Product Description

G. K. Chesterton is remembered as a brilliant creator of nonsense and satirical verse, author of the Father Brown stories and the innovative novel, The Man who was Thursday, and yet today he is not counted among the major English novelists and poets. However, this major new biography argues that Chesterton should be seen as the successor of the great Victorian prose writers, Carlyle, Arnold, Ruskin, and above all Newman. Chesterton's achievement as one of the great English literary critics has not hitherto been fully recognized, perhaps because his best literary criticism is of prose rather than poetry. Ian Ker remedies this neglect, paying particular attention to Chesterton's writings on the Victorians, especially Dickens. As a social and political thinker, Chesterton is contrasted here with contemporary intellectuals like Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells in his championing of democracy and the masses. Pre-eminently a controversialist, as revealed in his prolific journalistic output, he became a formidable apologist for Christianity and Catholicism, as well as a powerful satirist of anti-Catholicism. This full-length life of G. K. Chesterton is the first comprehensive biography of both the man and the writer. It draws on many unpublished letters and papers to evoke Chesterton's joyful humour, his humility and affinity to the common man, and his love of the ordinary things of life.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #359270 in Books
• Published on: 2011-04-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 784 pages

Review
This is a brilliant biography for a brilliant man. (Times Higher Education )

full of colossal wit, wisdom, and common sense...that is this magnificent book (Catholic Times )

superb...absorbing (Piers Paul Read, Standpoint )

this is a full-length scholarly biography that will be indispensable for decades (Church Times )

rewarding biography (Tribune )

Ian Ker provides an account of the thought of Chesterton that surpasses, in its comprehensiveness, anything that has been previously written about him (Bernard Manzo, Times Literary Supplement )

Heroically researched...an impressive...book...that conveys a powerful sense of [Chesterton's] personality (DJ Taylor, The Independent )

handles a complex subject with admirable lucidity. Mastering Chesterton's output is a heroic feat in itself (Peter Washington, Literary Review )

reveals valuable new information (The Times )

magisterial new biography (Catholic Herald )

[a] tremendous biography (The Tablet )

This masterly biography...has the potential to help establish Chesterton in what Ker regards as his rightful place as a major English author. (Independent on Sunday )