*Gilbert Keith Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton

HOME

Table of Content “united architects poetry”

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936)

Prolific English critic and author of verse, essays, novels, and short stories. Along with George Bernard Shaw, Hilaire Belloc and H.G. Wells, Chesterton was one the great Edwardian men of letters. Between 1900 and 1936 he published some one hundred books. Chesterton also gained fame for his series about the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared in 50 stories

“The vast mass of humanity, with their vast mass of idle books and idle words, have never doubted and never will doubt that courage is splendid, that fidelity is noble, that distressed ladies should be rescued, and vanquished enemies spared. There are a large number of cultivated persons who doubt these maxims of daily life, just there are a large number of persons who believe they are the Prince of Wales; and I am told that both classes of people are entertaining conversationalists.” (from ‘A Defense of Penny Dreadfuls’, 1901)

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London into a middle-class family. Edward, his father, whom Chesterton described as “serene, humorous and full of hobbies”, was a member of the well-known Kensington auctioneer and estate agents business of Chesterton. Marie-Louise, his mother, was of Franco-Scottish ancestry. Chesterton did not learn to read until he was over eight, but later he could quote whole passages of books from memory. One of his teachers told him, “If we opened your head, we should not find brain but only a lump of white fat.” Chesterton studied at University College and the Slade School of Art (1893-96). At the age of sixteen he started a magazine called The Debater.

Around 1893 Chesterton had gone through a crisis of skepticism and depression. During this period he experimented with the Ouija board and grew fascinated with diabolism. In 1895 Chesterton left University College without a degree and worked for the London publisher Redway, and T. Fisher Unwin (1896-1902). Much of his early writings were first published in such publications as The Speaker, Daily News, Illustrated London News, Eye Witness, New Witness, and in his own G.K.’s Weekly. Chesterton renewed his Christian faith; also the courtship of his future wife, Frances Blogg, whom he married in 1901, pulled him out of the crisis.

GREYBEARDS AT PLAY, Chesterton’s first collection of poems, appeared in 1900. ROBERT BROWNING (1903) and CHARLES DICKENS (1906) were literary biographies, THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL (1904) was Chesterton’s first novel, a political fantasy, and in THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY (1908) Chesterton depicted fin-de-siècle decadence. The protagonist, Syme, is a poet turned an employee of Scotland Yard, who reveals a vast conspiracy against civilization. The members of the secret anarchist gang are named for days of the week. Sunday is the most mysterious character who tells that since “the beginning of the world, all men have hunted me like a wolf – kings and sages, and poets and law-givers, all the churches, and all the philosophers. But I have never been caught yet.” Sunday, the president of the Central Anarchist Coucil gives a simple advice about disguise: “You want a safe disguise, do you? You want a dress which will guarantee you harmless, a dress in which no one would ever look for a bomb? Why then, dress up as an anarchist, you fool! Nobody will ever expect you to do anything dangerous then.” Perhaps Chesterton had in mind the ‘Bloody Sunday’ of 22 January 1905, when the priest and double-agent Gapon, led the crowds to the Winter Palace in St. Petersburgh. A stage adaptation of the story by Mrs Cecil Chesterton and Ralph Neale was produced in 1926.

In 1909 Chesterton moved with his wife to Beaconsfield, a village twenty-five miles west of London, and continued to write, lecture, and travel energetically. Between 1913 and 1914 Chesterton was regular contributor for the Daily Herald. In 1914 he suffered a physical and nervous breakdown. After World War I Chesterton became leader of the Distributist movement and later the President of the Distributist League, promoting the idea that private property should be divided into smallest possible freeholds and then distributed throughout society. In his writings Chesterton also expressed his distrust of world government and evolutionary progress. During the Boer War he took a pro-Boer standpoint. He was very popular radio lecturer, engaging in a series of debates with George Bernard Shaw. His younger brother, Cecil, died in 1918 and Chesterton edited his brother’s the New Witness and his own G.K.’s Weekly.

“Observed Chesterton on seeing for the first time the sparkling bright light of Broadway: “How beautiful it would be for someone who could not read.” (from The Wordsworth Book of Literary Anecdotes by Robert Hendrickson, 1990)

In 1922 Chesterton was converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, and thereafter he wrote several theologically oriented works, including lives of Francis of Assisi and Thomas Aquinas. “Existence is still a strange thing to me; and as a stranger, I gave it welcome”, he wrote in AUTOBIOGRAPHY (1936). Chesterton received honorary degrees from Edinburgh, Dublin, and Notre Dame universities. In 1934 he was made Knight Commander with Star, Order of St. Gregory the Great. Chesterton died on June 14, 1936, at his home in Beaconsfield. His coffin, too big to be carried down the staircase, had to be lowered from the window to the ground. Dorothy Collins, Chesterton’s secretary, managed his literary estate until her death in 1988.

