Glossary

Located in Kensington (London), Gilbert and Frances lived there for a few months after their marriage.

Located in Kensington (London), it was Edward and Marie Louise Chesterton’s second residence; Gilbert lived there until his marriage in 1901.

Located in Kensington (London); residence of Edward and Marie Louise Chesterton; Gilbert and Cecil were born there.

Second ever residence of Gilbert and Frances, for the period 1901-1909; located at Prince of Wales Street, in front of Battersea Park.

From late September 1930 to late March 1931, Gilbert, Frances and Dorothy Collins travelled across America and Canada; they arrived first in Quebec, where Chesterton gave lectures in Montreal and Toronto; in America he continued with the engagements agreed with his agent in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, New York, Cleveland, Ohio, Albany, Syracuse and Philadelphia; across the South they reached the West, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Portland; finally, they crossed the border to give lectures in Vancouver and Victoria.

The cultural association L’Amic de les Arts, with Josep Carbonell i Gener at the helm, organized a celebration of Chesterton during his stay in Sitges of May 1926; the letters exchanged during the occasion were published in L’Amic de les Arts, a prominent avant-garde magazine from Sitges headed by Carbonell himself.

War between the British Empire and two independent Boer states, the South African Republic (Transvaal Republic) and the Orange Free State, over the Empire’s influence in South Africa; the war was triggered by the discovery of gold and diamonds in the Boer states; it started on 11 October 1899 and finished on 31 May 1902; in England there were two positions regarding the war: those who were in favour of it (imperialists) and those who were against it (antiimperialists and pacifists); Chesterton was alone in supporting the Boers.

Held in London from 29 June to 2 July 1920; Chesterton participated in the debate The Church and Social and Industrial Problems with Rev. Bishop Gore, Rev. E.K. Talbot and A. Moore.

The Anti-Puritan League for the Defence of the People’s Pleasures was created in 1906; Cecil Chesterton was the provisional committee’s honorific secretary. The league defended common pleasures such as drinking, dancing and dressing well; it had great impact and found much echo in the English press.

Cultural institution founded in 1860, located in Savassona Palace on the Carrer de la Canuda; Chesterton visited it during his stay in Barcelona in May 1926, during Pompeu Fabra’s presidency; a signed dedication from him is still kept there.

The Chestertons went twice to Catalonia in 1926 and 1935; the first time they stayed at the Majestic Hotel on the Passeig de Gràcia; Gilbert gave a lecture in the Sala de Consells of Barcelona University titled “England as seen from abroad”; the PEN Club treated him to a gala dinner at the Ritz Hotel.

English man of letters; playwright, poet, novelist, translator and essayist; travel writer and war correspondent; though first an agnostic, he converted to Catholicism in 1909; during the First World War he served in the Intelligence Corps and the Royal Air Force; a personal friend of Gilbert, it seems he inspired the literary character of Horne Fisher, the protagonist of The Man Who Knew Too Much: And Other Stories (1922).

On Christmas Day 1931, the BBC invited Chesterton for the first time to make a 15-minute transmission on Charles Dickens and Christmas addressed to the United States; in October 1932 a series of radio programmes on books were put forward to him; in January 1933 he completed a series of lectures on architecture; he held a public debate there with Bertrand Russell on education (1935); in June of the same year he completed a programme on freedom; the last programme, called The Spice of Life, was broadcasted in March 1936

Market town located in Buckinghamshire; Gilbert and Frances moved there for good from London in 1909.

English essayist, cartoonist and parodist. In the 1890’s he was known as a humourist and a dandy; a friend of Chesterton’s since 1902, he drew several cartoons of Gilbert and Belloc.

Franco-British writer and historian; one of the most prolific writers in early-20th century England; he was also an orator, poet, sailor, satirist, letter writer, soldier and political activist; his Catholic faith had a strong impact on Chesterton, who was his personal friend since 1901. Bernard Shaw, referring to their friendship, complicity and affinity called them Chesterbelloc; Gilbert illustrated some of his novels.

English novelist and humourist; he invented the clerihew, an irregular form of witty verses concerning biographical subjects; he was Gilbert’s friend from his days in St Paul’s School; Chesterton illustrated his book Biography for Beginners (1905).

English activist, journalist and socialist author; he stood out as an important atheist, nationalist and opponent to eugenics; he sustained a long dispute with Chesterton in the pages of The Clarion (1903-1904).

