G. K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (May 29 1874 – June 14 1936) was an English writer of the early 20th century. Chesterton was known as the "prince of paradox" because he communicated his conservative, often countercultural, ideas in an off-hand, whimsical prose studded with startling formulations. For example: "Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it." Most of Chesterton's works remain in print, including collections of his Father Brown detective stories, and Ignatius Press is presently undertaking the monumental task of republishing his complete works.

Influence

• Chesterton's The Everlasting Man contributed to a young atheist named C. S. Lewis being converted to Christianity.
• Chesterton's biography of Charles Dickens was largely responsible for creating a popular revival for Dickens' work as well as a serious reconsideration of Dickens by scholars. Considered by T.S. Eliot, Peter Ackroyd, and others, to be the best book on Dickens ever written.
• Chesterton's Orthodoxy has become a religious classic.
• An essay that Chesterton wrote for the Illustrated London News inspired Mohandas Gandhi to lead the movement to end British colonial rule in India. http://www.chesterton.org/discover/who.html
• Chesterton's novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill was a favorite of Michael Collins who would later go on to lead the movement for Irish independence. It has also been suggested that same book influenced George Orwell in the writing of Nineteen Eighty-Four (The Napoleon of Notting Hill being partially set in 1984), however Orwell himself gave no indication that this was the case.
• Chesterton's work has inspired lyricists like Daniel Amos's Terry Scott Taylor from the 1970s to the 2000s. Daniel Amos mentioned Chesterton by name in the title track from 2001's Mr. Buechner's Dream.
• His physical appearance and apparently some of his mannerisms were a direct inspiration for the character of Dr. Gideon Fell, a well-known fictional detective created in the early 1930s by the Anglo-American mystery writer John Dickson Carr.
• The author Neil Gaiman has stated that The Napoleon of Notting Hill was an important influence on his own book Neverwhere. Gaiman also based the character Gilbert, from the comic book The Sandman, on Chesterton.
• Ingmar Bergman considered Chesterton's little known play Magic to be one of his favourites and even staged a production in Swedish. Later he reworked Magic into his movie The Magician in 1958. Also known as Ansiktet the movie and the play are both roughly similar although the two should not be compared. Both are essentially the work of two authors with widely different world views.

Some conservatives today have been influenced by his support for distributism. A. K. Chesterton, the right-wing journalist and the first chairman of the National Front, was a cousin.

Related Topics:
Distributism - A. K. Chesterton - National Front

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