Father Brown debuted in ‘The Blue Cross’ in the Storyteller (1910). To wider public the character became first known from Chesterton’s book THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN (1911), a collection of twelve cases. The rest of the stories appeared in THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN (1914), THE INCREDULITY OF FATHER BROWN (1926), THE SECRET OF FATHER BEORN (1927), and THE SCANDAL OF FATHER BROWN (1935). In Autobiography Chesterton explained the passive character of his creation: “His commonplace exterior was meant to contrast with his unsuspected vigilance and intelligence; and that being so, of course I made his appearance shabby and shapeless, his face round and expressionless, his manners clumsy, and so on.” The critic and awarded mystery writer H.R.F. Keating included The Innocence of Father Brown among the 100 best crime and mystery books ever published (Crime & Mystery: the 100 Best Books, 1987). Before creating father Brown he had hailed in ‘Defence of Detective Stories’ this somewhat scorned genre of tales as “the earliest and only form of popular literature in which is expressed some sense of the poetry of modern life.” Father Broen is gentle, quiet cleric, with ever-furled umbrella and round face, whose mission is to identify the culprit so that he/she might repent and save his/her soul. Among his opponents is the French jewel thief Flambeau, who reforms and becomes a London private investigator, and helps occasionally Father Brown. “Has it never struck you,” Brown explains to Flambeau in ‘The Blue Cross’, “that a man who does next to nothing but hear men’s real sins is not likely to be wholly unaware of human evil?” Father Brown was based on father John O’Connor (later Monsignor), Chesterton’s friend, who in 1922 received the author into the Roman Catholic Church. John Dickson Carr used Chesterton as the model for his detective Dr. Gideon Fell.

In his verse Chesterton was a master of ballad form, as shown in his “Lepanto”, published in 1911. His other works include plays, historical studies, essays, and biographies of such authors as Robert Louis Stevenson, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, Tennyson, Thackeray, George Bernard Shaw, and William Blake. Chesterton’s subjects were very varied: the biography of Chaucer (1932) celebrated the Middle Ages, THE THING (1929), a collection of essays examined his own conversion to Roman Catholicism, TAKES OF THE LONG BOW (1925) propounded his social and political views.

For further reading: Mystery & Suspense Writers, ed. by Robin W. Winks (1998, vol. 1); G.K. Chesterton: A Half Century of Views, ed. by D.J. Conlon (1987); G.K. Chesterton by Michael F. Finch (1986); Chesterton and the Edwardian Cultural Crisis by John Coates (1984); A Chesterton Celebration by R.W. Rauch (1983); The Outline of Sanity by A.S. Dale (1982); Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc by Jay P. Corrin (1981); G.K. Chesterton: Explorations in Allegory by Lynette Hunter (1979); G.K. Chesterton by Margaret Canovan (1977); G.K. Chesterton, ed. by D.J. Conlon (1976); The Novels of G.K. Chesterton by Ian Boyd (1975); G.K. Chesterton: A Centenary Appraisal, ed. by John Sullivan (1974); G.K. Chesterton by Lawrence Clipper (1974); The Chesterton Review, publ. by the G.K. Chesterton Society (1974-); G.K. Chesterton by Dudley Barker (1973); The Mind of Chesterton by C. Hollis (1970); Chesterton: Man and Mask by Garry Wills (1961); G.K. Chesterton: A Bibliography by J. Sullivan (1958); Return to Chesterton by Maisie Ward (1952); Paradox in Chesterton by Hugh Kenner (1947); Gilbert Keith Chesterton by Maisie Ward (1944); The Place of Gilbert Chesterton in English Letters by Hilaire Belloc (1940); Chesterton and the Victorian Age by A.M.A. Bogaerts (1940); Chesterton as Seen by His Contemporaries by Cyril Clemens (1939); G.K. Chesterton by M. Evans (1939); G.K. Chesterton by W.R. Titterton (1936) – Father Brown films: Father Brown, Detective, dir. by Edward Sedgewick, starring Walter Connolly (1934); Father Brown, dir. by Robert Hamer, starring Alec Guinness (1954); Das schwarze Schaf, dir. by Helmut Ashley, starring Heinz Rühmann (1960), Er kann’s nicht lassen, dir. by Axel von Ambesser , starring again Heinz Rühmann, who has also played in television films Inspector Maigret (1962); Sanctuary of Fear, dir. by John Llewellyn Moxey, starring Bernard Hughes (1979). In 1973 Kenneth More portrayed Father Brown in a series of teleplays. – Suom.: Chestertonilta on myös julkaistu mm. kokoelmat Jumalan vasara ja muita kertomuksia Isä Brownista (1988) sekä Lentävä tikari ja muita kertomuksia Isä Brownista (1994).