Wife of George William Blogg (1842-1883); mother of Frances (1869-1938), Knollys (1871-1908), Ethel (1872-1953) and Gertrude (1875-1899); née Blanche Keymer.

Monthly review dedicated to artistic and literary criticism, published by the Hodder & Stoughton group; in 1899, at University College London, Gilbert befriended Ernest Hodder Williams, who belonged to the family who owned it; thanks to him he starts contributing to it regularly with art reviews.

The British Empire, lasting from the 16^th to the 20^th century, consisted of the territories politically and economically dependent on the Kingdom of Great Britain, and subsequently the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; at its height in the early 20^th century, it held sway over a population of nearly 458 million people and some 33 million square kilometres, which represented approximately one fourth of the world population and two fifths of the land area (Source: Wikipedia); this immense political and economic power led to a great capacity for cultural influence, but also to diplomatic, social and military conflicts; the imperial idea, justified from a civilizing point of view, went into crisis and ran contrary to the industrialisation process and free trade encouraged by liberalism; the First World War was the bloody proof of the downfall of empires, even if the British one, having won the war, withstood until the mid-20^th century.

Located on Fulham Road (Kensington, London); the cemetery where Beatrice (27 July 1878), Edward (18 May 1922) and Marie Louise (27 February 1933) are buried.

Irish Cleric, royal chaplain and writer; in 1880 he broke away from the Church of England —for its adhesion to Unitarianism— as he didn’t accept its main dogmas, and he officiated as an independent preacher for some years in Bedford Chapel (Bloomsbury); Gilbert and Cecil went there with their parents to listen to Brooke’s famous sermons; his critical thinking influenced both brothers in drifting away from Unitarianism.

Fictional character created by Chesterton; inspired by his friend Fr. John O’Connor, this detective priest is the most famous character from his literary work; his stories were published in the following volumes: The Innocence of Father Brown (1911), The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914), The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926), The Secret of Father Brown (1927), The Scandal of Father Brown (1935), "The Donnington Affair" (with Max Pemberton, 1914) and "The Mask of Midas" (1936); the stories have provided the base for several films and television series.

Located at 68 Regent’s Street (Piccadilly Circus, London); café frequented by Gilbert before lunch.

Hill in Kensington, West London, which limits Holland Park Avenue to the north, Kensington High Street to the south, Kensington Palace Gardens to the east and Abbotsbury Road to the west; this urban site was part of Chesterton’s childhood, especially St. George’s Church and Waterworks Tower.

Bernard Shaw gave friends Chesterton and Belloc this name in an article titled “The Chesterbelloc: A Lampoon”, published in The New Age on the 15^th of February 1908.

Journalist, writer and social activist; in 1927 she founded the Cecil Houses; married with Cecil Chesterton; née Ada Jones; pseudonym John Keith Prothero; together with Ralph Neale she wrote a stage version of the novel The Man Who Knew Too Much (1926) which premiered on 19 January of the same year at the Everyman Theatre (Hampstead, London).

Older sister of Gilbert and Cecil; she died when she was eight years old; she’s buried in the same tomb as her parents, Edward and Marie Louise, in Brompton cemetery (Kensington, London).

Journalist and writer; Beatrice and Gilbert’s brother; he was an active member of the Fabian society; in 1912 he converted to Catholicism and in 1916 he married Ada Jones; he worked with Belloc in The Eye Witness; he exposed the Marconi scandal and though one of the accused, Godfrey Isaacs, brought him to trial but the compensation was minimal; founder and theorist of distributism; he died during the First World War; he’s buried in the British cemetery of Terlincthun, north of Boulogne-sur-Mer (Pas-de-Calais).

Co-owner, with his brother Arthur, of the estate agency Chesterton & Sons of Kensington (London); married to Marie Louise Grosjean; father of Beatrice, Gilbert and Cecil.

Verse and song writer and author of school plays; she worked as a secretary at the PNEU (The Parents’ National Educational Union, London); married to Gilbert Keith Chesterton; after having surgery in 1908 to improve her fertility, the next year she has to accept she won’t be able to have children; on 1 November 1926 she converts to Catholicism.

Married to Edward Chesterton; mother of Beatrice, Gilbert and Cecil; née Marie Louise Grosjean.

Organization in partnership with the Church of England; though Anglo-Catholic from a spiritual point of view, it combined traditional beliefs with revolutionary politics; it was an association that dumbfounded both the Labour Party and the Anglican hierarchy; Gilbert and Frances collaborated in many CSU activities, together with Reverend Conrad Noel and Member of Parliament C.F.G. Masterman.

