[5] In the January 1864 issue of Macmillan's Magazine, Charles Kingsley, in a review of James Anthony Froude's History of England, remarked: "Truth, for its own sake, had never been a virtue with the Roman clergy.

Newman received a copy of the issue on 30 December 1863; not knowing who had written the review, he wrote to the publisher noting that the accusation had not been substantiated by any evidence.

[10] On 20 February, Richard Holt Hutton, editor of The Spectator, published a review of the pamphlet and summary of the controversy, concluding that Newman was in the right, though had perhaps been too harsh.

[16][13] Newman originally planned to deliver his response as a series of lectures, but decided that such a format would not be suitable for the personal history he intended.

[16] A complete book would also be unsuitable both because the length would deter readers and because by the time it was published, the controversy would have cooled and interest would have waned.

He frequently rewrote sections to shorten them, and spent long hours writing, quipping that "[his] fingers have been walking nearly 20 miles a day".

[18] He found it stressful to be under a weekly deadline, needing to both write and proofread, and joked that "the proof almost got ahead of the manuscript, if that can be".

[27] They do not form an autobiography in the usual sense, dealing little with his personal or spiritual life, but are rather, as he called it, a history of his opinions.

[28] The third part deals with his early life, including the formation of his religious opinions and his desire to reform the Anglican Church to prevent it from falling into apostasy.

It ends with John Keble's sermon "National Apostasy", given 14 July 1833, which Newman regarded as the beginning of the Oxford Movement.

It details the growth of the Oxford Movement and Newman's development of the Via Media theory in his books Prophetical Office and Lectures on Justification.

[34] He also gives his opinions on the infallibility of the Church and its relationship with theology, indirectly speaking against more extreme Catholic views.

[41][42] Newman included these and similar letters from other groups of priests and academics in an appendix of the revised edition of the Apologia.

[48] Some Catholics took issue with his positive portrayal of the Anglican Church, and scholastic theologians objected to his language about probability and certainty.

[49] Kingsley had gone to France at his wife's insistence after publishing his pamphlet and was unaware of Newman's response until shortly before he returned home.

[54] Newman made other minor changes and corrections to the text at various points after the 1865 edition, and expanded the preface and notes.

[55][56] The title was changed back to Apologia Pro Vita Sua in 1873, but with the subtitle "Being a History of his Religious Opinions".