Books by Malcolm Muggeridge

From the book:"" What is a conversion? The question is like asking, 'What is falling in love?' There is no standard procedure, no fixed time. No Damascus Road experience has been vouchsafed me; I have just stumbled on, like Bunyan's Pilgrim, falling into the Slough of Despond, locked up in Doubting Castle, terrified at passing through the Valley of the Shadow of Death; from time to time, by God's mercy, relieved of my burden of sin, but only, alas, soon to acquire it again.""""From my earliest years, there was something going on inside me other than vague aspirations to make a name for myself and a stir in the world: something that led me to feel myself a stranger among strangers in a strange land, whose true habitat was elsewhere, another destiny whose realization would swallow up time into Eternity, transform flesh into spirit, knowledge into faith, and reveal in transcendental terms what our earthly life truly signifies.""In November 1982, Malcolm Muggeridge was received into the Roman Catholic Church, an event which attracted much attention and curiosity. To Malcolm Muggeridge, it signified ""a sense of homecoming, of picking up the threads of a lost life.""Malcolm Muggeridge, well known around the world in the latter part of the twentieth century as a journalist, writer, and media figure, is still remembered as a vociferous unbeliever for a great part of his career. But always he had had an awareness that another dimension existed, that there was a destiny beyond the devices and desires of the ego, and that earthly life could not be the end.This book, first published in 1988 and the last of his writing to be published in his lifetime, is a personal statement of the history and development of his religious beliefs. An important section relates to Mother Teresa of Calcutta, latterly beatified, and with expectations to becoming a Saint. Her influence was perhaps the most powerful force leading this deeply thinking man to God and to the Roman Catholic Church. He describes also the effect upon him of meetings with Alexander Solzhenitsyn, a man whom he considers to be one of the greatest prophets of our time, with a profound spiritual message for our turbulent world.This moving testimony is not about the mechanics of becoming a Roman Catholic. Rather, it is about a series of happenings, occasions of enlightenment, that led one spiritually troubled man to find God. It is a statement of belief which will fascinate all who are interested in the workings of the human mind, and will inspire all who seek the Truth.Malcolm Muggeridge (1903-1990) was a noted journalist, reporting for the 'Daily Telegraph' and, later, as an editor for 'Punch Magazine'. He also served as television host for two interview shows. Muggeridge was known for his outrageous wit and flair for satire. Later in his life, Muggeridge came to embrace Christianity, ultimately being received into the Catholic Church in 1992. He wrote many popular and critically acclaimed books, including 'Jesus Rediscovered' (1969), 'Jesus: The Man Who Lives' (1975), and 'Confessions of a 20th Century Pilgrim' (1988). His biography of Mother Teresa, 'Something Beautiful For God' (1971), essentially introduced the nun and her work with the poor in India to the West.

Back in print for the first time since Muggeridge''s death in 1990, both published volumes of his acclaimed biography-The Green Stick and The Infernal Grove, plus the previously unpublished start to an unfinished third volume entitled The Right Eye-all brought together in one unabridged volume."There is not a flat page in this mingling of anecdote, comment and self-criticism. . . . An international throng of writers, politicians, soldiers, spies, traitors and eccentrics jostles in these page from Attlee to Wodehouse via Burgess and Philby, Churchill, de Gaulle, Gide, Chanel, Montgomery, Evelyn Waugh."-The Daily Telegraph"Much of it . . . is very funny indeed; his description of being inducted into the mysteries of invisible writing when he joined the M16, for instance, is one of the great comic set-pieces that are artfully placed throughout the book. . . . Apart from these, the wit sparkles on almost every page."-The Observer". . . this is one of the most delightful and entertaining memoirs of our age."-The Washington Post"A sure hand pushes the pen; a splendid mind guides the hand. There are paragraphs in this book that . . . are models of the best of clarity, grace and beauty in the English language."-The Dallas Morning NewsBorn in 1903, Malcolm Muggeridge started his career as a university lecturer in Cairo before taking up journalism. As a journalist he worked around the world on the Guardian, Calcutta Statesman, the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph. In 1953 became editor of Punch, where he remained for four years. In later years he became best known as a broadcaster both on television and radio for the BBC. His other books include Jesus Rediscovered, Christ and the Media, and A Third Testament.

"The media in general, and TV in particular, are incomparably the greatest single influence in our society . This influence is, in my opinion, largely exerted irresponsibly, arbitrarily, and without reference to any moral or intellectual, still less spiritual guidelines whatsoever."Throughout his journalistic career, Malcolm Muggeridge was a commentator. On radio and television, as a lecturer, journalist and author, he fascinated, delighted, provoked-and sometimes infuriated-his audiences. Christ and the Media is a sharp, witty critique of media-oriented culture with such intriguing fantasies as the "the Fourth Temptation," in which Jesus is approached with the offer of a worldwide TV network. "Future historians," wrote Muggeridge, "will surely see us as having created in the media a Frankenstein monster which no one knows how to control or direct, and marvel that we should have so meekly subjected ourselves to its destructive and often malign influence.Born in 1903 started his career as a university lecturer at the university in Cairo before taking up journalism. As a journalist he worked around the world on the Guardian, Calcutta Statesman, the Evening Standard and the Daily Telegraph, and then in 1953 became editor of Punch where he remained for four years. In later years he became best known as a broadcaster both on television and radio for the BBC. His other books include Jesus Rediscovered, Jesus: The Man Who Lives, and A Third Testament. He died in 1990.

This definitive treasury of the best of Malcolm Muggeridge is drawn from all sources: books, essays, journalism, broadcasts, scripts, diaries and letters spanning his sixty year career from 1926-1986. Some material, collected by Muggeridge in the early 1980's has never previously been published.Ian Hunter has collected short, pungent pieces chosen to exhibit the essential cast of Muggeridge's mind: his insights, wit and singular capacity to see 'with, not through' the eye. In a single volume, this is the essential wisdom of Malcolm Muggeridge, perhaps the most prophetic and individualistic thinker of his generation, standing beside G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis.Ian Hunter is Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Western Ontario. His articles and reviews have appeared in many Canadian and American publications. Dr. Hunter has also written a biography of Muggeridge (Malcolm Muggeridge: A Life) and Muggeridge's friend, Hesketh Pearson (Nothing to Repent: The Life of Heskerth Pearson).