The Complete Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton

Book 2, 'The Wisdom of Father Brown', was still fun to read, but I found the stories were starting to feel either slightly repetitive, as Chesterton resorted to similar plots as those he used in the first collection, or confusing and unsatisfying in their resolutions. Taken on its own, Book 1, 'The Innocence of Father Brown', would have easily earned an extra star or two from me. In fact, I enjoyed them so much I decided to carry on reading this 700-odd page anthology, even though the required reading for the module was only the first 125pp or so. I feel kind of harsh giving this book 2 stars, since I really enjoyed the first five stories, which were the ones I was reading for university. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.Ĭhesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist.

He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown.

In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time.

Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.

The Complete Father Brown by G.K. Chesterton