Church of England congress held in Liverpool in October 1904; at Hope Hall, under the presidency of the bishop of Liverpool, the subject of Christian Evidences was discussed; Chesterton provided one of the most interesting interventions.

Socialist weekly published by Robert Blatchford; its political perspective was more British centred than internationalist; the controversy maintained in its pages between Chesterton and Blatchford lasted nearly two years (1903-1904).

Prep school located in Hammersmith (London) where Gilbert took his primary education in the period 1881-1886.

Gilbert’s secretary since 1926; through the years she would end up being a part of the family; in 1931 she converted to Catholicism; she edited, compiled and prologued Chesterton’s posthumous works; she’s buried with Gilbert and Frances in Shepherds Lane cemetery (Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire).

Going beyond the assembling and publishing of the latest news, the contemporary journalism which was born in the late 19^th century was a powerful tool of social and cultural cohesion; it helped to systematically unify local, national and international news, and it served as a platform to forge a culture of opinion, dialogue, and debate; the quality of the periodicals and of its columnists in this first period of contemporary journalism was due to the close relationship between journalism and the literary world.

Church located on Maiden Lane (Covent Garden, London); Cecil and Ada Chesterton were married there in 1916.

British newspaper published in London from 1912 to 1964; it campaigned for the Labour Party on behalf of the labour movement; Chesterton, after being sacked from the Daily News, contributed there in the years 1913 and 1914; his first article was published on the 12th of April 1913.

British national newspaper; founded in 1846 by Charles Dickens, who was also its first editor; Chesterton first contributed in it in 1901 but was only a weekly columnist from 1903 to 1913; its owner, Roger Cadbury, sacked Gilbert for his constant attacks on him from The New Witness; on 1 February 1913 Chesterton wrote his last article there.

British national newspaper published in London; founded by Arthur B. Sleigh in 1855; generally speaking, it enjoyed international reputation in the 20^th century for its quality; when in 1919 Chesterton organised his trip to Palestine, he asked Bentley if the newspaper would help him fund it in exchange for a series of articles on Jerusalem; they were compiled in a book called The New Jerusalem (1920).

American lawyer; he was a prominent member of the American Civil Liberties Union and an advocate of Georgist economic reform; Chesterton and Darrow engaged in two public debates in 1931, in New Haven and New York; they debated the subject Will the World return to Religion?

Journal published by the members of the Junior Debating Club; it ran for eighteen issues from 1891 to 1893.

Club founded in 1930 by a group of British mystery and detective story writers; G. K. Chesterton, Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, Ronald Knox and E. C. Bentley took part in it, amongst others; Anthony Berkeley was instrumental in its creation and its first president was G. K. Chesterton (1930-1936); they used an astonishing initiation ritual including an oath written by Chesterton or Sayers; the club held periodical meetings in London.

Film based in the Father Brown stories; directed in 1954 by Robert Hamer; Alec Guinness plays the character of the clerical sleuth.

Pub located at 20 Devereux Court (Temple, London); The Distributist League was born and held its first assemblies there.

English writer and social critic; he created some of the most renowned fictional characters in the world and is considered by many the best Victorian novelist; his works enjoyed an unprecedented popularity; he greatly influenced Chesterton, specifically during the period 1893-1895; the biographical study Charles Dickens (1906) helped rekindle interest for him in England, and his works were reedited by Everyman’s Library, with a foreword by Chesterton; Chesterton was elected president of The Dickens Fellowship for the years 1921-1922.

Economic proposal in between capitalism and communism based on Pope Leo XIII’s encyclical Rerum Novarum (1891); it was the brainchild of Hilaire Belloc, Cecil Chesterton, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, Arthur Penty and Fr Vincent McNabb.

League created in September 1926 to boost and extend the ideas of distributism throughout Britain; in October branches were opened in Croydon, Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow; subsequently they spread to Liverpool, Chatham, Worthing, Chorley, Cambridge and Oxford.

Title of the public debate held between Chesterton and Shaw, with Belloc as president, in October 1927 at Kingsway Hall (London); it was organised by The Distibutist League and was broadcast live on the BBC.

