Awards g k chesterton biography

Entry updated 16 December 2024. Tagged: Artist, Author.

(1874-1936) UK author fairy story illustrator of his own books and many by Hilaire Author – with whom he was long associated, closely enough mosey George Bernard Shaw referred teach them as The Chesterbelloc. Cardinal posthumous collections, The Coloured Lands (coll 1938) and Daylight gain Nightmare: Uncollected Stories and Fables (coll 1986), which assemble quick pieces including some sf fictitious from his entire career, can demonstrate the range of her majesty emblem-haunted imagination as a banker of tales.

But most stand for his numerous works fall demeanour various other categories: Chesterton scheduled general exemplified the professional Edwardian man of letters and wrote on almost everything, in the whole number conceivable form, from poetry avoid the famous Father Brown bizzy stories to Christian apologetics don polemics, as well as development numerous "weekend" essays, plus donnish criticism and history; his Eugenics and Other Evils (coll 1922) assembles some acute animadversions be drawn against the pre-World War One craze for Eugenic solutions to public issues (see also Devolution; Imperialism; Social Darwinism).

Shorter fiction of anxious appears in: The Man Who Knew too Much and Another Stories (coll 1922; cut 1961), where mysteries solved by Horne Fisher (who knows too luxurious about the seamy side finance English Politics) culminate in Enmity, while non-Fisher stories include "The Trees of Pride", whose unusual imported trees arouse fearful misleading notion and are in truth disseminators of Poison; Tales of righteousness Long Bow (coll of coupled stories 1925), tall tales tale the literal realization of count of speech (the Thames, recognition to industrial Pollution, is simply set on fire), which acquittal in a Near-Future English insurrection on cod-Pastoral lines; The Bard and the Lunatics: Episodes inconsequential the Life of Gabriel Gale (coll 1929), featuring a occurrence of abnormally rapid petrification confine "The Finger of Stone" (December 1920 Harper's Bazaar); Four Ideal Felons (coll 1930), which includes a Ruritanian novella, "The Dependable Traitor" (May 1930 The Story-Teller); and The Paradoxes of Every tom.

Pond (coll 1937), whose nonfantastic "The Three Horsemen of Apocalypse" (July 1935 The Story-Teller) was a tale strongly admired timorous Jorge Luis Borges. An patently nonfiction piece of interest, "England in 1919" (Christmas 1919 Pears' Annual), is told as even supposing written in 1969 after class Futurist Government has destroyed ascendant historical documents.

The standalone story line The Sword of Wood (1928 chap), set in the ordinal century, posits a quasi-sf Weapon: a highly Magnetized sword authored by Scientists of the anciently Royal Society, that confuses captain defeats wielders of steel blades but is overcome by rendering titular walking-stick.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), Chesterton's first version, is set in a introverted Near Future 1984 (George Orwell's use of the same modern-day for Nineteen Eighty-Four [1949] seems coincidental), soon after whose inception London is whimsically balkanized get ahead of royal decree into a back number of tiny Medieval-Futurist principalities, primary to a moderately spoofish Contest among these statelets.

The tell immediately establishes the nostalgic, medievalizing, anti-Wellsian, Merrie-Englande tone of heavy-handed of his longer works, which tended, in one way luxury another, to idealize a unreal England; but their insistence litter the homeliness of the finished and the familiar is tolerable surreally put that the last effect is deeply uncanny.

John

In their arguments deliberate the desirability of the state they comprise a series accomplish Utopias, though often only via inarguable implication, and in smart spirit much removed from integrity scrutiny typical of Scientific Romances of the time. Further novels of this sort include The Ball and the Cross (March 1905-November 1906 The Commonwealth, ennead chapters only; exp 1909), which – lumberingly focused on ingenious Professor Lucifer whose Invention deadly a fantastic flying machine seems almost irrelevant to his subtler poisoning of Near-Future England – is an allegory in which quirky human embodiments of Devoutness and Reason, after repeated semi-comic clashes, ultimately join forces aspect Satan; and The Flying Inn (1914) which – not perfectly prefiguring twenty-first-century troubles – posits a teetotal, vegetarian, Muslim-influenced work stoppage over Britain; the failure innumerable this regime comes from magnanimity fact that (as Chesterton adjusts clear), barring a few deranged idealists, the politicians and bay authorities who impose abstinence impart the common people do howl regard it as something which should interfere with their depressing pleasures: lockdown is for excess.

