E-text prepared by David McClamrock
Transcriber's note
This electronic edition is intended to contain the complete, unaltered text of the first published edition of Gilbert Keith Chesterton by Maisie Ward (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1943), with the following exceptions:
The index, and a few other references to page numbers that do
not exist in this edition, have been omitted.
Italics are represented by underscores at the beginning and
end, like this.
Footnotes* have been placed directly below the paragraph
referring to them and enclosed in brackets.
[* Like this.]
Any other deviations from the text of the first edition may be regarded as defects and attributed to the transcriber.
by
Introduction: Chiefly Concerning Sources
I Background for Gilbert Keith Chesterton
II Childhood
III School Days
IV Art Schools and University College
V The Notebook
VI Towards a Career
VII Incipit Vita Nova
VIII To Frances
IX A Long Engagement
X Who is G.K.C.?
XI Married Life in London
XII Clearing the Ground for Orthodoxy
XIII Orthodoxy
XIV Bernard Shaw
XV From Battersea to Beaconsfield
XVI A Circle of Friends
XVII The Disillusioned Liberal
XVIII The Eye Witness
XIX Marconi
XX The Eve of the War (1911-1915)
XXI The War Years
XXII After the Armistice
XXIII Rome via Jerusalem
XXIV Completion
XXV The Reluctant Editor (1925-1930)
XXVI The Distributist League and Distributism
XXVII Silver Wedding
XXVIII Columbus
XXIX The Soft Answer
XXX Our Lady's Tumbler
XXXI The Living Voice
XXXII Last Days
Appendices:
Appendix A—An Earlier Chesterton
Appendix B—Prize Poem Written at St. Paul's
Appendix C—The Chestertons
Bibliography
Chiefly Concerning Sources
THE MATERIAL FOR this book falls roughly into two parts: spoken andwritten. Gilbert Chesterton was not an old man when he died and manyof his friends and contemporaries have told me incidents and recalledsayings right back to his early boyhood. This part of the materialhas been unusually rich and copious so that I could get a clearerpicture of the boy and the young man than is usually granted to thebiographer.
The book has been in the making for six years and in three countries.Several times I hid it aside for some months so as to be able to geta fresh view of it. I talked to all sorts of people, heard all sortsof ideas, saw my subject from every side; I went to Paris to see oneold friend, to Indiana to see others, met for the first time inlengthy talk Maurice Baring, H. G. Wells and Bernard Shaw; went toKingsland to see Mr. Belloc; gathered Gilbert's boyhood friends ofthe Junior Debating Club in London and visited "Father Brown" amonghis Yorkshire moors.
Armed with a notebook,