The Edwardian Age in the United Kingdom spans the reign of Edward VII and    extends from 1901 to 1910; the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 and the accession of    her son Edward signalled the end of the Victorian Age and the beginning of a new century (Source: Wikipedia); the new monarch will live through a time of transition towards the end of global empires, in which the contradictions between a liberal and a protectionist economy derived from the constraints of imperial borders to free trade will make themselves patent; another feature of the period is the strengthening of the labour movement with the appearance of the Labour Party and the growth of the trade unions; a new generation of young poets, writers, and artists will call for a cultural renewal to leave behind the Victorian Age.

Chesterton was asked to write the entries for Humour (1928) and Charles Dickens (1929).

Held in Dublin from 21 to 26 June 1932; Gilbert and Frances were present; his experience as an observer in the Congress is shown in the book Christendom in Dublin (1932), in which he vividly describes the profound impact the week’s events had on him, in particular the genuine commitment of the city’s poor.

Weekly founded by Hilaire Belloc and sponsored by Charles Granville; Cecil Chesterton made contributions to it and attacked from its pages those implicated in the Marconi scandal; in it Gilbert published his famous poem Lepanto; it ran through the years 1911 and 1912.

Military conflict which took place in Europe, the Middle East and Africa between 1914 and 1918; it pitted the Austro-Hungarian, German and Ottoman empires with Bulgaria against the so-called Allies, that is, France, the United States, the British Empire, Serbia and Italy; the motives and causes of the conflict are wide-ranging, but derive from a crisis in the expansion of global empires, where the European Central Powers will see themselves as besieged by the rest and with a right to claim more overseas territories; it was the first war of the industrial era and, as a consequence of its great capacity for destruction and death, lead to not only the end of the Age of Empires, but also to a profound collective moral crisis.

City of London street running parallel to the Thames; it runs from Temple Bar to Ludgate Circus; in the early 20^th century it was host to the headquarters of the main English newspapers, amidst pubs and taverns; from late 1901 Chesterton was part of its landscape.

Important collection of documents related to Chesterton located in the University of Notre Dame archives (Indiana, USA).

Collection of documents and personal objects initially kept by Mr Aidan Mackey at the G. K. Chesterton Study Centre (Bedford); it was subsequently transferred to The Oxford Oratory; it is now found at the headquarters of Notre Dame University in London (London Global Gateway, 1-4 Suffolk Street, Westminster, London).

The most valuable collection of documents related to Chesterton; it belongs to the British Library Manuscript Collections; the references are: Dates of Creation: 1877-1988; Language of Material: English, French, Spanish; Physical Description: 299 volumes (556 parts).

Outlying publication distinct from the mainstream press of the age; Gilbert was its editor until his death; some of its contributors were E. C. Bentley, Alfred Noyes, Ezra Pound and George Bernard Shaw, amongst others; George Orwell also wrote in it at the beginning of his career; from the start it advocated the philosophy of distributism, and it had a close relationship with The Distributist League; it ran from 1925 to 1936.

Chesterton worked with the Liberal Party on three electoral campaigns; in 1902, in support of Charles Masterman; in 1906, helping Hilaire Belloc and Masterman, who became MPs; and in 1910, backing the Liberal candidate for Beaconsfield.

The general strike was called by the General Council of the British Trades Union Congress in defence of the preservation of workers’ purchasing power and to demand decent working conditions; it began on 4 May and lasted for nine days, until 13 May; although did not achieve its goals, the scope of the strike and its repercussion in the media turned it into the paradigm of a new age where the correlation of forces would be settled by new political perspectives and methods.

Pub located at 213 Strand (Temple, London), near the corner with Essex Street; it was frequented by Chesterton, Belloc and Cecil for its proximity to the offices of The New Witness and, subsequently, G. K.‘s Weekly.

English sculptor, typeface designer and printmaker; he was associated with the Arts and Crafts movement; a friend of Chesterton’s, he contributed to The New Witness, writing about art; he was one of the founding members of the distributist worker’s community of Ditchling (Sussex).

English actress, writer, journalist, suffragette and feminist; she fought for universal suffrage in the United Kingdom; in April 1911, she and Chesterton held a public debate in Queen’s Hall, London, under the title Woman’s Suffrage.

English playwright and novelist; during the American Tour (1930-31) Chesterton held two public debates with him: the first in Boston, entitled Is Divorce a Social Asset?; the second in Washington, after Chesterton’s lecture The Curse of Psychology; the last was titled Is Psychology a Curse?

Hotel located at the Passeig de Gràcia, founded in 1918, in which Chesterton stayed while on his visit to Catalonia of May-June 1926, together with his wife Frances and his niece, Rhoda Bastable; in the hotel, while having dinner with Chesterton, the writer and host, Josep M. Junoy, interviewed him.

