G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.

All Things Considered

G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. As an author he created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and produced several notable works on apologetics including Oethodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). He routinely referred to himself as an 'orthodox' Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicisim, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. He was born in Kensington, educated at St Paul's School, and later attended the Slade School of Art, a department of University College London, to become an illustrator. He also took classes in literature at UCL but did not complete a degree in either subject. His first positions were within publishing houses, during which time he also became a freelance art and literary critic, and in 1902 the Daily News gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in the London Illustrated News for which he continued to write for the next 30 years. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg who played a large role in his career as amanuensis and personal manager. Throughout the course of his career Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays, and several plays. His writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour, and he would often employ paradox while making serious comments on the world, politics, economics, philosophy, theology, and many other topics. All Things Considered (1908) is a collection of 34 essays, the first of several books comprised of essays that had previously appeared as columns in the Illustrated London News. The contents of this collection are quintessential Chesterton, covering subjects from poetry to patriotism, anonymity to impartiality, from demagogues to mystagogues, from science to religion, from phonetic spelling to running after one's hat.

Contos do Padre Brown

G.K. Chesterton

O padre Brown é a personagem criada pelo romancista e ensaísta britânico G. K. Chesterton (que protagoniza 52 contos policiais, depois compilados em seis volumes). Chesterton baseou a personagem no padre John O’Connor (1870-1952), pároco de Bradford. "Contos do Padre Brown" constitui uma seleção de 6 histórias de crimes bizarros desvendados por este sacerdote do Essex, mas colocado em Londres, baixo, sempre de batina, com um grande chapéu-de-chuva e uma desconcertante perspicácia.

Els arbres de l'orgull

G.K. Chesterton

Uns arbres exòtics portats de l’Àfrica creixen a la punta de Cornualla, dins les terres de la família Vane. El seu aspecte fantasmagòric atemoreix els habitants de la regió, alhora que uns misteriosos personatges es reuneixen a casa de la família. Tot està a punt perquè es desencadeni el que no se sap si és un relat policíac, una història fantàstica, una disquisició filosòfica o totes tres coses alhora. Amb el seu estil inconfusible, Chesterton mescla una història de detectius amb una dicotomia moral de primer ordre, una guerra a tres bandes entre superstició, ciència i sentit comú, i ho fa de forma enginyosa, sincera i divertida. Perquè tal com deia el gegant anglès, una ensenyança ha de ser entretinguda per poder ensenyar alguna cosa. Gilbert Keith Chesterton va néixer a Londres el 1874. De jove va estudiar art i es va interessar per l’ocultisme, però ben aviat començà a exercir de periodista i a destacar com a escriptor. Polemista infatigable, va escriure uns dos-cents relats breus i novel·les com L’home que fou dijous o El Napoleó de Nothing Hill, a més de nombrosos assaigs i treballs filosòfics i teològics on es va distingir com a defensor del catolicisme a Anglaterra. Va morir el 1936 a Beaconsfield d’una insuficiència cardíaca. «Chesterton va resumir molt bé el paper de la fantasia. Deia que el seu objectiu era agafar el dia a dia, elevar-lo i donar-li la volta i mostrar-lo des d'una perspectiva diferent, de tal manera que tornem a veure'l per primer cop i ens adonem de com n'és, de meravellós.» Terry Pratchett

Eugenics and Other Evils : An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State

G.K. Chesterton

In the second decade of the twentieth century, an idea became all too fashionable among those who feel it is their right to set social trends. Wealthy families took it on as a pet cause, generously bankrolling its research. The New York Times praised it as a wonderful "new science." Scientists, such as the brilliant plant biologist, Luther Burbank, praised it unashamedly. Educators as prominent as Charles Elliot, President of Harvard University, promoted it as a solution to social ills. America's public schools did their part. In the 1920s, almost three-fourths of high school social science textbooks taught its principles. Not to be outdone, judges and physicians called for those principles to be enshrined into law. Congress agree, passing the 1924 immigration law to exclude from American shores the people of Eastern and Southern Europe that the idea branded as inferior. In 1927, the U. S. Supreme Court joined the chorus, ruling by a lopsided vote of 8 to 1 that the sterilization of unwilling men and women was constitutional. That idea was eugenics and in the English-speaking world it had virtually no critics among the "chattering classes." When he wrote this book, Chesterton stood virtually alone against the intellectual world of his day. Yet to his eternal credit, he showed no sign of being intimidated by the prestige of his foes. On the contrary, he thunders against eugenics, ranking it one of the great evils of modern society. And, in perhaps one of the most chillingly accurate prophecies of the century, he warns that the ideas that eugenics had unleashed were likely to bear bitter fruit in another nation. That nation was Germany, the "very land of scientific culture from which the ideal of a Superman had come." In fact, the very group that Nazism tried to exterminate, Eastern European Jews, and the group it targeted for later extermination, the Slavs, were two of those whose biological unfitness eugenists sought so eagerly to confirm.

