Bøker av G. K. Chesterton

"It will be very reasonably asked why I should consent, though upon a sort of challenge, to write even a popular essay in English history, who make no pretence to particular scholarship and am merely a member of the public. The answer is that I know just enough to know one thing: that a history from the standpoint of a member of the public has not been written. What we call the popular histories should rather be called the anti-popular histories. They are all, nearly without exception, written against the people; and in them the populace is either ignored or elaborately proved to have been wrong."

Gilbert Keith Chesterton KC*SG (29 May 1874 - 14 June 1936) was an English writer, philosopher, Christian apologist, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Of his writing style, Time observed: "Whenever possible, Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories-first carefully turning them inside out."Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and wrote on apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognised the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Roman Catholicism from high church Anglicanism. Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman and John Ruskin.Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays (mostly newspaper columns), and several plays. He was a literary and social critic, historian, playwright, novelist, Catholic theologian and apologist, debater, and mystery writer. He was a columnist for the Daily News, The Illustrated London News, and his own paper, G. K.'s Weekly; he also wrote articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica, including the entry on Charles Dickens and part of the entry on Humour in the 14th edition (1929). His best-known character is the priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared only in short stories, while The Man Who Was Thursday is arguably his best-known novel. He was a convinced Christian long before he was received into the Catholic Church, and Christian themes and symbolism appear in much of his writing. In the United States, his writings on distributism were popularised through The American Review, published by Seward Collins in New York.Of his nonfiction, Charles Dickens: A Critical Study (1906) has received some of the broadest-based praise. According to Ian Ker (The Catholic Revival in English Literature, 1845-1961, 2003), "In Chesterton's eyes Dickens belongs to Merry, not Puritan, England"; Ker treats Chesterton's thought in chapter 4 of that book as largely growing out of his true appreciation of Dickens, a somewhat shop-soiled property in the view of other literary opinions of the time. The biography was largely responsible for creating a popular revival for Dickens's work as well as a serious reconsideration of Dickens by scholars.Chesterton's writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour. He employed paradox, while making serious comments on the world, government, politics, economics, philosophy, theology and many other topics. ...(wikipedia.org)

" Rightly or wrongly, it is certain that a man both liberal and chivalric, can and very often does feel a dis-ease and distrust touching those political women we call Suffragettes. Like most other popular sentiments, it is generally wrongly stated even when it is rightly felt. One part of it can be put most shortly thus: that when a woman puts up her fists to a man she is putting herself in the only posture in which he is not afraid of her. He can be afraid of her speech and still more of her silence; but force reminds him of a rusted but very real weapon of which he has grown ashamed. But these crude summaries are never quite accurate in any matter of the instincts...."

" It will be very reasonably asked why I should consent, though upon a sort of challenge, to write even a popular essay in English history, who make no pretence to particular scholarship and am merely a member of the public. The answer is that I know just enough to know one thing: that a history from the standpoint of a member of the public has not been written. What we call the popular histories should rather be called the anti-popular histories. They areall, nearly without exception, written against the people; and in them the populace is either ignored or elaborately proved to have been wrong...."

" Alone at some distance from the wasting walls of a disused abbey I found half sunken in the grass the grey and goggle-eyed visage of one of those graven monsters that made the ornamental water-spouts in the cathedrals of the Middle Ages. It lay there, scoured ancient rains or striped recent fungus, but still looking like the head of some huge dragon slain a primeval hero. And as I looked at it, I thought of the meaning of the grotesque, and passed into some symbolic reverie of the three great stages of art..."

G. K. Chesterton published a collection of short stories called The Club of Queer Trades. Each tale in the anthology centers on a character who earns a living uniquely and remarkably (a ""queer trade"", using the word ""queer"" in the sense of ""strange"").""Cherub"" Swinburne's frame story details his search for The Club of Queer Trades with his friend Basil Grant, a retired judge, and Rupert Grant, a private investigator, and Basil's younger brother. The meeting with one of the trades is detailed in each of the stories.These six little tales are lighthearted and humorous but not trite. Basil Grant, a retired and reclusive former judge who is described as insane, mystical, and a poet, with essentially no acquaintances, but who ""would talk to anyone anyplace,"" goes on adventures with Swinburne. These six little tales are lighthearted and humorous but not trite. Basil Grant, a retired and reclusive former judge who is described as insane, mystical, and a poet, with essentially no acquaintances, but who ""would talk to anyone anyplace,"" goes on adventures with Swinburne.

"Those who are quick in talking are not always quick in listening." -G. K. Chesterton, "The Oracle of the Dog"The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton (1926) is the third in a collection of eight mysteries featuring Father Brown, a detective the author created to reflect on his own experiences with fame, with traveling to America, and with religious conversion.The other seven mysteries in the collection are:¿ "The Resurrection of Father Brown"¿ "The Arrow of Heaven"¿ "The Oracle of the Dog"¿ "The Miracle of Moon Crescent"¿ "The Curse of the Golden Cross"¿ "The Dagger with Wings"¿ "The Doom of the Darnaways"In addition to The Incredulity of Father Brown, Cosimo has released several other titles in the Father Brown series.

"Eugenics itself, in large quantities or small, coming quickly or coming slowly, urged from good motives or bad, applied to a thousand people or applied to three, Eugenics itself is a thing no more to be bargained about than poisoning." -G. K. Chesterton, Eugenics and Other EvilsEugenics and Other Evils: An Argument Against the Scientifically Organized State (1922) was written by G. K. Chesterton as an attack on a bill being debated by the British parliament that would have legalized eugenics. This bill was the culmination of a campaign instigated by Sir Francis Galton and H. G. Wells, among others. They represented a number of contemporary intellectuals who believed the government should sterilize people deemed "mentally defective." In his book, Chesterton, who was strongly motivated by Christian theology, argued that spiritual principles were more important than scientific ones in the governance of human affairs. Ultimately, the bill failed to pass by a vote of 167 to 89.

An unabridged edition to include: Prefatory Note - Introduction: The Plan of This Book - The Man in the Cave - Professors and Prehistoric Men - The Antiquity of Civilization - God and Comparative Religion - Man and Mythologies - Demons and the Philosophers - The War of the Gods and Demons - The End of the World - The God in the Cave - The Riddles of the Gospel - The Strangest Story in the World - The Witness of the Heretics - The Escape from Paganism - The Five Deaths of the Faith - Conclusion: The Summary of This Book - Appendix I: On Prehistoric Man - Appendix II: On Authority and Accuracy.