide with the bi-centenary of his death.
Popular, rather than academic, it certainly is, but brilliantly written, and founded on first-hand research into original, unpublished sources. Mr. Aitken’s work is a valuable and permanent addition to the considerable amount of material on Newton already available. With short chapters, no footnotes and a story line that keeps the reader engaged, the book will hopefully win a hearing where other Newton titles might not. (I bought my copy in a London bookshop where evangelical literature is not normally found.) Unless the reader is hostile to evangelical Christianity, it is hard to see how anyone could not rise from these pages without a growing esteem for the one-time curate of Olney and vicar of St. Mary’s, Woolnoth, London.
