The course of his career Newman revealed himself to be a great writer both in verse and prose. He set forth the reasons for his conversion in his Apologia Pro Vita Sue (1864), in reply to Charles Kingsley who was an Anglican Clergy and had imputed lack of frankness to Roman Catholicism and to Newman himself.
He also wrote a novel, Cellist, the story of a beautiful Greek artist, a carver of idols, who at first resists Christianity, then is converted, and finally dies a martyr. In poetry he produced in 1865 his Dream of Granites, a vision of the invisible, with a chorus of angels in the manner of Goethe Faust; and in 1868 Verses on Various Occasions. The nature of his work in prose limits the number of his readers, for it is largely religious in character. He contended himself with condemning the spirit of the age for its liberalism and rationalism, which he regarded with horror.