The enormously popular ‘‘Notebook’’ articles in the Illustrated London News began to appear soon afterward and continued almost without interruption from September of 1905 until his death in June of 1936. By early 1901 Chesterton was also established as a regular Saturday columnist for another liberal journal, the Daily News, where his weekly article quickly became a feature of Edwardian journalism. When he left the Slade School in 1895, Chesterton worked as a publisher’s reader for two different companies and contributed an occasional poem, article, or art criticism to journals such as the Clarion, the Speaker, and the Academy.Ĭhesterton was first noticed in 1899 for his contributions to the Speaker, a radical liberal magazine. John’s Wood and then in 1893 to the Slade School of Art.įrom Pictures to Letters: A London Career. Consequently, instead of following the rest of his friends to university, he went to a drawing school, first at St. But his real talent was believed to be his ability to draw. He was not regarded as a good student, but he made friends at school and did a good deal of writing for a school paper called the Debater, the journal of a debating club he had organized.
Paul’s School (1887-1892) seem to have been in general a continuation of the undisturbed happiness of childhood. At the same time, Chesterton’s childhood was a time of intense happiness, and he always claimed that this happiness provided him with an essential religious insight into the meaning of adult life. The religious atmosphere of his middle-class family was more liberal and Unitarian than Anglican, and religion seems to have played no important part in his early life. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in the London borough of Kensington to Edward Chesterton, who owned a real estate business, and Marie Louise Grosjean Chesterton. Works in Biographical and Historical ContextĪ Joyous Childhood in Kensington. His witty essays have also provided delight and inspiration to generations of readers. Regarded as one of England’s premier men of letters during the first third of the twentieth century, Chesterton is best known today as a colorful character who created the Father Brown mysteries and the fantasy novel The Man Who Was Thursday. As the contemporary of Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw and Hilaire Belloc, G K Chesterton often engaged in public and deeply philosophical debates with many of them.įor modern day readers, The Man Who Knew Too Much provides valuable insights into the workings of both Edwardian and present day governments.G. He authored more than eighty books, thousands of essays, hundreds of poems and contributed extensively to several newspapers.
He was a poet, biographer (he wrote a detailed biography of Charles Dickens) theologian, playwright, hymn writer, novelist, art and music critic and political philosopher. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a multitalented English genius. His mastery over the language, brilliant style and deeply humanitarian outlook make these stories a delight for readers of any age. The stories are also brilliant examples of Chesterton's craft. They have continued to delight readers since they first appeared in 1922. Apart from the mystery element the stories provide deep insights into the murky world of politics and the darker side of human nature. These are another attractive feature of the stories. Often the victims deserve their fate and are in fact more criminal than their killers.įisher is accompanied in his investigations by a young reporter, Harold March, with whom he engages in long philosophical conversations. Hence, in all these stories, Horne Fisher's intelligence allows him to unravel the most complex of enigmas and then discover that things are not as simple as they seem. He is connected by blood and friendship to all the leading political figures of the country and a wrong move on his part could bring the government down. The man who knows too much is in fact, the protagonist, Horne Fisher, who is doomed to solve mysteries, but faces a moral dilemma each time he arrives at the solution. A book critic who happens to find a corpse with its head crushed, an Irish freedom fighter framed for a crime, the disappearance of a valuable coin, a strange dispute over a property claim and a host of other intriguing situations make up the contents of G K Chesterton's collection of short stories The Man Who Knew Too Much.įor fans of Chesterton's immortal clerical sleuth, Father Brown, these stories are equally delightful and intricately wrought. Strange happenings in quiet English villages.