A G.K. Chesterton Anthology

Malcolm Muggeridge has remarked, "It is surprising, in a way, that when Chesterton was so often proved right in his judgements, he should still be less seriously regarded than contemporaries like Wells and the Webbs who were almost invariably wrong." Apart from Bernard Shaw he is still the most quoted twentieth-century writer, often without acknowledgement, so deeply has he entered the nation's consciousness. His influence has been enormous, yet nearly all his books are out of print. In this edition of his work, P J Kavanagh has attempted to sum up the man in his writings. He has shown the many sides of Chesterton's thoroughly versatile mind, and given us a picture of the writer's development from his first works to those of his later maturity, after his conversion to the Roman Catholic faith.

It is idle to draw a sharp distinction between Chesterton the fantasist and Chesterton the critic: he continued to exercise a creative and inventive mind in everything he wrote, whether his topic was education, English poets---or belief in God. Non the less, Chesterton, the novelist is here represented by a complete work, THE MAN WHO WAS THURSDAY: the poet is represented by a good selection of favorite verse; and the essayist/journalist enjoys the lion's share of the edition, thus bringing the man most vividly to life as he joins the debates of the day.

This edition should stand as a fitting testament to one of the most stimulating and well-loved writers of the twentieth century.