Former hotel in Sitges founded in 1916 and located on the Passeig de la Ribera, in which the Chestertons stayed on the two occasions they lodged in the town: one in May 1926 during a trip to Catalonia, and the other in May 1935 to rest.

Unfinished film which was never shown; directed by Harley Granville-Barker in 1914; G. K. Chesterton, G. B. Shaw, J. M. Barrie and William Archer featured in the film, amongst others; it was screened in the London Coliseum for a charity event on 10 June 1916.

Private club founded by the Blogg family; located at the Bloggs’ residence at 8 Bath Road, Bedford Park (Ealing, London); Gilbert met Frances there in the autumn of 1896.

Part of Rombalds Moor, a natural site between Ilkley and Keighley, in West Yorkshire; the friendship between Chesterton and Fr John O’Connor began with their conversations while walking through the moor.

Founded in May 1942 as the world’s first weekly illustrated review; when L.F. Austin, author of the column Our Note Book, died, the editor Sir Bruce Ingram offered Chesterton his weekly permanent section; on 30 September 1905 Gilbert published his first article there; he was a continuous contributor until 20 June 1936 (the date of his last article, published posthumously).

Process of economic, social and technologic transformation started in the second half of the 18^th century in England, with the industrialization of the economy, the rural exodus towards towns and cities and the birth of a new social class, the workers, which together with the bourgeoisie will become the new social players; the economic and social transformations derived from this revolution, together with the political and cultural transformations provided by the French Revolution and the Enlightenment, will be the pillars of the new modernity.

This period in Ireland’s history corresponds to the era of the Home Rule movement and the route towards independence from the British Empire; resistance from British conservative circles to lose the colony prompted an Irish rising which led to independence in 1921, even though six northern counties stayed in British hands; this conflict raised a strong debate within English society, in the course of coming to terms with the contradictions of being both an Empire and a democracy.

Chesterton went several times to Ireland accompanied by his friends W. B. Yeats and Joseph Plunkett; he took the side of the Irish in regard to the Irish Question; he published Irish Impressions (1919) and Christendom in Dublin (1932), the latter based in his assistance to the Eucharistic Congress.

Youth club created by Chesterton and his friend Lucian Oldershaw during the period 1890-93; the club members collaborated in The Debater, a literary review in which the club’s activities were listed.

Poet, journalist and writer, as well as an introducer of the European vanguard; he converted to Catholicism and became the main sponsor for the promotion of Chesterton in Catalonia through the platforms he directed (La Nova Revista) or co-directed the newspaper El Matí) and for the translation of his work into Catalan; he was a host of Chesterton and was beside him throughout his tour of Spain of spring 1926, from Madrid and Toledo to Barcelona, Tarragona, Sitges and Vilanova.

In 1934 Pope Pius XI bestowed Chesterton and Belloc with this honorific title in recognition of services rendered to the Church with their writings.

English Catholic priest, theologian, radio broadcaster and author of detective stories; a personal friend of Chesterton, he was influential in his conversion to Catholicism.

Founded in the United Kingdom in 1900 in a trade union congress to politically further the demands of the labour movement; it thus broke with the country’s political tradition, based in the rotation between the Liberal and Conservative political parties.

Chesterton stayed in Madrid in April 1926 invited by the Anglo-Hispanic Committee, presided by the Duque de Alba, as well as the Sociedad de Cursos y Conferencias (Society of Courses and Conferences) to give a lecture in the Residencia de Estudiantes; its title was “El espíritu caballeresco en la Historia” (“The chivalric spirit in History”); during their stay Gilbert and Frances visited Toledo and El Escorial.

British political scandal which broke in mid-1912; from the pages of The Eye Witness, Cecil Chesterton revealed that highly-placed members of the liberal government under Prime Minister H. H. Asquith had benefitted from an inadequate use of information on the intentions of the government regarding the Marconi company; it had come to their knowledge that the government was ready to sign a lucrative contract with the British company Marconi on behalf of Imperial Wireless Chain and had bought shares in a US subsidiary.

Railway station located in the City of Westminster; Gilbert used it when travelling to and from Beaconsfield.

Catholic newspaper founded and directed by Josep M. Capdevila and Josep M. Junoy, published in Barcelona from May 1929 to July 1936, in which Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc made contributions; it stood for an open Christianity critical with capitalism, liberalism and totalitarianism, always with a social conscience; of Anglophile leanings, it characterised itself by a good typographic presentation, its several illustrations and extensive culture and art-related news and reviews.