Father Brown: Selected Stories

G.K. Chesterton

Librarian note: An alternative cover for this ISBN can be found here. Father Brown, one of the most quirkily genial and lovable characters to emerge from English detective fiction, first made his appearance in The Innocence of Father Brown in 1911. That first collection of stories established G K Chesterton's kindly cleric in the front rank of eccentric sleuths. This collection contains all the favourite Father Brown stories. They represent the quiet wit and compassion which is so different from his moody and caustic predecessor, Sherlock Holmes. Father Brown solves his mysteries by a mixture of intuition and sympathetic worldliness in a totally believable manner.

Father Brown: The Complete Collection (Father Brown, #1-5)

G.K. Chesterton

Shabby and lumbering, with a face like a Norfolk dumpling, Father Brown makes for an improbable super-sleuth. But his innocence is the secret of his success: refusing the scientific method of detection, he adopts instead an approach of simple sympathy, interpreting each crime as a work of art, and each criminal as a man no worse than himself... Here you will find the complete Father Brown collection of 53 murder mystery stories in the chronological order of their original publication.- The Innocence of Father Brown- The Wisdom of Father Brown- The Donnington Affair- The Incredulity of Father Brown- The Secret of Father Brown- The Scandal of Father Brown- The Mask of Midas

Father Brown: The Essential Tales

G.K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown may seem a pleasantly doddering Roman Catholic priest, but appearances deceive. With keen observation and an unerring sense of man’s frailties–gained during his years listening to confessions–Father Brown succeeds in bringing even the most elusive criminals to justice. This definitive collection of fifteen stories, selected by the American Chesterton Society, includes such classics as “The Blue Cross,” “The Secret Garden,” and “The Paradise of Thieves.” As P. D. James writes in her Introduction, “We read the Father Brown stories for a variety pleasures, including their ingenuity, their wit and intelligence, and for the brilliance of the writing. But they provide more. Chesterton was concerned with the greatest of all problems, the vagaries of the human heart.”

G.K. Chesterton: Essential Writings

G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), was one of the great Catholic writers of the twentieth century. He brought a distinctive Catholic perspective to scores of books and articles--even to the genre of detective novels in the famous Father Brown mysteries. As this collection shows, Chestertons writing contains a spiritual dimension. In his ability to combine matters of great seriousness with great humor the contours of his distinctive and ""paradoxical"" spirituality emerge.

Heretics

G.K. Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton, the "Prince of Paradox," is at his witty best in this collection of twenty essays and articles from the turn of the twentieth century. Focusing on "heretics" — those who pride themselves on their superiority to Christian views — Chesterton appraises prominent figures who fall into that category from the literary and art worlds. Luminaries such as Rudyard Kipling, George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and James McNeill Whistler come under the author's scrutiny, where they meet with equal measures of his characteristic wisdom and good humor.In addition to incisive assessments of well-known individuals ("Mr. Rudyard Kipling and Making the World Small" and "Mr. H. G. Wells and the Giants"), these essays contain observations on the wider world. "On Sandals and Simplicity," "Science and the Savages," "On Certain Modern Writers and the Institution of the Family," "On Smart Novelists and the Smart Set," and "Slum Novelists and the Slums" reflect the main themes of Chesterton's life's work. Heretics roused the ire of some critics for censuring contemporary philosophies without providing alternatives; the author responded a few years later with a companion volume, Orthodoxy. Sardonic, jolly, and generous, both books are vintage Chesterton. He is criticizing those who hold incomplete and inadequate views about "life, the universe, and everything." He is, in short, criticizing all that host of non-Christian views of reality, as he demonstrated in his follow-up book Orthodoxy. The book is both an easy read and a difficult read. But he manages to demonstrate, among other things, that our new 21st century heresies are really not new because he himself deals with most of them.

