G. K. Chesterton, 1874-1936
Biographical note
English writer.
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. 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 arguably his most well-known novel The Man Who Was Thursday does not concern Father Brown at all.
Works
Novels
- The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)
- The Man who was Thursday [1908]
- The Ball and the Cross [1909]
- Manalive [1912]
- The Flying Inn (1914)
- The Return of Don Quixote (1927)
Short Stories
- The Club of Queer Trades (1905)
- The Complete "Father Brown" stories
comprising:
The Innocence of Father Brown [1911]
The Wisdom of Father Brown [1914]
The Incredulity of Father Brown [1926]
The Secret of Father Brown [1927]
The Scandal of Father Brown [1935] - The Man Who Knew Too Much [1922]
- Tales Of The Long Bow (1925)
- The Sword of Wood (1928)
- The Poet and the Lunatics (1929)
- Four Faultless Felons [1930, separately in US as The Ecstatic Thief; The Honest Quack; The Loyal Traitor; The Moderate Murderer]
Poetry
- The Wild Knight and other poems [1900]
- The Ballad of the White Horse [1911]
- Wine, Water And Song (1915)
- The Ballad of St. Barbara and Other Poems (1922)
- The Queen of Seven Swords (1926)
- Gloria in Profundis (1927)
- Ubi Ecclesia (1929)
Literary Criticism
- A Defence of Penny Dreadfuls [1901]
- Robert Browning [1903]
- George Bernard Shaw [1909]
- Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens [1911]
- Hilaire Belloc : The Man and His Work
Other Non-Fiction
- Aesop's Fables; a new translation
- Alarms and Discursions [1910]
- All Things Considered [1908]
- The Appetite of Tyranny, including Letters to an Old Garibaldian [1915]
- The Barbarism of Berlin [1914]
- The Crimes of England
- The Defendant
- Eugenics and Other Evils [1922]
- Greybeards at Play
- Heretics [1905]
- A History of the United States
- Lord Kitchener [1917]
- Magic : A Fantastic Comedy [1913]
- A Miscellany of Men [1912]
- The New Jerusalem [1920]
- Orthodoxy [1908]
- A Short History of England
- The Trees of Pride
- Tremendous Trifles
- Twelve Types
- Utopia of Usurers and Other Essays
- Varied Types
- The Victorian Age in Literature
- What I Saw in America
- What's Wrong with the World


