G. K. Chesterton

Acclaimed as the best book ever written on St. Thomas, this outstanding profile introduces one of Christianity's most important and influential thinkers. G. K. Chesterton chronicles the saint's life, focusing on the man and the events that shaped him, rather than on theology. In a concise, witty, and eminently readable narrative, he illustrates the relevance of St. Thomas' achievements to modern readers. Born into an aristocratic family, Thomas rejected...

Father Brown is an insightful sleuth who travels far-and-wide to solve a new set of mysteries that require his unique skills and wisdom. This selection of short stories also includes a variety of locales from Italy to Cornwall and everywhere in between. Once again, Father Brown has found himself at the center of the action. The Wisdom of Father Brown is the follow-up to G.K. Chesterton's first entry, The Innocence of Father Brown. The sequel builds...

Harold March, the rising reviewer and social critic, was walking vigorously across a great tableland of moors and commons, the horizon of which was fringed with the far-off woods of the famous estate of Torwood Park. He was a good-looking young man in tweeds, with very pale curly hair and pale clear eyes. Walking in wind and sun in the very landscape of liberty, he was still young enough to remember his politics and not merely try to forget them....

Heretics by G. K. Chesterton Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word "orthodox." In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel...

In 1915, the popular commentator was enlisted by the British War Propaganda Bureau. Here Chesterton explores the morality of war, and when it is justified. This collection includes "The War on the Word," "The Refusal of Reciprocity," "The Appetite of Tyranny," "The Escape of Folly," and "Letters to an Old Garibaldian."

G. K. Chesterton's "The Ballad of the White Horse" is the last great epic poem written in the English tradition. First published in 1911, it tells the heroic tale of Saxon King Alfred the Great and his defeat of the invading Viking army at the Battle of Ethandun. While Chesterton's work was not intended to be completely historically accurate, it is a deeply evocative and detailed account of an ancient and forgotten world. King Alfred has been driven...

This edition includes a modern introduction and a list of suggested further reading. When Evan MacIan, a fervent Catholic, becomes enraged by an atheist newspaper, he challenges the editor, James Turnbull, to a duel. Turnbull, just as passionate in his atheism as MacIan is in his Catholicism, eagerly accepts. Their sword fight interrupted wherever they go, MacIan and Turnbull duel with words. The more MacIan and Turnbull debate, the more they realize...

G. K. Chesterton's surreal masterpiece is a psychological thriller that centers on seven anarchists in turn-of-the-century London who call themselves by the names of the days of the week. Chesterton explores the meanings of their disguised identities in what is a fascinating mystery and, ultimately, a spellbinding allegory. As Jonathan Lethem remarks in his Introduction, the real characters are the ideas. Chesterton's nutty agenda is really quite...

When dystopian futures don't feel so future at all…Four decades before George Orwell wrote 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill defined the dystopian genre. One of the first dystopian comedies, instead of a dark vision of jackboots and surveillance states, G.K. Chesterton explores the question of what a society would look like if no one could take a joke.In this future England, each new king is decided by lottery. When Auberon Quin, a man who cares...

Chesterton was the master of the short essay and could spin, with wit and grace, an essay a day for many years of his life. Those not familiar with his work will discover here the satirist who made fierce fun of the foibles of his times, the lover of paradox who found in the mysteries of our universe a key to wisdom and happiness and the defender of human rights in a society taken over (like ours) by greed and lack of compassion. No one interested...