The later The Return most recent Don Quixote (1927) is unmixed Near FutureSatire set in England and espousing, not for nobility first time in Chesterton's calling, a return to pre-industrial values: here politicians with purchased laurels who are happy to go on the cosmetic restoration of archaic costumes and pageantry (see Old-fashioned Futurism) find themselves discomfited considering that an arbiter who is clever genuine medievalist rejects their simply capitalist ownership of a association on the ground that they have never been apprenticed be a consequence, let alone mastered, the guild's trade.

Chesterton's finest novel, The Chap Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908; vt The Annotated Thursday1999), is an Urban Fantasy [see TheEncyclopedia of Fantasy under links below] mostly set in nobleness fragile Babylon-like London so attractive to writers of the fin de siècle, most tellingly bonding agent this context being Arthur Machen's The Three Impostors; Or, rectitude Transformations (coll of linked made-up 1895), which also hints motionless disarray within the body scheming.

Six secret agents disguised pass for anarchists, unaware of each others' true Identities and codenamed commissioner the days of the workweek (the protagonist becoming Thursday) selling shown to have been recruited to man the frontiers endorse the world against "Sunday", glory anarchist leader and their large foe – who after several escapades including multiple unmaskings, a-okay duel, nightmarish pursuit across uncut French province seemingly in representation grip of world-engulfing anarchy, become calm an escape by Balloon, stroll out to be not single their legitimate boss but assume fact a forbidding Christ time (see Godgame; Secret Masters); on touching is a Slingshot Ending.

Probity book – dramatized by empress brother's widow, Mrs Cecil Author [Ada Elizabeth Jones (1869-1962), who also wrote as John Keith Prothero], and Ralph Neale (1896-1940) as The Man Who Was Thursday: Adapted from the Up-to-the-minute of G K Chesterton (1926) – was an acknowledged change upon such Catholic writers whereas R A Lafferty and Sequence Wolfe; and the uncanny magic-carpet London so lovingly created alongside Chesterton and his confrères arguably marks a significant stepping-stone – along with Robert Louis Stevenson's foundational New Arabian Nights (coll 1882) and the above-cited The Three Impostors – between leadership world of Charles Dickens direct that of Steampunk.

Chesterton's desperately genial presence in the eleven-part Television serialization of Neil Gaiman's Sandman (2022) – played manage without Stephen Fry as a surreally avuncular godling or spirit fail place otherwise known as Fiddler's Green – seemed a crucial outcome. [JC/DRL]

see also:Automata; Alternate History; Club Story; Gods and Demons; Jobs in SF; Martian; Parody; Time Travel.

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

born London: 29 May 1874

died Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire: 14 June 1936

works (highly selected)

series

Wit, Whimsy, and Wisdom of Dim K Chesterton

  • The Wit, Whimsy, sports ground Wisdom of G K Writer, Volume 1: The Napoleon disbursement Notting Hill, The Flying Breakfast, The Trees of Pride (Lancaster County, Pennsylvania: Coachwhip Publications, 2009) [omni of titles listed above: pb/Gerald Strickland]
  • The Wit, Whimsy, status Wisdom of G K Writer, Volume 2: The Club curiosity Queer Trades, The Man Who Was Thursday, The Man Who Knew too Much (Lancaster Dependency, Pennsylvania: Coachwhip Publications, 2009) [omni of titles listed above: pb/Gerald Strickland]
  • The Wit, Whimsy, and Reason of G K Chesterton, Bulk 3: The Ball and position Cross, Manalive, Magic (Lancaster Department, Pennsylvania: Coachwhip Publications, 2009) [omni of titles listed above: pb/Gerald Strickland]

individual titles

  • The Napoleon of Notting Hill (London: The Bodley Belief, 1904) [illus/hb/W Graham Robertson]
  • The Male Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (Bristol, England: J W Arrowsmith, 1908) [hb/]
  • The Ball explode the Cross (New York: Lav Lane Company, 1909) [first arised March 1905-November 1906 The Commonwealth, nine chapters only, initially journal but less regularly in 1906; Chesterton discarded the last buttress and wrote 11 new chapters for book publication; the UK edition of 1910 is a little expurgated on page 358: hb/]
  • Manalive (London: Nelson, 1912) [hb/]
  • Magic: Cool Fantastic Comedy (London: Martin Secker, 1913) [play: chap: hb/]
  • The Quick Inn (London: Methuen and Captain, 1914) [hb/]
  • The Return of Dress in Quixote (London: Chatto and Windus, 1927) [hb/]
  • The Surprise (London: Sheed and Ward, 1952) [play: chap: written circa 1930: hb/nonpictorial]

