Chesterton, Gilbert Keith

(1874-1936)

   Born in London, the elder son of Edward Chesterton, head of a Kensington firm of auctioneers and estate agents, he was educated at St. Paul's School. He attended the Slade School of Art, studied English literature at London University, and became a journalist. He was received into the Roman Catholic Church in 1922. The friendship he and Hillaire Belloc developed earned them the nickname of "Chesterbelloc." His novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) was a statement against imperialism, sparked by the Boer War. In addition to his prolific poetry output, he was a literary critic of many well-known writers and the author of many short stories and of the Father Brown detective series. His volume of verse, The Wild Knightillustrated by the author - was published in 1900. Some of his poems: "A Broad Minded Bishop Rebukes the Verminous St. Francis," "'A Thank-You' for Coming to Tea," "A Vision of Edens," "A Wedding in War-Time," "Absent Friends," "Advice to a Young Man on Writing Verses," "The Babe Unborn," "The Ballad of the White Horse," "The Donkey," "The Secret People."

   Sources: Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton. Aidan Mackey, ed. Ignatius, 1994. Dictionary of National Biography. Electronic Edition, 1.1. Oxford University Press, 1997. Encyclopædia Britannica Ultimate Reference Suite DVD, 2006. The Columbia Granger's Index to Poetry. 11th ed. The Columbia Granger's World of Poetry, Columbia University Press, 2005 (http://www.columbiagrangers.org). The National Portrait Gallery (www.npg.org.uk). The Oxford Companion to English Literature. 6th edition. Margaret Drabble, ed. Oxford University Press, 2000.