CHESTERTON, G.K.

“Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.”

Although renowned in his own lifetime as a great writer with a light touch, Gilbert Keith Chesterton was more than a mere wordsmith.  His intellectual abilities were widely acknowledged by his peers and his output extended beyond novels and poems, to include newspaper columns, essays and plays, his subjects ranging from crime to fantasy, from politics to Christianity. In 1900 he attended the Slade School of Art, intending to train as an illustrator, but whilst there he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of the twentieth century.  Despite being notoriously absent minded and with a public persona as a genial, if bumbling, giant, his wit was razor sharp and always reflected in his writing.  He is probably best remembered for his Father Brown stories, in which he rejoices in the “ecstasy of the ordinary” and where his creation, much like Chesterton himself, looks beyond the obvious and sees what others have missed.  His friend and fellow author, George Bernard Shaw, wrote that he was a “man of colossal genius” and that "The world is not thankful enough for Chesterton.”

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