Irish Dominican priest and scholar; particularly active in evangelisation and apologetics; he was an active collaborator of the distributist proposal; a personal friend of Gilbert’s since August 1911, he was influential in his conversion.

Chesterton always showed interest in the medieval world, its philosophy and theology, as well as in Gothic architecture; medievalism’s a central aspect of his first novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904); he was close to the Guild of St Matthew, where he gave several lectures on guilds; distributism was inspired in craft trades and medieval guilds.

Period of European history which runs from the fall of the Roman Empire (5^th century AD) to the emergence of the Renaissance; it was characterized by a mainly agricultural society united culturally by Christianity; feudalism as an economic and political system brought about a stratified and politically fragmented society; from the times of the Enlightenment and the liberal revolutions onward, the romantic movement embraced medievalist nostalgia to counter the cultural and social changes linked to modernity.

Located at 16 Gerrard Street (Soho, London); Chesterton and Belloc often ate there before it closed in 1928; other well-known clients were Joseph Conrad and John Galsworthy.

In his trip to Rome (Italy) of 1929, Chesterton was received by Benito Mussolini at the Palazzo Venezia; Chesterton’s aim was to interview him, but was himself the object of the Duce’s interest for his opinions and ideas.

Coinciding with the Centenary of Catholic Emancipation in September 1929, a Catholic congress was held in London; Chesterton intervened in it with the lecture The Emancipation of the Atheist, organised by the Catholic Evidence Guilds at the Cecil Hotel.

Chesterton was a prominent member of this League which, in 1913, sponsored meetings to attack Jewish influence on public morals.

In 1912 The Eye Witness went bankrupt; it changed the heading for The New Witness and received financial aid from Edward Chesterton; Gilbert took on the post of editor when Cecil enlisted in 1916, during the Great War; it came out during the period 1912-1923.

Chesterton was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature for the year 1935 by Torsten Fogelqvist, author and member of the Swedish Academy.

English Church of England priest; known as the “Red Vicar” of Thaxted, he was a prominent British Christian socialist; he became friends with Chesterton in 1901; he was an active member of the Christian Social Union (CSU), a distinguished Anglo-Catholic organisation; Noel had considerable bearing on Gilbert and Cecil; he made them contemplate seriously the Church’s social doctrine; the Chestertons often went to his place in Paddington Green parish.

Catholic university located in Notre Dame (Indiana, USA); for six weeks in 1930 Chesterton gave a series of lectures there on Victorian literature; in November he was appointed Honorary Doctor of Laws by the university.

Affluent neighbourhood in West London which is part of the Kensington and Chelsea district; the action of The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), Chesterton’s first novel, is set in this urban placement, very familiar to and much loved by the author.

Monthly review dedicated to high culture, with a cosmopolitan outlook and centred mostly in literature and the plastic arts, published in Barcelona from January 1927 to July 1929 and directed by Josep M. Junoy; a section dedicated to “Els Amics de Chesterton” (“The Friends of Chesterton”) was included with the help of Pau Romeva, and it sponsored the translation of Chesterton’s first works into Catalan.

The minister of St Anne’s Catholic Church (Keighley, City of Bradford, West Yorkshire), among other parishes; a personal friend of Gilbert and Frances; he was pivotal in Gilbert’s conversion to the Roman Church; he was the inspiration for the detective priest Father Brown, a literary character created by Chesterton.

Friend of Gilbert from St Paul’s School; he created the Junior Debating Club; married to Ethel Blogg, Frances’s sister; he founded the Patriot’s Club.

First residence of Gilbert and Frances in Beaconsfield (Buckinghamshire); locates at 2 Grove Road; they lived there between 1909 and 1922.

Gilbert and Frances travelled to Palestine from late December 1919 to mid-April 1920; they left Beaconsfield for Paris, Rome, Brindisi, Alexandria, Cairo and finally Palestine; they wanted to travel there again in 1934, but Gilbert fell sick in Syracuse, stayed in bed for five weeks at the hotel, and they went back to Beaconsfield via Malta.

Located on King William Street (in the City) and later on Henrietta Street (Covent Garden); their weekly debates were the best in London; Gilbert, Cecil and Belloc were all members and whenever they joined there was guaranteed entertainment.

Chesterton was received in a private audience in the Vatican by Pope Pius XI during his trip to Rome in 1929.

