The Poet and The Lunatics

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Campden Hill, Kensington on May 29th 1874. Originally after attending St Pauls School he went to Slade to learn the art of illustration. In 1896 he joined a small London publisher and began his journalistic career as a freelance art and literary critic and going on to writing weekly columns in the Daily News and the Illustrated London News. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. For many he is known as a very fine novelist and the creator of the Father Brown Detective stories which were much influenced by his own beliefs. A large man – 6’ 4” and 21st in weight he was apt to be forgetful in that delightful way that the British sometimes are – a telegram home to his wife saying he was in one place but where should he actually be…….? He was prolific in many other areas; he wrote plays, short stories, essays, loved to debate and wrote hundreds of poems. It is on his poems that we concentrate this volume. They range from the virtues and vices of England and the English to his world view and religious beliefs. GK Chesterton died of congestive heart failure on 14th June, 1936 and is buried in Beaconsfield just outside of London.