検索キーワード： 著者 "G.K Chesterton" すべてのカテゴリー

Father Brown (Chesterton's sharp-witted detective priest) and Flambeau (the reformed master-thief and Brown's constant companion) are on a little vacation in Norfolk, invited to visit the mysterious Prince Saradine. It doesn't go well. Sure, Flambeau gets some good fishing in, but there's also a duel with rapiers, a couple of murders, a hanging, a case of mistaken identity, an awkward family reunion, and a gang of surly Sicilians.

The Duel of Dr. Hirsch is a short story by Gilbert Keith Chesterton: M. Maurice Brun and M. Armand Armagnac were crossing the sunlit Champs Élysées with a kind of vivacious respectability. They were both short, brisk and bold. They both had black beards that did not seem to belong to their faces, after the strange French fashion which makes real hair look like artificial. They were both young. They were both atheists, with a depressing fixity of outlook but great mobility of exposition.

"The Invisible Man" is a detective story written by G. K. Chesterton which concerns the nature of the crimes committed by one James Welkin, who had been harassing Laura Hope and menacing his romantic rival, Isidore Smythe (whom he would later murder), all without ever being seen.

The Head of Caesar is a short story by Gilbert Keith Chesterton: There is somewhere in Brompton or Kensington an interminable avenue of tall houses, rich but largely empty, that looks like a terrace of tombs. The very steps up to the dark front doors seem as steep as the side of pyramids; one would hesitate to knock at the door, lest it should be opened by a mummy. But a yet more depressing feature in the grey facade is its telescopic length and changeless continuity.

Both by calling and conviction Father Brown knew better than most of us that every man is dignified when he is dead. But even he felt a pang of incongruity when he was knocked up at daybreak and told that Sir Aaron Armstrong had been murdered. There was something absurd and unseemly about secret violence in connection with so entirely entertaining and popular a figure. For Sir Aaron Armstrong was entertaining to the point of being comic; and popular in such a manner as to be almost legendary.

"The Hammer of God," readers are surprised to learn from Father Brown that the murderer is not a violent madman but rather a very respected member of the community. The Reverend Wilfred Bohun could no longer stand the scandalous behavior of his alcoholic brother Norman, who blasphemed God and humiliated the Reverend Bohun in the eyes of his parishioners. Chesterton states that Wilfred and Norman Bohun belong to an old noble family whose descendants are now mostly "drunkards and dandy degenerates." Rumor has it that there has been "a whisper of insanity" in the Bohun family.

"The Sign of the Broken Sword" is a short story by G. K. Chesterton featuring his famous characters Father Brown and former criminal Flambeau. In the centre of a story is a mysterious death of General Sir Arthur St. Clare, who was hanged on a tree with his broken sword hung round his neck. It is a detective story and throughout it Father Brown reveals to us the mystery of General St. Clare.

"The Flying Stars" is one of Chesterton's mysteries featuring Father Brown. It's actually the first of these short stories I've read and I picked it up more because it's a Christmas mystery than to meet Father Brown, even though he is a character I'd like to read more of. The story takes place at an English manor home on Boxing Day. A young lady and the young man who lives next door are present, as is the girl's father, Colonel Adams, a newly arrived uncle and a quite rich godfather.

"The Queer Feet" deals with Flambeau wanting to steal the silverware of the members of the Twelve True Fishermen having their annual club dinner at Vernon Hotel. The Vernon Hotel is an exclusive hotel and a "topsy-turvy product" (Chesterton 1994, p. 51).

"The Blue Cross" is a short story by G. K. Chesterton. It was the first Father Brown short story and also introduces the characters Flambeau and Valentin. It is unique among the Father Brown mysteries in that it does not follow the actions of the Father himself, but rather those of Valentin.

To celebrate the new Tommy & Tuppence TV series, a brand new anthology of Golden Age detective stories by the writers who helped to inspire Agatha Christie's Partners in Crime. Agatha Christie’s Partners in Crime paid tribute to her crime-writing colleagues by including references to their...

A short biography (1902) of a famous writer (Carlyle) by another famous writer (Chesterton). The first half exhibits Chesterton’s sly wit as he ruminates upon Carlyle’s work; the second half is straightforward biography. There are a great many pictures and portraits in the physical text. - Summary by David Wales

Saint Francis of Assisi grew up in a wealthy family and his early life was characterized by splendor, riches and a lavish lifestyle. During an illness, he supposedly had a vision, after which he became disillusioned with his lifestyle and began giving everything away to beggars. His conversion was gradual, but after a pilgrimage to Rome, he supposedly hid in a cave to avoid his father's anger and then began to live a life of poverty and contrition. He is forever associated with simplicity and nature. - Summary by Lynne Thompson

For Chesterton, Francis of Assisi is a great paradoxical figure, a man who loved women but vowed himself to chastity; an artist who loved the pleasures of the natural world as few have loved them, but vowed himself to the most austere poverty, stripping himself naked in the public square so all could see that he had renounced his worldly goods; a clown who stood on his head in order to see the world aright. Chesterton gives us Francis in his world-the riotously colorful world of the High Middle Ages, a world with more pageantry and romance than we have seen before or since. Here is the Francis...

This short early twentieth century biography of Robert Louis Stevenson by polymath Chesterton and journalist Nicoll is also sometimes entitled ‘The Characteristics of Robert Louis Stevenson.’ Each author wrote a section of the whole. This recording is of the third edition which differs structurally from the first edition and has some additional material. - Summary by David Wales

This mystery of the unconscious man, far deeper than any mystery of the conscious one, existing as it does in all men, existed peculiarly in Browning, because he was a very ordinary and spontaneous man. The same thing exists to some extent in all history and all affairs. Anything that is deliberate, twisted, created as a trap and a mystery, must be discovered at last; everything that is done naturally remains mysterious. ... [T]here is between making a map of a labyrinth and making a map of a mist. The life of Robert Browning, who combines the greatest brain with the most simple temperament ...

'Madmen do not rebel against logic – they merely use it where it is not applicable.' A brilliantly unique collection of short stories, The Poet and the Lunatics was originally published in Nash's Magazine in 1921. Today, it remains a masterpiece of detective fiction. Gabriel Gale, an eccentric poet, often finds himself acting as detective when he becomes entangled in a series of bizarre and psychologically challenging events.

Examining several social and political trends of the time, Chesterton discusses contemporary discourse around family, gender roles, education, politics and more. In good humour, he defends the traditional family unit, praises women's unique role in society and promotes an education that can be both creative and moral in its teachings. He scrutinises the forces of modernity, bureaucracy and ideological reform, spiritedly arguing that the problem is not the structural powers at play in society, but the individual's failure to act rightly.

Part spy novel and part allegory, The Man Who Was Thursday centres on Gabriel Symes, a poet who was recruited by Scotland Yard to secretly infiltrate an anarchist group. During his first meeting with the anarchists, Symes is unexpectedly elected as a new delegate to the central council. Each member is named after a day of the week, and so Syme becomes ‘Thursday’. As he begins to unmask the other council members, he discovers that all is not what it seems: one by one these supposed anarchists are unveiled to be working undercover too. That is until Syme gets to man called ‘Sunday’…

The Return of Don Quixote centres on the character of Michael Herne, a gentle, quiet librarian. When Michael finds himself cast as a king in a medieval play, he reluctantly fulfils the role. But after the play's end, peculiar things start to occur: Michael begins donning armour, adopts chivalric ideals and boldly questions the hypocrisies of modern society. As Michael rallies for a movement that tackles misplaced power and dishonour, it's clear that a new Don Quixote is in town…