Note

GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON was born in London on May 29th, 1874, and before the turn of the century established himself as a free-lance journalist and reviewer. From the publication of his first book of poetry, The Wild Knight, until his death in 1936, Chesterton was one of the most prolific and best-known figures on the English literary scene. During those three and a half decades he turned out dozens of volumes of political and social commentary, literary criticism and biography, theological essays, poems, short stories, and novels. This collection contains a broad spectrum of Chesterton’s work, including The Man Who Was Thursday, perhaps his best–known novel. It also includes six short stories featuring the priest-sleuth Father Brown, Orthodoxy, The Club of Queer Trades, and a selection of essays on a wide range of subjects. G. K. Chesterton’s literary output was so enormous and his subjects so varied that one can only hope to impart a little of the wit, humor, and intelligence that made him the “Prince of Paradox.”