Black Lamb

A Week in Literary History

May 29th, 2002

Prolific English author G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesteron (The Innocence of Father Brown, 1911) in born in Kensington, 1874.

G.K. Chesterton, b. May 29, 1874, d. 1936

Gilbert Keith Chesterton, one of the most famous and beloved men in England for the last three decades of his life, called himself a journalist because he published most of his work in newspapers, among them his own creation, G.K.’s Weekly, which he started in 1918. His taste for paradox and symbol combined naturally with his devout Roman Catholicism in all his works, however secular the subject. He was almost absurdly prolific, but his fertile mind and humor gave value to everything he wrote. His novels are charming and ingenious, his infrequent verse excellent, and his biographical studies constantly illuminating. For his voluminous other writings, he is most rewardingly approached through anthologies.

Suggested Reading Novels The Napoleon of Notting Hill, 1904. The Man Who Was Thursday, 1908. Manalive, 1912. The Flying Inn, 1914. Father Brown Stories The Innocence of Father Brown, 1911. The Wisdom of Father Brown, 1914. The Incredulity of Father Brown, 1926. The Secret of Father Brown, 1927. The Scandal of Father Brown, 1935. Essays & Studies Heretics, 1905. All Things Considered, 1908. Orthodoxy, 1908. What’s Wrong with the World, 1910. The Superstitions of the Skeptic, 1925. Generally Speaking, 1928. Come to Think of It, 1930. Avowals and Denials, 1934. Critical Biography Robert Browning, 1903. Charles Dickens, 1906. George Bernard Shaw, 1909. William Blake, 1910. Saint Francis of Assisi, 1923. Robert Louis Stevenson, 1927. Chaucer, 1932. St. Thomas Aquinas, 1933.

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Category: Books and Authors, A Week in Literary History | Link to this Entry