author - "G. K. Chesterton"
Description
The Napoleon of Notting Hill, like so many Chesterton novels, deftly straddles the fence between humor and philosophy. The place is London, in the far-future year of 1984. Inexplicably, not too much has changed since the turn of the century—except that the king is chosen at random. Things quickly take a turn for the worse when the people randomly select an imbecile who only cares about a good joke.
With the new prankster king in place, the novel continues on with surprisingly action-packed breeziness, exploring themes of identity, patriotism, politics, and government.
Description
Father Brown is a Catholic priest, but a slightly unusual one in that he’s also an amateur detective. Unlike his more famous literary cousin Sherlock, Father Brown takes a less analytical and more intuition-oriented approach to solving the many murders that he happens to come across.
This collection of short murder mysteries is Brown’s first appearance on the literary stage. In it we see him practicing his unique brand of sleuthing alongside his sometimes-partner, the reformed master criminal Flambeau.
Description
Sometimes described as thrilling, sometimes as comic, and sometimes as metaphysical or spiritual, The Man Who Was Thursday is perhaps a little of each. The tale begins when an undercover policeman infiltrates a mysterious Anarchist group. As the novel progresses, things become more comic and improbable, and eventually evolve in to a sort of abstract, dreamlike state. Filled with Christian allegory, Thursday is a glittering, fascinating exploration of good versus evil and theology through the lens of adventure, wit, and the surreal.
at he is hardly even a caricaturist; that he is something very like a realist. Those comic monstrosities which the critics found incredible will be found to be the immense majority of the citizens of this country. We shall find that Sweedlepipe cuts our hair and Pumblechook sells our cereals; that Sam Weller blacks our boots and Tony Weller drives our omnibus. For the exaggerated notion of the exaggerations of Dickens (as was admirably pointed out by my old friend and enemy Mr. Blatchford in a Clarion review) is very largely due to our mixing with only one social class, whose conventions are very strict, and to whose affectations we are accustomed. In cabmen, in cobblers, in charwomen, individuality is often pushed to the edge of insanity. But as long as the Thackerayan platform of gentility stood firm all this was, comparatively speaking, concealed. For the English, of all nations, have the most uniform upper class and the most varied democracy. In France it is the peasants who are solid to uniformi
el path.
"Who on earth are you?" he gasped, trembling violently.
"I am Major Brown," said that individual, who was always cool in the hour of action.
The old man gaped helplessly like some monstrous fish. At last he stammered wildly, "Come down--come down here!"
"At your service," said the Major, and alighted at a bound on the grass beside him, without disarranging his silk hat.
The old man turned his broad back and set off at a sort of waddling run towards the house, followed with swift steps by the Major. His guide led him through the back passages of a gloomy, but gorgeously appointed house, until they reached the door of the front room. Then the old man turned with a face of apoplectic terror dimly showing in the twilight.
"For heaven's sake," he said, "don't mention jackals."
Then he threw open the door, releasing a burst of red lamplight, and ran downstairs with a clatter.
The Major stepped into a rich, glowing room, full of red copper, and peacock
row of cafes,until I saw again a distant column crowned with a dancing figure;the freedom that danced over the fall of the Bastille.Here at least, I thought, is an origin and a standard,such as I missed in the mere muddle of industrial opportunism.The modern industrial world is not in the least democratic; but it issupposed to be democratic, or supposed to be trying to be democratic.The ninth century, the time of the Norse invasions, was not saintlyin the sense of being filled with saints; it was filled with piratesand petty tyrants, and the first feudal anarchy. But sanctitywas the only ideal those barbarians had, when they had any at all.And democracy is the only ideal the industrial millions have,when they have any at all. Sanctity was the light of the Dark Ages,or if you will the dream of the Dark Ages. And democracy is the dreamof the dark age of industrialism; if it be very much of a dream.It is this which prophets promise to achieve, and politicians pretendto achieve, and poets some
up in astonishment, and as Mrs MacNab ran down the street to meet them with lean hands similarly spread, and her fierce face in shadow, she was a little like a demon herself. The doctor and the priest made scant reply to her shrill reiterations of her daughter's story, with more disturbing details of her own, to the divided vows of vengeance against Mr Glass for murdering, and against Mr Todhunter for being murdered, or against the latter for having dared to want to marry her daughter, and for not having lived to do it. They passed through the narrow passage in the front of the house until they came to the lodger's door at the back, and there Dr Hood, with the trick of an old detective, put his shoulder sharply to the panel and burst in the door.
