Educated at St. Paul's School, the Slade School and University College, London, Chesterton began his career as a free-lance journalist and reviewer. His first book, The Wild Knight, was published in 1900. Chesterton was an outspoken social critic and many of his early works were centered on such criticism. They included The Defendant (1901), Twelve Types (1902), Heretics (1905) and What's Wrong With The World (1912). Chesterton produced a large number of literary criticisms, among which were, Robert Browning (1903), George Bernard Shaw (1909), William Blake (1910), Appreciation and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens (1911), The Victorian Age in Literature (1913), William Cobbett (1925) and Robert Louis Stevenson (1927). Converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism in 1922, he produced numerous theological topics such as St Francis of Assisi (1923) and The Everlasting Man (1925). Today, Chesterton is best remembered for his fiction and especially the Father Brown books. Some of his most popular works include The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), The Club of Queer Trades (1905), The Man Who Was Thursday (1908), The Innocence of Father Brown (1911), The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914), The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926), The Secret of Father Brown (1927) and The Scandal of Father Brown (1935). During his lifetime, Chesteron was a good friend of many literary figures such as Hillaire Belloc, H.G. Wells, Shaw and others. |
