List of Catholic Authors - European Languages - English Language

English Language

As the anti-Catholic laws were lifted in the mid-19th century, there was a revival of Catholicism in the British Empire, there has been a distinct Catholic strain in English literature.

The most notable figures are Cardinal Newman, a convert, one of the leading prose writers of his time and also a substantial poet, and the priest-poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, also a convert, although most the latter's works were only published many years after his death. In the early 20th century, G. K. Chesterton, a convert, and Hilaire Belloc, a French-born Catholic who became a British subject, promoted Roman Catholic views in direct apologetics as well as in popular, lighter genres, such as Chesterton's "Father Brown" detective stories. From the 1930s on the "Catholic novel" became a force impossible to ignore, with leading novelists of the day, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, converts both, dealing with distinctively Catholic themes in their work.

In America, Flannery O'Connor wrote powerful short stories with a Catholic sensibility and focus, set in the American South where she was decidedly in the religious minority.

• Lord Acton – a 19th-century British historian from a Catholic Recusant family; disagreed with ultramontanism and had Old Catholic Church sympathies, but never left the Church; known best for the aphorism that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
• John L. Allen, Jr. – Journalist who has written on Opus Dei and Pope Benedict XVI.
• Elizabeth Anscombe, English philosopher
• Kenneth Owen Arvidson (born 1938) New Zealand poet.
• Matt Barber - dance professional and author
• Maurice Baring - English man of letters, convert, friend of Belloc and Chesterton.
• James K Baxter (1926–1972) a great New Zealand poet, also dramatist, literary critic and social commentator. He was a convert to Catholicism.
• Hilaire Belloc – strongly-held, orthodox Catholic views; wrote apologetics, famous comic verse, historical, political and economic works and well-known account of a pilgrimage he took on foot, "The Path to Rome"; French-born but became a British subject and politician.
• Robert Hugh Benson – convert and priest who wrote Lord of the World and apologetics.
• William Peter Blatty -- screenwriter and novelist. Best known for the novel The Exorcist and Oscar winning screenplay adapting same.
• Giannina Braschi, 21st-century vanguard poet and novelist from Puerto Rico; author of Yo-Yo Boing! and Empire of Dreams.
• Heywood Broun - convert
• George Mackay Brown - Scottish poet and author
• Orestes Brownson - 19th-century American writer and convert.
• Vincent Buckley - Australian poet
• William F. Buckley, Jr. - American writer, journalist and conservative commenator, founder of National Review; author of God and Man at Yale.
• Anthony Burgess - English novelist, critic and composer.
• Morley Callaghan - Canadian novelist and short story writer
• Roy Campbell – convert, South African poet.
• Geoffrey Chaucer - the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and author of The Canterbury Tales, he mocks corrupt clergy, but also presents an ideal priest who teaches sound Catholic doctrine in "The Parson's Tale"
• Brainard Cheney - convert; novelist and playwright.
• G. K. Chesterton – English convert, wrote apologetics such as Orthodoxy (book), novels such as The Man Who Was Thursday, poetry, biographies and literary studies, and lighter works like the "Father Brown" detective stories.
• Brian Coffey – Irish writer of 'The Notion of Order According to St. Thomas Aquinas' and a Catholic poet.
• Ronan Coghlan - Irish writer on mythology and author of a Sherlock Holmes pastiche.
• Felicitas Corrigan – Nun and author.
• Richard Crashaw – 17th-century metaphysical poet and convert to Catholicism; his religious poetry includes the famous "Hymn to St. Teresa".
• Dorothy Day – American convert, co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement.
• Christopher Dawson – British historian and convert who proposed that the medieval Catholic Church was an essential factor in the rise of European civilisation.
• Christopher Derrick – an English non-fiction writer on contemporary issues.
• Michael Derrick – an English journalist and pamphleteer.
• E. J. Dionne – noted for coverage of Vatican City.
• Anna Hanson Dorsey - an American novelist and writer for young people
• Maureen Dowd – Graduate of The Catholic University of America and practicing, but holds positions at variance with the Church.
• Ernest Dowson - decadent poet who converted to Catholicism
• John Dryden – the leading poet of Restoration England, who converted to Catholicism in his fifties. His long poem The Hind and the Panther, written in 1687, explains the reasons for his conversion to the Church from Anglicanism.
• Alice Thomas Ellis – a novelist and convert from Positivism who became a conservative Roman Catholic critic of the Second Vatican Council and a regular columnist at the Catholic Herald newspaper.