It opened on a scene of silent catastrophe. No one seeing it, even for a flash, could doubt that the room had been the theatre of some thrilling collision between two, or perhaps more, persons. Playing-cards lay littered across the table or fluttered about the
oking for them here."
March thought of asking him what he was looking for; but, feeling unequalto a technical discussion at least as deep as the deep-sea fishes,he returned to more ordinary topics.
"Delightful sort of hole this is," he said. "This little delland river here. It's like those places Stevenson talks about,where something ought to happen."
"I know," answered the other. "I think it's because the place itself,so to speak, seems to happen and not merely to exist.Perhaps that's what old Picasso and some of the Cubists are tryingto express by angles and jagged lines. Look at that wall likelow cliffs that juts forward just at right angles to the slopeof turf sweeping up to it. That's like a silent collision.It's like a breaker and the back-wash of a wave."
March looked at the low-browed crag overhanging the greenslope and nodded. He was interested in a man who turnedso easily from the technicalities of science to those of art;and asked him if he admired the new angular art
The Blue Cross
The Secret Garden
The Queer Feet
The Flying Stars
The Invisible Man
The Honour of Israel Gow
The Wrong Shape
The Sins of Prince Saradine
The Hammer of God
The Eye of Apollo
The Sign of the Broken Sword
The Three Tools of Death
ome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is THIS achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages.
But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, who discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England. I do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical; and I do not quite see (to tell the truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dulness will, however, free me from the charge which I most lament; the charge of being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible. If it were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shaw lived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for a man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes. It is as easy as lying
Description
The Napoleon of Notting Hill, like so many Chesterton novels, deftly straddles the fence between humor and philosophy. The place is London, in the far-future year of 1984. Inexplicably, not too much has changed since the turn of the century—except that the king is chosen at random. Things quickly take a turn for the worse when the people randomly select an imbecile who only cares about a good joke.
With the new prankster king in place, the novel continues on with surprisingly action-packed breeziness, exploring themes of identity, patriotism, politics, and government.
Description
Father Brown is a Catholic priest, but a slightly unusual one in that he’s also an amateur detective. Unlike his more famous literary cousin Sherlock, Father Brown takes a less analytical and more intuition-oriented approach to solving the many murders that he happens to come across.
This collection of short murder mysteries is Brown’s first appearance on the literary stage. In it we see him practicing his unique brand of sleuthing alongside his sometimes-partner, the reformed master criminal Flambeau.
Description
Sometimes described as thrilling, sometimes as comic, and sometimes as metaphysical or spiritual, The Man Who Was Thursday is perhaps a little of each. The tale begins when an undercover policeman infiltrates a mysterious Anarchist group. As the novel progresses, things become more comic and improbable, and eventually evolve in to a sort of abstract, dreamlike state. Filled with Christian allegory, Thursday is a glittering, fascinating exploration of good versus evil and theology through the lens of adventure, wit, and the surreal.
at he is hardly even a caricaturist; that he is something very like a realist. Those comic monstrosities which the critics found incredible will be found to be the immense majority of the citizens of this country. We shall find that Sweedlepipe cuts our hair and Pumblechook sells our cereals; that Sam Weller blacks our boots and Tony Weller drives our omnibus. For the exaggerated notion of the exaggerations of Dickens (as was admirably pointed out by my old friend and enemy Mr. Blatchford in a Clarion review) is very largely due to our mixing with only one social class, whose conventions are very strict, and to whose affectations we are accustomed. In cabmen, in cobblers, in charwomen, individuality is often pushed to the edge of insanity. But as long as the Thackerayan platform of gentility stood firm all this was, comparatively speaking, concealed. For the English, of all nations, have the most uniform upper class and the most varied democracy. In France it is the peasants who are solid to uniformi
el path.
"Who on earth are you?" he gasped, trembling violently.
"I am Major Brown," said that individual, who was always cool in the hour of action.
