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  • Published: 15 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9781841593371
  • Imprint: Everyman
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 952
  • RRP: $39.99

The Everyman Chesterton



The time for a revival of interest in the work of G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936), a towering figure in literary world of the early twentieth century, is long overdue. Novelist, journalist, short-story writer, essayist, biographer, critic, poet and Catholic apologist, his was a many-faceted talent as this generous selection made for Everyman by his biographer Ian Ker bears witness.

Included here are some of the well-loved Father Brown detective stories, surely among the best in the genre, and a range of poetry, serious and light-hearted – Chesterton wrote some of the best nonsense and satirical verse in the language. The main bias of the selection, however, will be towards his non-fictional prose, where, Dr Ker argues, his real greatness lies. In that sense he is the successor of the great Victorian ‘Sages’, Carlyle, Arnold, Ruskin and Newman. Selections will be made from his studies of Victorian literature (particularly his classic essays on Dickens, originally published by Everyman), his critical biographies of St Francis of Assisi, St Thomas Aquinas and William Cobbett; his apologetic classics Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man, his journalistic essays (a form in which he excelled) and from his best political and social criticism, with particular emphasis on his championing of the common man and the masses against virtually all the intellectuals of his day. Edited and introduced by an expert in the field, this substantial volume promises to bring its author back into prominence with a thorough intellectual and literary reassessment of his achievements

  • Published: 15 April 2011
  • ISBN: 9781841593371
  • Imprint: Everyman
  • Format: Hardback
  • Pages: 952
  • RRP: $39.99

About the author

G K Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) studied art at Slade School and literature at University College London before ending his studies early without qualifications. From 1900 he worked his way to become a freelance art and literary critic then a regular columnist and later a prolific writer (he has many essays, poems, short stories, novels and plays to his name).

Forty eight of the Father Brown short stories first appeared in various, now unknown, magazines and were later collected into five books: The Innocence of Father Brown, published in 1911; The Wisdom of Father Brown, published in 1914; The Incredulity of Father Brown, published in 1926; The Secrets of Father Brown, published in 1927; and The Scandal of Father Brown, published in 1935.

This edition also includes 'The Doddington Affair', the first half of which was published in Premier Magazines in 1914 with the challenge to G. K. Chesterton to finish and solve the mystery. He did so in the following issue. 'The Vampire of the Village', which also appears in this edition under The Scandal of Father Brown, was first published in 1936.

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