The man who was Chesterton

G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) was a multi-faceted writer of ideas, a journalist with a fierce track record who, with his controversial attitude, sensitivity to the common man’s worries and dazzling but paradoxical eloquence, revolutionised the literary and journalistic world of his time.

G. K. Chesterton, born in London on 29 May 1874, was the son of a wealthy family from Kensington who dealt in real estate. He received a privileged education at St Paul’s School and ever since he was young, he stood out for his rhetorical and argumentative skills, going on to found a Junior Debating Club with some school friends. He developed his artistic talent at the Slade School of Art in London and started out in journalism writing art and literature reviews. His journalistic career was set first around London’s Fleet Street, contributing to the liberal newspaper Daily News and the magazine The Illustrated London News, amongst others. He managed to lead a retired life in Beaconsfield with his wife Francis, while never leaving mainstream journalism nor participation in English public life through many polemics and controversies. He founded his own weekly in 1925, G. K’s Weekly. Literary fame reached him in 1908 by way of the detective stories starring Father Brown. He cultivated the social and religious essay (Heretics, 1905; Orthodoxy, 1908; What’s Wrong with the World, 1910, were his first works bringing him to public attention) and never abandoned literary criticism. He alternated the life of the writer and journalist with many lectures and trips to Europe and America. He died in his house in Beaconsfield on 14 June 1936.