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.