The old man gaped helplessly like some monstrous fish. At last he stammered wildly, "Come down--come down here!"
"At your service," said the Major, and alighted at a bound on the grass beside him, without disarranging his silk hat.
The old man turned his broad back and set off at a sort of waddling run towards the house, followed with swift steps by the Major. His guide led him through the back passages of a gloomy, but gorgeously appointed house, until they reached the door of the front room. Then the old man turned with a face of apoplectic terror dimly showing in the twilight.
"For heaven's sake," he said, "don't mention jackals."
Then he threw open the door, releasing a burst of red lamplight, and ran downstairs with a clatter.
The Major stepped into a rich, glowing room, full of red copper, and peacock
row of cafes,until I saw again a distant column crowned with a dancing figure;the freedom that danced over the fall of the Bastille.Here at least, I thought, is an origin and a standard,such as I missed in the mere muddle of industrial opportunism.The modern industrial world is not in the least democratic; but it issupposed to be democratic, or supposed to be trying to be democratic.The ninth century, the time of the Norse invasions, was not saintlyin the sense of being filled with saints; it was filled with piratesand petty tyrants, and the first feudal anarchy. But sanctitywas the only ideal those barbarians had, when they had any at all.And democracy is the only ideal the industrial millions have,when they have any at all. Sanctity was the light of the Dark Ages,or if you will the dream of the Dark Ages. And democracy is the dreamof the dark age of industrialism; if it be very much of a dream.It is this which prophets promise to achieve, and politicians pretendto achieve, and poets some
up in astonishment, and as Mrs MacNab ran down the street to meet them with lean hands similarly spread, and her fierce face in shadow, she was a little like a demon herself. The doctor and the priest made scant reply to her shrill reiterations of her daughter's story, with more disturbing details of her own, to the divided vows of vengeance against Mr Glass for murdering, and against Mr Todhunter for being murdered, or against the latter for having dared to want to marry her daughter, and for not having lived to do it. They passed through the narrow passage in the front of the house until they came to the lodger's door at the back, and there Dr Hood, with the trick of an old detective, put his shoulder sharply to the panel and burst in the door.
It opened on a scene of silent catastrophe. No one seeing it, even for a flash, could doubt that the room had been the theatre of some thrilling collision between two, or perhaps more, persons. Playing-cards lay littered across the table or fluttered about the
oking for them here."
March thought of asking him what he was looking for; but, feeling unequalto a technical discussion at least as deep as the deep-sea fishes,he returned to more ordinary topics.
"Delightful sort of hole this is," he said. "This little delland river here. It's like those places Stevenson talks about,where something ought to happen."
"I know," answered the other. "I think it's because the place itself,so to speak, seems to happen and not merely to exist.Perhaps that's what old Picasso and some of the Cubists are tryingto express by angles and jagged lines. Look at that wall likelow cliffs that juts forward just at right angles to the slopeof turf sweeping up to it. That's like a silent collision.It's like a breaker and the back-wash of a wave."
March looked at the low-browed crag overhanging the greenslope and nodded. He was interested in a man who turnedso easily from the technicalities of science to those of art;and asked him if he admired the new angular art
The Blue Cross
The Secret Garden
The Queer Feet
The Flying Stars
The Invisible Man
The Honour of Israel Gow
The Wrong Shape
The Sins of Prince Saradine
The Hammer of God
The Eye of Apollo
The Sign of the Broken Sword
The Three Tools of Death
ome. We need to be happy in this wonderland without once being merely comfortable. It is THIS achievement of my creed that I shall chiefly pursue in these pages.
But I have a peculiar reason for mentioning the man in a yacht, who discovered England. For I am that man in a yacht. I discovered England. I do not see how this book can avoid being egotistical; and I do not quite see (to tell the truth) how it can avoid being dull. Dulness will, however, free me from the charge which I most lament; the charge of being flippant. Mere light sophistry is the thing that I happen to despise most of all things, and it is perhaps a wholesome fact that this is the thing of which I am generally accused. I know nothing so contemptible as a mere paradox; a mere ingenious defence of the indefensible. If it were true (as has been said) that Mr. Bernard Shaw lived upon paradox, then he ought to be a mere common millionaire; for a man of his mental activity could invent a sophistry every six minutes. It is as easy as lying