Il club dei mestieri stravaganti

G.K. Chesterton

Il club dei mestieri stravaganti è la prima raccolta di racconti di Chesterton, scritta nel 1905, quando lo scrittore, allora trentaduenne, era ancora incerto sul suo futuro artistico, diviso tra la carriera di illustratore e quella di scrittore, e molto lontano dai travagli interiori che lo avrebbero portato, nel 1922, alla conversione al cattolicesimo. Nelle sei storie che lo compongono, Chesterton tentò per la prima volta la strada del "giallo filosofico", il genere letterario per cui ancora oggi è amato, come dimostra il successo senza tempo di Padre Brown. Qui il protagonista è Basil Grant, un detective improbabile, un ex giudice sornione e vagamente mistico, allontanato dalla carica per manifesta follia e segregatosi felicemente in una soffitta che non abbandona quasi mai. Insieme a lui opera il fratello Rupert, il suo contraltare, una sorta di parodia di Sherlock Holmes e del suo famigerato metodo deduttivo. Sullo sfondo di ogni vicenda c'è il club "fuori dagli schemi" in cui ciascun membro è tenuto, bizzarramente, a guadagnarsi da vivere attraverso attività inedite, mai praticate da nessuno in precedenza. E, più oltre, c'è Londra, descritta, a giudizio di molti critici, come poche altre volte nella storia della letteratura, un reticolo sordido di strette vie e angoli bui che lo scrittore amava profondamente. Chesterton costruisce in queste pagine alcune delle storie meglio congegnate della sua intera produzione, nelle quali la riflessione filosofica si intreccia alla trama senza appesantirla e la freschezza dell'immaginazione si combina a una scrittura come sempre densa e stimolante.

In Defense of Sanity: The Best Essays of G.K. Chesterton

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.

La utilidad de leer: Ensayos escogidos

G.K. Chesterton

A G. K. Chesterton con frecuencia se le llamó «Príncipe de las paradojas», así que empecemos por nos hallamos ante una obra que es vieja como ella sola. Pero que no podría ser más contemporánea. En esta antología de ensayos, escritos en otro siglo por un cascarrabias que medía 1,93 de altura y pesaba 120 kilos, encontramos propuestas y reflexiones sobre cómo leer el mundo en toda su desde los artículos de la prensa más tendenciosa a los libros de historia, desde la literatura infantil a las novelas de detectives. Estos escritos, que ahora proponemos, recogen ejemplos necesarios para reflejar los intereses y obsesiones de Chesterton sin necesidad de convertirse en un texto académico, que invite a hacer algo muy simple y lo único que importa con un libro entre leer. Prólogo y traducción de Íñigo García Ureta Posfacio de Jorge F. Hernández

L'uomo che fu Giovedì

G.K. Chesterton

Dopo un'animata discussione sul tema dell'anarchia, Lucian Gregory riesce a convincere il poeta e amico Gabriel Syme della serietà delle sue argomentazioni e a condurlo a una riunione del Consiglio Centrale Anarchico. I membri della setta hanno fatto però una scelta bizzarra, decidendo di assumere per maggior sicurezza i nomi dei giorni della settimana, e quando Syme sceglie di entrare a farne parte, gli viene assegnato il nome di Giovedì. Ma Syme in realtà non è ciò che dichiara di essere, bensì un agente di Scotland Yard... e da questa rivelazione prende l'avvio una girandola di false identità, misteriose allusioni e paradossali ambivalenze, perché ogni membro del consiglio ha i suoi segreti, e la trama diventa un susseguirsi di eventi concitati, che convergono verso l'enigmatica e imponente figura del Presidente, che ha assunto il nome del settimo giorno, Domenica. Ma qual è la natura di quest'associazione e quali sono i suoi veri scopi? E chi si cela dietro la figura di Domenica, che riesce a suscitare in Syme una paura irrazionale?