Gilbert and Frances travelled to Poland in April and June 1927; they visited Warsaw, Poznan, Krakow, Lwów and Vilnius; during their five-week stay they also went to the salt mines of Wieliczka, to Zakopane in the Tatra mountains, to the shrine of Ostra Brama and to Troki.

Published in 1872 by George MacDonald; it’s a children’s fantasy novel which greatly influenced Gilbert’s thought and way of seeing the world and life itself.

Hotel in Beaconsfield (Buckinghamshire), no longer in existence, where Catholics celebrated Mass in absence of a church in town; Gilbert converted to Catholicism in this ballroom turned church on 30 July 1922, assisted by Fr John O’Connor and Fr Ignatius Rice.

Small publishers in London where Gilbert worked for a few months as a reader in 1895.

Located at 104 Pall Mall (St James’s, London); Gilbert was a member and often went there.

Welsh noblewoman, businesswoman and active suffragette; she was crucial in the history of the women’s suffrage in the United Kingdom; in 1927 she held a public debate with Chesterton on the idle woman; chaired by G. B. Shaw at Kingsway Hall (London), it was broadcast by the BBC.

English Benedictine monk from Douai Abbey; he was head of Douai School (1915-1952); a personal friend of Gilbert, he was crucial in his conversion.

Educationalist, journalist and writer, as well as first translator of Chesterton into Catalan (Herètics, 1928; Allò que no està bé, 1929); he worked with La Nova Revista in its project of making Chesterton known, and at the newspaper El Matí, for which he translated a good number of Chesterton’s articles and explained his social doctrine, known as “distributism”; in 1936, as a posthumous tribute to Chesterton, he published in the Revista de Catalunya a serialised translation of The Man Who Was Thursday.

British polymath, philosopher, logician, mathematician, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel prize; he considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a pacifist, though he also suggested his sceptical nature made him feel that “I’ve never been any of those things in any profound sense”; in 1935 he held a public debate with Chesterton in the BBC on Who should raise our children?

The Russian Revolution was a political process, led by scientific communism, which culminated in 1917 with the overthrow of the tsarist system and the Russian Empire; for the first time, the modern world saw how the working class rose to power and discarded liberalism as the dominant political system, a fact which generated strong political and cultural reactions in the more traditional social circles.

A writer and politician, founding member of Unió Democràtica de Catalunya (Democratic Union of Catalonia), he was one of the most prominent followers and promoters of Chesterton’s work in Catalonia, through his contributions to El Matí or the pages he dedicated to him in Coneixences (1976) or in the several volumes of the diary Del passat quan era present; under the pen name Ramon Setantí he published a selection of texts and study titled Chesterton.

Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist; his influence on theatre, culture and Western politics lasted from the 1880’s to his death and beyond; the questioning of his ideas, like in the many public debates he attended, wasn’t at odds with his friendship; in 1909 Chesterton published the book George Bernard Shaw.

Cemetery in Beaconsfield (Buckinghamshire); Gilbert (1936), Frances (1938) and Dorothy Collins (1988) are all buried there, in the same tomb.

In May 1935, Gilbert and Frances, while on their way to Florence (Italy), stopped to rest in this Mediterranean seaside town, 40 kilometres south of Barcelona; they stayed at the Hotel Subur, on the Passeig de la Ribera, where a monolith makes reference to it.

Art school of University College London; Gilbert took his art studies there in the years 1893-1895.

Former liberal weekly; purchased in 1899 by a group of young men, including Bentley, Oldershaw, Belloc and Eccles; J. L. Hammond was its director; Chesterton had already published some poems there, but with the new approach he started writing literary reviews and soon became the journal’s star.

Anglican church located on Aubrey Walk (Campden Hill, Kensington, London); Gilbert was baptised there on 1 July 1874.

Park located in Westminster (London) where Gilbert proposed to Frances in the summer of 1898.

Private art school; located in St John’s Wood, a district in North London; Gilbert studied there for a few months in 1893.

Anglican church located in Kensington (London); Gilbert and Frances were married there on 28 June 1901; their friend Conrad Noel officiated the ceremony.

School located in Hammersmith (London) where Gilbert took his secondary studies during the period 1887-1893.

First Catholic church in Beaconsfield; it was built thanks Gilbert and Frances’ funds.

Scottish novelist, poet and travel writer; he greatly influenced Chesterton, particularly during the period 1893-1895; in 1927 Chesterton published the biographical study Robert Louis Stevenson.