• Mitch Finley - contemporary American author of more than 30 nonfiction books on Catholic topics.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald – Raised Catholic, married in a Catholic church, and categorised as Catholic, though he was not a practicing one for most of his life.
• Joseph Fitzmyer – Priest and writer.
• Robert J. Fox (priest) – He writes religious works, director and founder of the Fatima Family Apostolate.
• Sinéad Flanagan – writer/poet (husband was Éamon de Valera)
• Lady Antonia Fraser – A Roman Catholic (converted with her parents as a child), Lady Antonia caused a public scandal in 1977 by leaving her Catholic husband for Harold Pinter.
• Brian Friel – Some pre-Christian Celtic elements are in his writing too though.
• Maggie Gallagher – socially conservative writer and commentator who has campaigned against abortion and gay marriage.
• Robert Girardi - His novels, but especially A Vaudeville of Devils: Seven Moral Tales examine ethical and religious themes.
• Rumer Godden – After her conversion she wrote about the mystical aspects of the faith.
• Caroline Gordon - Convert; novelist and short story writer.
• Clotilde Graves - convert; novelist and short story writer.
• Andrew Greeley – Irish-American Roman Catholic priest and novelist.
• Graham Greene – the English novelist, a convert who wrote The Power and the Glory and focussed on themes of human sin and divine mercy. Other of his books in which Catholicism plays a central role are Brighton Rock, The Heart of the Matter and The End of the Affair.
• Ron Hansen - Contemporary American author of Mariette in Ecstasy and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.
• Jon Hassler, American novelist
• Seamus Heaney, Irish poet (see ,): translated Beowulf and pre-Christian aspects are important in his work too.
• Peter Hebblethwaite – an English journalist and biographer.
• Ernest Hemingway – Although raised Protestant, Hemingway would later convert to Catholicism.
• Tony Hendra – Father Joe: The Man Who Saved My Soul.
• Patrick Holland - Australian novelist and short story writer.
• Tony Hillerman – author of mystery novels set among the Navajo of the American Southwest.
• Gerard Manley Hopkins – 19th-century convert who became a Jesuit priest and a great poet, famous for poems such as "The Wreck of the Deutschland", "God's Grandeur", etc.
• Paul Horgan
• Robert Hutchinson – American religion writer, columnist and essayist, author of When in Rome: A Journal of Life in Vatican City and The Politically Incorrect Guide to the Bible.
• Elizabeth Inchbald - early-19th-century English actress, novelist, and playwright.
• Laura Ingraham - conservative commentator, author and radio show host, often appearing on FOX News and EWTN.
• Lionel Johnson – late-19th-century English poet and convert
• Paul Johnson – historian and journalist – wrote A History of Christianity, Pope John Paul II And The Catholic Restoration, and others books.
• David Jones – an important British modernist poet, much of whose work shows the influence of his conversion to Catholicism.
• James Joyce - Irish novelist from a middle-class Catholic family; Jesuit-educated. One of the leading modernist writers of the 20th century, author of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, Joyce may have rejected the Church as an adult (some critics/biographers opine that he never really left or later reconciled in some regard); nonetheless, his novels are permeated by Catholic themes and concepts.
• Julian of Norwich - late-14th-century/early-15th-century English Mystic and anchoress. She either wrote or dictated her mystical experiences consciously to instruct others. Both the original version and the revised version are known as either A Revelation of Divine Love or simply Showings.
• George Kelly – Pulitzer Prize winning playwright; uncle of Grace Kelly
• Margery Kempe - 15th-century English lay woman and self-proclaimed mystic. Kempe wrote one of the first, if not the first, autobiographies in the English language.
• Jack Kerouac - Beat author of On the Road; son of French Canadian immigrants; born and reared a Catholic, experimented with Buddhism and later returned to Catholicism
• Joyce Kilmer – convert, poetry titles include: The Robe of Christ, and The Rosary.
• Russell Kirk - American conservative political theorist and man of letters
• Ronald Knox – convert who became a Roman Catholic priest. He wrote six detective novels, as well as witty essays.
• Dean Koontz - American popular novelist best known for moralistic thrillers, who converted to Catholicism while in college.
• Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Austrian political writer and novelist, whose most influential works were first published in English.
• Jane Lane - wrote historical novels and biographies from a Catholic perspective
• George Parsons Lathrop – convert who was one of the founders of the Catholic Summer School of America.