Manalive (Hilarious Stories)

G.K. Chesterton

Perhaps the most light-hearted of all Chesterton's "serious" works, Manalive pits a group of disillusioned young people against Mr. Innocent Smith, a bubbly, high-spirited gentleman who literally falls into their midst. Later accused of murder and denounced for philandering everywhere he goes, Smith prompts his newfound acquaintances to recognize an important idea in most unexpected ways.

Napolean Of Notting Hill

G.K. Chesterton

Picture a London in the future where democracy is dead. A little government minister is made King. The boroughs are suddenly declared separate kingdoms with their own city guard, banner and gathering cry and the capital is plunged into a strange type medieval warfare. Then Notting Hill declares its independence?

Orthodoxy

G.K. Chesterton

This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer. It deals first with all the writer's own solitary and sincere speculations and then with the startling style in which they were all suddenly satisfied by the Christian Theology. The writer regards it as amounting to a convincing creed. But if it is not that it is at least a repeated and surprising coincidence.

Orthodoxy: With Annotations and Guided Reading by Trevin Wax

G.K. Chesterton

Catholics and Protestants alike have long appreciated Chesterton's Orthodoxy as a classic work of apologetics. It is his recounting of his quest to found a new religion, a philosophy of life that would include everything that makes most sense of the world, only to discover at the end of his journey that the religion and its philosophy already exist. It is Christianity. However, due to the temporal and cultural difference between us and Chesterton in 1908, much of the book is not easy to understand upon first (or second) reading. This version of Orthodoxy (with annotations and guided reading) will make Chesterton's classic more accessible for the first-time reader and will also provide enjoyment for the person who has enjoyed Orthodoxy for many years.

Saint Thomas Aquinas

G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton's brilliant sketch of the life and thought of Thomas Aquinas is as relevant today as when it was published in 1933. Then it earned the praise of such distinguished writers as Etienne Gilson, Jacques Martain, and Anton Pegis as the best book ever written on the great thirteenth-century Dominican. Today Chesterton's classic stands poised to reveal Thomas to a new generation. Chesterton's Aquinas is a man of mystery. Born into a noble Neapolitan family, Thomas chose the life of a mendicant friar. Lumbering and shy -- his classmates dubbed him "the Dumb Ox" -- he led a revolution in Christian thought. Possessed of the rarest brilliance, he found the highest truth in the humblest object. Having spent his life amid the vast intricacies of reason, he asked on his deathbed to have read aloud the Song of Songs, the most passionate book in the Bible. As Albert the Great, Thomas's teacher, predicted, the Dumb Ox has bellowed down the ages to our own day. Chesterton's book will enlighten those who would consign Thomas to the obscurity of medieval times. It will confound those who would use Thomas to bolster arid schemes of Christian rationalism. Rather, it will introduce the wondrous mystery of the man who, after a life of unparalleled genius, was seized by a vision of the Unknown and said, "I can write no more. I have seen things which make all my writings like straw."

St. Francis of Assisi

G.K. Chesterton

Francis of Assisi is, after Mary of Nazareth, perhaps the greatest saint in the Christian calendar, and one of the most influential men in the whole of human history. By universal acclaim, this biography by G. K. Chesterton is considered the best appreciation of Francis's life--the one that gets to the heart of the matter. For Chesterton, Francis is a great paradoxical figure, a man who loved women but vowed himself to chastity; an artist who loved the pleasures of the natural world as few have loved them, but vowed himself to the most austere poverty, stripping himself naked in the public square so all could see that he had renounced his worldly goods; a clown who stood on his head in order to see the world aright. Chesterton gives us Francis in his world-the riotously colorful world of the High Middle Ages, a world with more pageantry and romance than we have seen before or since. Here is the Francis who tried to end the Crusades by talking to the Saracens, and who interceded with the emperor on behalf of the birds. Here is the Francis who inspired a revolution in art that began with Giotto and a revolution in poetry that began with Dante. Here is the Francis who prayed and danced with pagan abandon, who talked to animals, who invented the creche.

