G.K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was a man of many talents - short story writer, novelist, poet, essayist, biographer, philosopher, art critic, literary critic, Christian apologist, journalist, and editor. He is best known now for his 53 detective stories featuring Father Brown, a Catholic priest who uses Church-trained logic and a keen understanding of human behavior to solve mysteries. Chesterton had famous friendships, rivalries, and feuds with fellow writers in a Golden Age of English literature. The names alone summon a time and place: Kipling, Shaw, Wilde, Doyle, Belloc, and many others - Chesterton was in the thick of it all.
The Father Brown stories are the best place to begin with Chesterton, but the casual essays are witty and sly and fun, graced with paradox and a conversational style. Enjoy!
In Defense Of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton
In Defense Of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton
G.K. Chesterton was a master essayist. But reading his essays is not just an exercise in studying a literary form at its finest, it is an encounter with timeless truths that jump off the page as fresh and powerful as the day they were written.
The only problem with Chesterton's essays is that there are too many of them. Over five thousand! For most GKC readers it is not even possible to know where to start or how to begin to approach them.
So three of the world's leading authorities on Chesterton - Dale Ahlquist, Joseph Pearce, Aidan Mackey - have joined together to select the "best" Chesterton essays, a collection that will be appreciated by both the newcomer and the seasoned student of this great 20th century man of letters.
The variety of topics are astounding: barbarians, architects, mystics, ghosts, fireworks, rain, juries, gargoyles and much more. Plus a look at Shakespeare, Dickens, Jane Austen, George MacDonald, T.S. Eliot, and the Bible. All in that inimitable, formidable but always quotable style of GKC. Even more astounding than the variety is the continuity of Chesterton's thought that ties everything together. A veritable feast for the mind and heart.
While some of the essays in this volume may be familiar, many of them are collected here for the first time, making their first appearance in over a century.