Selected writings:

GREYBEARDS AT PLAY, 1900
THE WILD KNIGHT AND OTHER POEMS, 1900
THE DEFENDANT, 1901
DEFENCE OF DETECTIVE STORY, 1901
TWELVE TYPES, 1902
THOMAS CARLYLE, 1902 (with J.E.H. Williams)
ROBERT BROWNING, 1903
LEO TOLSTOY, 1903 (with others)
TENNYSON, 1903 (with R. Garnett)
THACKERAY, 1903 (with L. Melville)
G.F. WATTS, 1904
THE NAPOLEON OF NOTTING HILL, 1904
THE CLUB OF QUEER TRADES, 1905
HERETICS, 1905
CHARLES DICKENS, 1906
THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY, 1908 – Mies joka oli Torstaina (suom. Risto Raitio)
ORTHODOXY, 1908
ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, 1908
VARIED TYPES, 1908
TREMENDOUS TRIFLES, 1909
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, 1909
A DEFENCE OF NONSENSE, 1909
THE BALL AND THE CROSS, 1910
WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD, 1910
WILLIAM BLAKE, 1910
ALARMS AND DISCUSSIONS, 1910
THE BALLAD OF THE WHITE HORSE, 1911
THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN, 1911 – Isä Brownin yksinkertaisuus (suom. Eino Palola) / Sininen risti ja muita kertomuksia Isä Brownista (suom. Lea Kukkola ja Timo Kukkola)
APPRECIATIONS AND CRITICISMS OF THE WORKS OF CHARLES DICKENS, 1911
MANALIVE, 1912
A MISCELLANY OF MEN, 1912
MAGIC, 1913
THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE, 1913
THE FLYING INN, 1914
THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN, 1914 – Isä Brownin viisaus (suom. Eino Palola)
LONDON, 1914
THE APPETITE OF TYRANNY, 1915
THE CRIMES OF ENGLAND, 1915
POEMS, 1915
WINE, WATER, AND DONG, 1915
DIVORCE VERSUS DEMOCRACY, 1916
A SHILLING FOR MY THOUGHTS, 1916
TEMPERANCE AND THE GREAT ALLIANCE, 1916
A SHORT HISTORY OF ENGLAND, 1917
UTOPIA OF USURERS, 1917
LORD KITCHENER, 1917
IRISH IMPRESSIONS, 1919
THE NEW JERUSALEM, 1920
THE SUPERSTITION OF DIVORCE, 1920
THE USES OF DIVERSITY, 1920
THE MAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH AND OTHER STORIES, 1922
EUGENICS AND OTHER EVILS, 1922
WHAT I SAW IN AMERICA? 1922 – Mitä on Amerikka? (suom. Salla Rissanen)
THE BALLAD OF ST. BARBARA, 1922
FANCIES VERSUS FADS, 1923
THE END OF THE ROMAN ROAD, 1924
THE EXCLUSIVE LUXURY OF ENOCH OATES, 1925
WILLIAM COBBETT, 1925
TALES OF THE LONG BOW, 1925
THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE SCEPTIC, 1925
THE INCREDULITY OF FATHER BROWN, 1926 – Isä Brownin vähäuskoisuus (suom. Lea ja Timo Kukkola)
COLLECTED WORKS, 1926 (9 vols.)
COLLECTED POEMS, 1926
THE RETURN OF DON QUIXOTE, 1926
THE OUTLINE OF SANITY, 1926
THE QUEEN OF SEVEN SWORDS, 1926
CULTURE AND THE COMING PERIL, 1927
SOCIAL REFORM AND BIRTH CONTROL, 1927
THE JUDGEMENT OF DR. JOHNSON, 1927
GLORIA IN PROFUNDIS, 1927
THE SECRET OF FATHER BROWN, 1927 – Isä Brownin salaisuus (suom. Aarre Lehto)
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, 1927
THE POET AND THE LUNATICS, 1927
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CONVERSION, 1927
THE SWORD OF WOOD, 1928
DO WE AGREE?, 1928
THE THING, 1929
GENERALLY SPEAKING, 1929
THE MODERATE MURDERER, AND THE HONEST QUACK, 1929
NEW AND COLLECTED POEMS, 1929
UBI ECCLESIA, 1929
THE FATHER BROWN STORIES, 1929
THE ECSTATIC THIEF, 1930
FOUR FAULTLESS FELONS, 1930
COME TO THINK OF IT, 1930
THE GRAVE OF ARTHUR, 1930
THE TURKEY AND THE TURK, 1930
THE RESURRECTION OF ROME, 1930
THE FLOATING ADMIRAL, 1931
ALL IS GRIST, 1931
CHRISTENDOM IN DUBLIN, 1932
NEW POEMS, 1932
SIDELIGHTS ON NEW LONDON AND NEW YORK, 1933
ALL I SURVEY, 1933
COLLECTED POEMS, 1933
ST. THOMAS AQUINAS, 1933
AVOWALS AND DENIALS, 1934
THE WELL AND THE SHALLOWS, 1935
THE SCANDAL OF FATHER BROWN, 1935
THE PARADOXES OF MR. POND, 1936
AUTOBIOGRAPHY, 1936
AS I WAS SAYING, 1936
A G.K. CHESTERTON OMNIBUS, 1936
THE COLOURED LANDS, 1938
END OF ARMISTICE, 1940
THE VAMPIRE OF THE VILLAGE, 1947
THE FATHER BROWN OMNIBUS, 1951
DAYLIGHT AND NIGHTMARE, 1986
THIRTEEN DETECTIVES, 1987
THE BEST OF FATHER BROWN, 1987
THE ANNOTATED INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN, 1989