The Ballad of the White Horse

G.K. Chesterton

The Ballad of the White Horse is one of the last great epic poems in the English language. On the one hand it describes King Alfred's battle against the Danes in 878. On the other hand it is a timeless allegory about the ongoing battle between Christianity and the forces of nihilistic heathenism. Filled with colorful characters, thrilling battles and mystical visions, it is as lively as it is profound. Chesterton incorporates brilliant imagination, atmosphere, moral concern, chronological continuity, wisdom and fancy. He makes his stanzas reverberate with sound, and hurries his readers into the heart of the battle. This deluxe volume is the definitive edition of the poem. It exactly reproduces the 1928 edition with Robert Austin's beautiful woodcuts, and includes a thorough introduction and wonderful endnotes by Sister Bernadette Sheridan, from her 60 years researching the poem.

The Ball and the Cross (Dover Literature: Literary Fiction)

G.K. Chesterton

Like much of G. K. Chesterton's fiction, The Ball and the Cross is both witty and profound, cloaking serious religious and philosophical inquiry in sparkling humor and whimsy. Serialized in the British publication The Commonwealth in 1905-06, Chesterton's second novel first appeared in book form in America in 1909, delighting and challenging readers with its heady mixture of fantasy, farce, and theology.The plot of The Ball and the Cross chronicles a hot dispute between two Scotsmen, one a devout but naive Roman Catholic, the other a zealous but naive atheist. Their fanatically held opinions—leading to a duel that is proposed but never fought—inspire a host of comic adventures whose allegorical levels vigorously explore the debate between theism and atheism.Martin Gardner's superb introduction to The Ball and the Cross reveals the real-life debate between Chesterton and a famous atheist that provided inspiration for the story, and it explores some of the novel's possible allegorical meanings. Appraising the book's many intriguing philosophical qualities, Mr. Gardner alerts readers as well to the pleasures of its "colorful style . . . amusing puns and clever paradoxes . . . and the humor and melodrama of its crazy plot."

The Best of Father Brown (Everyman Library)

G.K. Chesterton

The father of modern detectives As punctilious as Poirot as Miss Marple and as sharp as Sherlock Holmes Father Brown ranks higher then all of them in the pantheon of literary sleuths For the confessional this unassuming innocent little priest has gained a deep intuitive knowledge of the paradoxes of human nature So when murder mayhem and mystery stalk smart society only father Brown can be counted upon to discover the startling truth The most comprehensive paperback edition available with introduction and chronology of Chesterton s life and times As punctilious as Poirot as shrewd as Miss Marple and as sharp as Sherlock Holmes Father Brown ranks higher than all of them in the pantheon of literary sleuths For in the confessional this unassuming innocent little priest has gained a deep and intuitive knowledge of the paradoxes of human nature So when murder mayhem and mystery stalk smart society only Father Brown can be counted upon to discover the startling truth Part of the Everyman series which has been re set with wide margins for notes and easy to read type Each title includes a themed introduction by leading authorities on the subject life and times chronology of the author text summaries annotated reading lists and selected criticism and notes

The Club Of Queer Trades

G.K. Chesterton

A collection of related short stories by British author G. K. Chesterton. Each story is centered on a person who is making his living by some novel and extraordinary means (a "queer trade"). To gain admittance to the Club, one must have a unique queer trade as principal source of income. "Cherub" Swinburne describes his quest for The Club of Queer Trades with his friend Basil Grant, a retired judge, and Rupert Grant, a private detective who is Basil's younger brother. Each of the stories describes their encounter with one of the trades. In the final story, Rupert Grant rescues a lady from her kidnappers but cannot understand why she refuses to be rescued. The answer leads to the unveiling of the mystery of The Club of Queer Trades.

The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton Volume 13: Father Brown Stories - Part II (The Incredulity of Father Brown, The Secret of Father Brown, The Scandal of Father Brown, The Vampire of the Village, The Mask of Midas)

G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton The Incredulity of Fr. Brown The Secret of Fr. Brown The Scandal of Fr. Brown The Vampire of the Village The Mask of Midas Introduction and notes by John Peterson G.K. Chesterton, one of the most prolific writers of the 20th century, is most famous for a series of mystery stories and novelettes that feature the Roman Catholic priest, Fr. Brown. The stories have proved to be enduringly popular, containing profound observations of the world, human character, philosophy, morality and religion. John Peterson, the editor of Father Brown of the Church of Rome, takes the reader through this group of stories, giving valuable annotations as well as an introduction that gives a fascinating look at Chesterton’s detective fiction. Fans of Father Brown and Chesterton will be delighted by this latest volume in the Collected Works.