Overview

The first comprehensive biography of Philadelphia’s Henry C. Lea (1825–1909): historian, publisher, political activist, and reformer Writing in 1868, the Philadelphia publisher-cum-historian Henry Charles Lea informed a friend, “I am trying to collect the materials for a history of the Inquisition.” The collecting of these materials—books, manuscripts, and copies of thousands of pages of documents housed in musty European archives and libraries—would occupy Lea (1825–1909) for the remainder of his life. It also led to publication of A History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages (1884–87) and his acknowledged masterpiece, A History of the Inquisition of Spain (1906–7). Regarded as classics, these path-breaking books inaugurated better understanding of the history of an institution whose aims and methods troubled Lea and remain subjects of heated debate. The first biography of Lea since 1931, The Inquisition’s Inquisitor offers the most comprehensive review to date of his writing on the history of the Catholic Church. Though Lea is generally regarded as a leading practitioner of “scientific” history, Richard L. Kagan examines the extent to which Lea’s religious convictions compromised the ostensibly objective character of his work. Lea’s extensive surviving correspondence also enables Kagan to examine other aspects of Lea’s long and productive career as one of Philadelphia’s most prominent citizens. Lea appears here a young literary critic; a businessman who skillfully transformed his family’s publishing firm into the country’s leading producer of medical books; a dogged political reformer; and a philanthropist whose largesse benefitted many of Philadelphia’s cultural institutions. Newly discovered sources also allow for insights into Lea’s private life, notably his controversial infatuation with his first cousin and future wife, Anna C. Jaudon, and the periodic breakdowns that required abandonment of his beloved “intellectual pursuits.” The Inquisition’s Inquisitor concludes with a survey of Lea’s legacy with respect to current understanding of the Inquisition and to Philadelphia, where reminders of his accomplishments include an eponymous library at the University of Pennsylvania and public elementary school in nearby West Philadelphia.

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9781512825985

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""Richard Kagan brings Henry Charles Lea to life in this deeply researched and beautifully written biography. Skillfully interweaving Lea’s scholarly career as a pathbreaking historian of the Inquisition, his family life and business affairs, and his public interventions as a political reformer in his native Philadelphia, Kagan shows how a figure who did so much to shape our understanding of the medieval world also played a part in the creation of a modern metropolis and nation."" * Andrew Heath, author of In Union There Is Strength: Philadelphia in the Age of Urban Consolidation * ""The Inquisition’s Inquisitor is a groundbreaking study of one of the most important American historians of early modern Spain. We have never possessed an investigation of Henry Charles Lea that delved into how he acquired his methods, found his sources, gauged his audience, and managed to combine multiple careers. Deftly organized, astutely thematic, and beautifully written, Richard Kagan’s book is a revelation. It illuminates for the first time the tensions, quandaries, and ironies that pervaded Lea’s life, while simultaneously demonstrating how historians can have the best inductive intentions yet remain imprisoned by premises they have inherited."" * Lou Ann Homza, author of Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates: Witch Hunting in Navarre, 1609–1614 * ""Richard Kagan has written a riveting biography of Henry Charles Lea, a great American intellectual and an intriguing character. The scholarly hammer of intolerance and of the medieval Inquisition, Lea was also an important publisher and a builder of Philadelphia. What emerges from this exemplary and entertaining account is an inspiring example of ambition for fame expressed not only by accumulating wealth but in pursuing indefatigably the work of the historian."" * Paul Freedman, author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination *

"""Richard Kagan brings Henry Charles Lea to life in this deeply researched and beautifully written biography. Skillfully interweaving Lea’s scholarly career as a pathbreaking historian of the Inquisition, his family life and business affairs, and his public interventions as a political reformer in his native Philadelphia, Kagan shows how a figure who did so much to shape our understanding of the medieval world also played a part in the creation of a modern metropolis and nation."" * Andrew Heath, author of In Union There Is Strength: Philadelphia in the Age of Urban Consolidation * ""The Inquisition’s Inquisitor is a groundbreaking study of one of the most important American historians of early modern Spain. We have never possessed an investigation of Henry Charles Lea that delved into how he acquired his methods, found his sources, gauged his audience, and managed to combine multiple careers. Deftly organized, astutely thematic, and beautifully written, Richard Kagan’s book is a revelation. It illuminates for the first time the tensions, quandaries, and ironies that pervaded Lea’s life, while simultaneously demonstrating how historians can have the best inductive intentions yet remain imprisoned by premises they have inherited."" * Lou Ann Homza, author of Village Infernos and Witches’ Advocates: Witch Hunting in Navarre, 1609–1614 * ""Richard Kagan has written a riveting biography of Henry Charles Lea, a great American intellectual and an intriguing character. The scholarly hammer of intolerance and of the medieval Inquisition, Lea was also an important publisher and a builder of Philadelphia. What emerges from this exemplary and entertaining account is an inspiring example of ambition for fame expressed not only by accumulating wealth but in pursuing indefatigably the work of the historian."" * Paul Freedman, author of Out of the East: Spices and the Medieval Imagination *"

Author Information

Richard L. Kagan is Academy Professor of History and Arthur O. Lovejoy Professor Emeritus of History at Johns Hopkins University.

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