• Penny Lernoux – writer for the National Catholic Reporter, former nun and noted Catholic critic of the hierarchy; died of lung cancer at age 49.
• Elmore Leonard – Jesuit education.
• John Lukacs – Hungarian/American historian whose view of history is deeply influenced by Catholicism.
• Bernadette Devlin McAliskey – Northern Irish Catholic nationalist politician who became a writer.
• David Lodge – a contemporary British novelist who often deals with the turmoil of the post-Vatican II Church in his work; mother of Irish descent.
• Barry Lopez - American short story writer and essayist.
• Christopher MacDonald - Roman Catholic novelist.
• Sara Maitland - Feminist author who has made use of Catholic spiritual themes.
• Rosie Malek-Yonan - author of The Crimson Field
• Paul Mariani - American poet, critic, memoirist and biographer of William Carlos Williams, Hart Crane, John Berryman, Robert Lowell, and Gerard Manley Hopkins.
• Malachi Martin - Irish-American novelist.
• Bruce Marshall - Scottish author.
• Francis A. Marzen – Hawaiian journalist.
• Edward Maurer - American author (fiction), The Prodigal Planet, The Building Of Joe
• James McAuley – a leading Australian poet of the 20th century and a convert to Catholicism; many of his poems are imbued with a Catholic vision, e.g. his long poem "Captain Quiros".
• Frank McCourt and Malachy McCourt – American Catholic brothers; Irish Catholic identities/cultures; writers/novelists.
• Henry McDonald – a Roman Catholic writer and columnist for The Guardian.
• Ralph McInerny - Irish-American. Philosophy professor at Notre Dame University, named the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies and Director of the Jacques Maritain Center. Awarded the Bouchercon Lifetime Achievement Award, a former member of the President's Committee on Arts and Humanities. Author of the Father Dowling series of mystery novels and many academic books on Catholic philosophy.
• Marshall McLuhan - Canadian philosopher and communications theorist, a convert to Catholicism
• Thomas Merton - American monk and writer.
• Alice Meynell – convert and suffragist, much of her poetry is religiously themed.
• Sandra Miesel – Co-writer of The Da Vinci Hoax.
• St. Thomas More – the statesman, lawyer, and martyr of Henry VIII's reign was also an author renowned across Europe. Most of his works were written in Latin, but later devotional writings, e.g. his Dialogue of Comfort against Tribulation, were in English.
• Thomas Moore, popular Irish poet of the 19th century (see, )
• J. B. Morton, English comic writer
• Malcolm Muggeridge – journalist, broadcaster and writer; his conversion was linked to Mother Teresa.
• Les Murray, a leading contemporary Australian poet and a convert to Catholicism.
• John Henry Newman – convert; became a Catholic priest and later a Cardinal; master of English prose, e.g. his Apologia Pro Vita Sua, he also wrote poetry, e.g. Lead, Kindly Light and The Dream of Gerontius.
• Aidan Nichols, leading Catholic theologian
• Michael Novak – contemporary politically conservative American political writer.
• Alfred Noyes – English poet, best known for "The Highwayman"; he wrote about his conversion to Catholicism in The Unknown God (1934).
• Kate O'Beirne – writes syndicated columns for National Review and other conservative publications; also writes books.
• Flannery O'Connor – her writing is deeply informed by the sacramental, and the Thomist notion that the created world is charged with God; like Graham Greene and Francois Mauriac she often focuses on sin and human evil.
• Flann O'Brien - Irish comic writer.
• Coventry Patmore - 19th-century poet, convert
• Craig Paterson - Philosopher and writer on bioethics.
• Joseph Pearce – English literary scholar and critic. A former British National Front member who renounced racism on conversion, edited the anthology Flowers of Heaven: 1000 years of Christian Verse, and has written biographies of Oscar Wilde and Hilaire Belloc.
• Walker Percy – American convert and novelist.
• Ramesh Ponnuru – American conservative political writer who wrote The Party of Death, attacking the pro-choice lobby in the United States.
• Alexander Pope – great English poet who was a Roman Catholic in a period when that was potentially unsafe in England (the early 18th century).
• Katherine Anne Porter – on again and then off again convert.
• J. F. Powers, American writer of stories about clerical life.
• John C. Preiss, Catholic Convert Writer and Editor of the Immaculate Heart Messenger, Director of the Fatima Family Apostolate, Founded by Robert J. Fox
• Timothy Radcliffe – Dominican Order lecturer, writer, and professor.
