Flanders) Vonne van der Meer – converted in the 1990s; married to Willem Jan Otten Henri Nouwen Willem Jan Otten – converted in the 1990s, a few years after his wife Vonne van der Meer Gerard Reve Godfried Bomans Joost van den Vondel – dramatist and poet of the Dutch Golden Age; converted to Catholicism from a Mennonite background around 1641; his masterpieces are his dramas on religious and biblical themes, e.g., Lucifer, Noah and his short poems English language As the anti-Catholic laws were lifted in the mid-19th century, there was a revival of Catholicism in the British Empire. There has long been a distinct Catholic strain in English literature. The most notable figures are Cardinal Newman, a convert, one of the leading prose writers of his time and also a substantial poet, and the priest-poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, also a convert, although most of the latter's works were only published many years after his death. In the early 20th century, G. K. Chesterton, a convert, and Hilaire Belloc, a French-born Catholic who became a British subject, promoted Roman Catholic views in direct apologetics as well as in popular, lighter genres, such as Chesterton's "Father Brown" detective stories. From the 1930s on the "Catholic novel" became a force impossible to ignore, with leading novelists of the day, Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene, converts both, dealing with distinctively Catholic themes in their work. Although James Hanley was not a practising Catholic, a number of his novels emphasise Catholic beliefs and values, including The Furys Chronicle. In America, Flannery O'Connor wrote powerful short stories with a Catholic sensibility and focus, set in the American South where she was decidedly in the religious minority. A–C Lord Acton – 19th-century English historian from a Catholic Recusant family; disagreed with ultramontanism and had Old Catholic Church sympathies, but never left the church; known for the aphorism that "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" John L. Allen Jr. – American journalist who has written on Opus Dei and Pope Benedict XVI Elizabeth Anscombe – English philosopher Kenneth Owen Arvidson (1938–2011) – New Zealander poet Maurice Baring – English man of letters, convert, friend of Belloc and Chesterton James K Baxter (1926–1972) – New Zealander poet, dramatist, literary critic and social commentator; a convert to Catholicism Hilaire Belloc – strongly held, orthodox Catholic views; wrote apologetics, famous comic verse, historical, political and economic