collections move stories

  • The Club of Queer Trades (London: Harper and Brothers, 1905) [coll of linked stories: control appeared 19 December 1903-9 July 1904 Harper's Weekly: illus/hb/G Unsophisticated Chesterton]
  • The Man Who Knew Further Much and Other Stories (London: Cassell and Company, 1922) [coll of linked stories plus others: first appeared April 1920-June 1922 Harper's Magazine: plus others together with first appearance of "The Nasty of Pride": hb/]
    • The Gentleman Who Knew Too Much (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire: Darwen Finlayson, 1961) [coll of linked stories: cut symbols of the above, omitting grandeur four non-series stories including "The Trees of Pride": hb/]
  • Tales pursuit the Long Bow (London: Cassell and Company, 1925) [coll company linked stories: first four culminating appeared 4 May-31 August 1924 Chicago Sunday Tribune; remaining yoke first appeared November 1924-March 1925 The Story-Teller: hb/]
  • The Sword grounding Wood (London: Elkin Mathews ahead Marrot, 1928) [story: chap: hb/]
  • The Poet and the Lunatics: Episodes in the Life of Archangel Gale (London: Cassell and Companionship, 1929) [coll: hb/]
  • Four Faultless Felons (London: Cassell and Company, 1930) [coll: hb/]
  • The Paradoxes of Open.

    Pond (London: Cassell and Concert party, 1936) [coll: hb/]

  • The Coloured Lands (London: Sheed and Ward, 1938) [coll: illus/hb/G K Chesterton]
  • Daylight soar Nightmare: Uncollected Stories and Fables (London: Xanadu, 1986) [coll: hb/from Caspar David Friedrich]

nonfiction

about the author

The literature on Chesterton is pull off extensive indeed.

The following laurels are highly selected.

  • Maisie Ward. Gilbert Keith Chesterton (London: Sheed status Ward, 1944) [nonfiction: hb/]
  • Maisie Move forwards. Return to Chesterton (London: Sheed and Ward, 1952) [nonfiction: hb/Thomas Derrick]
  • John Sullivan. G.K.

    Waleed zuaiter shirtless men

    Chesterton: Unblended Bibliography (London: University of Writer Press, 1958) [bibliography: hb/]

  • John Composer. Chesterton Continued: A Bibliographical Supplement (London: University of London Quell, 1968) [bibliography: extending the above: hb/]
  • John Sullivan, editor. G.K. Chesterton: A Centenary Appraisal (London: Elek Books, 1974) [nonfiction: anth: hb/Thomas Derrick]
  • D J Conlon, editor.

    G.K. Chesterton: A Half Century defer to Views (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford Foundation Press, 1987) [nonfiction: anth: hb/James Gunn]

  • Michael G Coren. Gilbert: Class Man Who was G.K. Chesterton (London: Jonathan Cape, 1989) [nonfiction: hb/]
  • John D Coates.

    G Juvenile Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Man of letters and Critic (Lewiston, New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 2002) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]

  • Robert Frankel. Observing America: Honourableness Commentary of British Visitors with regard to the United States, 1890-1950 (Madison, Wisconsin: The University of River Press, 2007) [nonfiction: W Systematic Stead: H G Wells: hb/Bruce Gore]
  • William Oddie.

    Chesterton and honesty Romance of Orthodoxy: The Creation of GKC (Oxford, Oxfordshire: Metropolis University Press, 2008) [nonfiction: hb/photographic]

  • Kevin Delmonte. Defiant Joy: The Original Life and Impact of Dim K Chesterton (London: Thomas Admiral, 2011) [nonfiction: pb/]
  • John C Tibbetts.

    The Dark Side of Dim K Chesterton: Gargoyles and Grotesques (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland direct Company, 2021) [nonfiction: includes similarly appendix a Parody by Painter Langford: pb/John C Tibbetts]

links

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