G. K. Chesterton
GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON was born in London in 1874. He was educated at St Paul’s School and then Slade College of Art and the University of London. His first two books, both poetry, were published in 1900. These were followed by a long stream of literary criticism, essays, novels, biographies, further poetry, newspaper and journal articles, and works on philosophy and religion, many of which were coloured with his love of wit and paradox, and intellectual irascibility. He is best remembered as the creator of the super-detective Father Brown, in five collections of short stories between 1911 and 1935. He died in 1936, at the age of 62.
Walmer titles by this author
WALMER BELLES-LETTRES vol. 7
In 1901, with only two poetry volumes to his name, G.K. Chesterton was very much in the up-and-coming bracket among writers. But he had already built a reputation for brilliant wit, original incisiveness, and a love of paradox in many essays published in journals.
A group of these had a common theme: they were defences, discussing things which society, to his mind, dismissed unfairly or, at the very best, undervalued. Lifting sixteen of them from the pages of The Speaker, he compiled his very first book of prose.
In A Defence of Rash Vows he despises the limitations imposed by mealy-mouthed cowardice; in A Defence of Skeletons he revels in essential coarseness; in A Defence of Nonsense he insists that childlike wonder requires preservation in our culture; in A Defence of Heraldry he frowns upon the lowest common denominations which modern democracy espouses; in A Defence of Ugly Things he celebrates nature’s unashamed exuberance; in A Defence of Humility he similarly supports the beauty of the commonplace; and in A Defence of Patriotism he bemoans the vulgarity which has usurped the true patriot’s necessary sensitivity.
These short essays, and the nine others in this book, illustrate a mind whose original political and social insight, and piercing critical instincts, though they were sometimes led astray by quick-temperedness, cut through dogma and convention to an extraordinary degree.
PUBLICATION: October 25, 2025
ISBN: 978-1-7635656-5-4 paperback