Publishers in which Chesterton worked for the period 1895-1901.

British cemetery in Terlincthun, located in the suburbs north of Boulogne-sur-Mer, a coastal town in the northern French department of Pas-de-Calais; it’s a cemetery for British soldiers fallen in the First World War, among them Cecil Chesterton.

Second residence of Gilbert and Frances in Beaconsfield (Buckinghamshire); located at 1 Grove Road; they lived there since 1922; Gilbert died there on 14 June 1936.

Toy belonging to his father Edward, who greatly influenced him during his childhood and beyond; Gilbert showed interest in it all his life.

On 7 January 1914 the Trial of John Jasper for the murder of Edwin Drood was held at King’s Hall (King Street, Covent Garden, London); mock trial of the literary character created by Charles Dickens, with Chesterton as the judge; it was one of many mock trials held at the time.

Located on Gower Street (Bloomsbury, London); university where Gilbert took several courses in the years 1893-1895.

In 1933 Chesterton ran in the elections for rector of this Scottish university; he wasn’t elected.

Amidst the long controversy with Robert Blatchford in The Clarion pages, Chesterton was offered the English Literature chair in this university; in spite of Frances’s hopes, Gilbert rejected the post.

In 1925 Chesterton was a candidate in the elections for rector of this Scottish university; Austen Chamberlain won the contest.

This Oxfordshire valley inspired Chesterton’s epic poem The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), about king Alfred the Great.

Period of British history coinciding with the reign of Victoria of the United Kingdom, from June 1837 to 22 January 1901, date of her death; characterized by an economic prosperity brought about by huge industrialisation (Industrial Revolution) and colonialism; Victoria’s reign was the longest in British history (source: Wikipedia); this period will define the UK’s cultural and social parameters amidst the new world born of the Industrial Revolution; modernity and tradition will combine in a unique cultural and economic alliance, full of contradictions but in harmony with a society that promotes and lives through the dramatic transformations of the industrial era.

Located at 47 Fleet Street (in the City); pub where Gilbert, Cecil and Belloc often met.

In August 1914, soon after the outbreak of the First World War, David Lloyd George appointed the writer and Liberal MP Charles Masterman to organise the War Propaganda Bureau; on 2 September 1914 Masterman invited twenty-five prominent British authors to Wellington House, the Bureau’s headquarters, to discuss strategies to promote British interests during the war; among the guests, aside from G. K. Chesterton, were Arthur Conan Doyle, Arnold Bennett, William Archer, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling and H. G. Wells.

Writer and orator; descendant of a distinguished British Catholic family; cofounder of the publishing house Sheed and Ward; a personal friend of Gilbert, she published, to Frances’s request, the best-selling authorized biography Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1943); she also published Return to Chesterton (1952).

Water tower located in front of St George’s Church in Campden Hill (Kensington, London); the building features prominently in Chesterton’s first novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904).

English writer; prolific in many genres, he wrote novels, short stories and other social commentary, historical, satirical, biographical and autobiographical works; he’s remembered for his science fiction novels; he was a friend of Chesterton’s; the content of his book A Short History of the World (1922) was refuted by Chesterton in The Everlasting Man (1925), in which he rejected Wells’ views of civilisation as a perfect development of animal life, and of Jesus Christ as a charismatic figure.

Catholic cathedral located on Victoria Street (Westminster, London); G. K. Chesterton’s funeral was held there on 27 June 1936; Ronald Knox read a panegyrical.

Inn in Beaconsfield (Buckinghamshire); located on the town’s main crossroads, where Gilbert and Frances arrived after reaching Beaconsfield for the first time, walking from Slough, a neighbouring village.

American poet, essayist and journalist; a humanist, he took part in the transition from transcendentalism to realism, incorporating both views into his work; he deeply influenced Chesterton, especially in the period 1893-1895.

International reformist movement led by the suffragettes, who demanded their right to vote; born in the late 19^th century and rooted in the United States and Britain, it sowed the seeds for the future modern feminist movement; the suffragette movement, beyond demanding votes for women, was a result of the struggle of women for more rights, more participation and more prominence in the fledgling Industrial era.

Located at 145 Fleet Street (in the City); it’s one of the oldest pubs in London, which Chesterton often frequented to write, have a conversation or discussion, eat and hold parties; other notable clients of the pub were Alexander Pope, Samuel Johnson, Oliver Goldsmith, James Boswell, Charles Dickens, Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Macaulay, Alfred Tennyson and Mark Twain.