Theodore Maynard manuscript collection

Theodore Maynard was born in India in 1890 to English, Plymouth Brethren missionaries. He was sent to school in England to become a missionary, but converted to Baptist instead. In 1911, he read G.K. Chesterton's book, Orthodoxy, and began a three-year conversion to Catholicism. Maynard's conversion channeled an interest in Catholic history and its message of equality and democracy. He began publishing poetry, essays, and reviews in London's Catholic publications. From 1915 to 1920, he published three collections of poetry, including Laughs and Whifts of Song, as well as a book of essays and a drinking song anthology.

In spring 1920, while lecturing in the United States, Maynard received an offer to teach at Dominican College in San Rafael, California. He accepted the position and used the time to publish more poems and essays, but found himself unhappy on the west coast. In 1925, he moved his family to New York City to immerse himself in Catholic culture and write for Commonweal, an American Catholic journal. Maynard was disappointed by his New York experience, but he earned a bachelor's degree and began work on a master's degree to qualify for tenured teaching positions. In 1927, he accepted an English department chair position at Georgetown University where he submitted De Soto and the Conquistadores as his master's thesis.

When Georgetown did not renew his contract in 1934, Maynard supported his growing family by writing biographies of famous Catholics in history. The Odyssey of Francis Xavier was published in 1936 to great reviews, but the birth of a severely disabled child combined with poor reviews of his most recent book of poetry, Man and Beast, led to a nervous breakdown followed by tuberculosis and a three-year stay in a hospital near Baltimore, Maryland. While hospitalized, Maynard wrote his autobiography, The World I Saw (1938), chronicling his conversion to Catholicism and unhappy life in America. Following his release from the hospital, Maynard published a series of books about English Reformation figures and American Catholic history, including his best known work The Story of American Catholicism (1941). He would go on to publish another twenty books before his death on October 18, 1956.

Historical information adapted from https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=8399 (accessed June 2019)