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G. K. Chesterton

G(ilbert) K(eith) Chesterton (1874-1936) was a good-natured and rotund Englishman, critic, essayist, and novelist. His primary interests included journalism, biography, theology and prose. He was a noted wit and even his serious work includes unexpected quips. Chesterton began his career as a Liberal and defended his position in What's Wrong With the World (1910) and Twelve Types (1902).

He converted to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism and many of his later critical works reflected this choice, including The Catholic Church and Conversion (1926). Heretics (1905) and Orthodoxy (1909) predate his conversion but staunchly support the Catholic Church. With his conversion came an interest in Conservative politics.

Chesterton also wrote many critical biographies, including Robert Browning (1902), Charles Dickens (1906), and George Bernard Shaw (1909) among others.

Lepanto (1911), a poem, and the essays On Running After One's Hat (1908) and A Defense of Nonsense (1901) are the best examples of his humor. His fiction is still widely read especially The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), a romance set in a futuristic civil war, The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), an allegorical detective tale, The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922), a classic whodunit, and the The Club of Queer Trades (1905).

Alfred Hitchock made two movies based on The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934, 1956).

We meet Father Brown, a Roman Catholic priest-sleuth in The Innocence of Father Brown (1911). Father Brown continues his adventures in four more novels.

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Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29 1874 - June 14 1936), English writer.

Born in Campden Hill, Kensington, London, Chesterton was educated at St. Paul's, and later went to Art School to become an illustrator. In 1900, Chesterton was asked to write a few magazine articles on art criticism, which sparked his interest in writing. He went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. Chesterton's writings displayed a wit and sense of humor that is unusual even today, while often time making extremely serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology, or a hundred other topics.

Chesterton wrote 100 books, several hundred poems, 200 short stories, 4000 essays and a few plays. He was a columnist for the Daily News, Illustrated London News and his own paper, G.K's Weekly. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularized through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic Christian theologian, debater and mystery writer. His most well-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, although The Man Who Was Thursday, arguably his most well-known novel, does not concern Father Brown at all.

Chesterton was a large man, standing 6 feet 4 inches and weighing in at around 300 pounds. Chesterton had a unique look, usually wearing a cape and a crumpled hat, with a swordstick in hand, and usually a cigar hanging out of his mouth. Chesterton rarely remembered where he was supposed to be going and would even miss the train that was supposed to take him there. It was not uncommon for Chesterton to phone his wife, Frances Blogg, whom he married in 1901, from some distant (and incorrect) location to ask her where he was supposed to be going.

Chesterton loved to debate, often publicly debating friends like George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, Bertrand Russell, and Clarence Darrow. Chesterton was usually considered the winner.

He is buried in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, in the Roman Catholic Cemetary.