• Piers Paul Read – contemporary but orthodox Catholic British novelist; V.P. of Catholic Writers Guild.
• Anne Rice – American writer. After a long separation from her Catholic faith during which she described her self as atheist, she returned to the Church in 1998 and has pledged to use her talents to glorify God.
• Francis Ripley – English priest who wrote about the faith.
• Frederick Rolfe, alias Baron Corvo - late-19th-century/early-20th-century novelist, a failed aspirant to the priesthood.
• Raymond Roseliep - American priest and poet.
• George Santayana – the Spanish-American philosopher and novelist, was a baptised Catholic. Despite taking a sceptical stance in his philosophy to belief in the existence of God, he identified himself with Catholic culture, referring to himself as an "aesthetic Catholic".
• Steven Schloeder - American architect and theologian; author of Architecture in Communion, San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998.
• William Shakespeare - although disputed, there is a growing number of biographers and critics who hold that William Shakespeare's religion was Catholic
• John Patrick Shanley – educated by the Irish Christian Brothers and the Sisters of Charity; screenwriter and playwright.
• Francis X. Shannon – Jesuit-educated conservative political columnist and Catholic Press Association contributor, currently working on Century of Faith: The Twentieth Century as a Golden Age of Roman Catholicism.
• Patrick Augustine Sheehan - Canon Sheehan of Doneraile, Catholic priest, novelist essayist and poet; a significant figure of the renouveau Catholique in English literature in the United States and in Europe.
• Dame Edith Sitwell – the English poet, a convert.
• Joseph Sobran – writes for The Wanderer, an orthodox Roman Catholic journal.
• St. Robert Southwell – 16th-century Jesuit who was martyred during the persecutions of Elizabeth I. He wrote great religious poetry, i.e. "The Burning Babe", and Catholic tracts.
• Dame Muriel Spark – a Scottish novelist, she decided to join the Roman Catholic Church in 1954, which she considered crucial in her development towards becoming a novel writer' in the tradition of Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, her novels often focus on human evil and sin.
• Robert Spencer – writer and commentator on Islam and jihad.
• Karl Stern - German Jewish convert, psychiatrist.
• Francis Stuart – Australian-born Irish nationalist Catholic convert; son in law of Maud Gonne; accused of anti-Semitism in his later years by Maire McEntee O'Brien and Kevin Myers.
• Ellen Tarry - Young adult literature and The Third Door: The Autobiography of an American Negro Woman.
• Allen Tate – convert; poet and essayist.
• Francis Thompson – 19th-century poet; author of the famous devotional poem "The Hound of Heaven".
• Colm Toibin – also an Irish actor; he wrote The Sign of the Cross.
• J. R. R. Tolkien – author of The Lord of the Rings; a devout and practicing Catholic
• F. X. Toole – Irish-American Catholic (born Jerry Boyd).
• Meriol Trevor - convert; author of historical novels, biographies, and children's stories
• Elena Maria Vidal – Historical novelist.
• Louie Verrecchio – Italian-American columnist for Catholic News Agency and author of Catholic faith formation materials and related books.
• Auberon Waugh – son of Evelyn Waugh, comic novelist/columnist.
• Wynn Wagner – an Old Catholic Church archbishop, not Roman Catholic.
• Evelyn Waugh – the novelist. In 1930 he converted to Roman Catholicism, and his religious ideas are manifest, either explicitly or implicitly, in all of his later work; strongly orthodox and conservative Roman Catholic.
• Morris West, Australian novelist. Several of his novels are set in the Vatican.
• Donald E. Westlake - an American writer; three-time Edgar Award winner.
• Henry William Wilberforce – an English journalist and essayist.
• D.B. Wyndham-Lewis – English comic writer and biographer.
• Oscar Wilde – late-19th-century playwright and poet, was fascinated by Catholicism as a young man and much of his early poetry shows this heavy influence. As is well known, he embraced a homosexual lifestyle later on, but converted to Catholicism on his deathbed (receiving a conditional baptism as there is some evidence, including his own vague recollection, that his mother had him baptised in the Catholic Church as a child)
• Gene Wolfe – science fiction author. He has written many critically acclaimed novels and multivolume series; some, such as the much-lauded Book of the New Sun and Book of the Long Sun, are considered to be religious allegory.
• Carol Zaleski - American philosopher of religion, essayist, and author of books on Catholic theology and on comparative religion.
• Father Robert S. Smith - American Catholic priest, author, and educator.