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!
The Napoleon of Notting Hill
The Napoleon of Notting Hill
A comical futurist fantasy, first published in 1904, about a tradition-loving suburban London community of the 1980s at war with its modernizing neighbors. Chesterton's splendid storytelling gifts and his sympathies for the plight of small nations trying to remain independent are strongly in evidence. 7 illustrations by W. Graham Robertson. New Introduction by Martin Gardner.
Reprint of the John Lane: The Bodley Head, London, 1904 edition.