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

The same pen that wrote the famous Father Brown stories here presents another volume of equally delightful mystery and murder stories with a central figure running through them all. For those who like to go a bit further than plot there is an additional mental exhilaration in store. (Ontario Library Review, 1929)

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…

The year is 1984. The British government has become impersonal and apathetic, not run by a particular party or corresponding ideology, but by the random selection of a new figurehead each year. When the eccentric Auberon Quin is chosen to lead the country, the nation begins to take a whimsical turn. In an attempt to liven up London, Auberon transforms the city into a mock-medieval town, complete with crests, flags and costumes. Everything is a joke–that is until Adam Wayne, a young man claiming to be the Napoleon of Notting Hill, begins to take it seriously.

Meet Basil Grant — former judge, occasional philosopher, and full-time eccentric — as he stumbles into a secret society unlike any other. In this exclusive club, the only rule of entry is that each member must invent a brand-new profession. The more bizarre, the better. When Basil's skeptical brother and a skeptical ex-detective friend get caught in a series of baffling encounters — including duels in flower gardens, poetry-as-business, and suspiciously polite assassins — they soon uncover a world where the line between genius and madness is dangerously thin.

This epic poem is about Alfred the Great's defense of Christian England against the pagan Viking invaders. The decisive battle is fought in sight of a white horse mark made on a hill, after which the poem is named. As the white horse mark must be continually maintained by weeding to be clearly seen, Chesterton sees it as a symbol of the continual struggle to maintain the Christian culture and values for which Alfred the Great fought. - Summary by Robin Lamb

This is the fourth collection of mysteries featuring the very smart and even more devout catholic priest, Father Brown. (It follows The Innocence of Father Brown, The Wisdom of Father Brown and The Incredulity of Father Brown.) Father Brown is probably the most unconventional detective of fiction: short and dumpy, extremely shy, unvaryingly kind, and utterly unselfconscious. His secret? As a priest he has developed a far-reaching understanding of how we all feel and think. Being profoundly humble, he is able to imagine how he, personally, could be led to commit a given theft, murder or other ...

In this brief but lively biography, G.K. Chesterton brings all his typical wit and insight into discussing Francis of Assisi. Francis is arguably the most significant canonised Christian outside of the New Testament. His passionate life included so many elements of the Christian walk: a deep appreciation for evangelism, social justice, the environment, mysticism, and pacifism. Chesterton reveals all of these elements, for all their vibrancy and beauty, in Francis. - Summary by Matthew James Gray

"The Perishing of the Pendragons" by G.K. Chesterton is a Father Brown story where Father Brown is invited on a boat trip around the Cornish coast, where he encounters a family called the Pendragons, who are plagued by a mysterious curse tied to a local legend about a Spanish prisoner and a treacherous coastline.

A stormy evening of olive and silver was closing in, as Father Brown, wrapped in a grey Scotch plaid, came to the end of a grey Scotch valley and beheld the strange castle of Glengyle. It stopped one end of the glen or hollow like a blind alley; and it looked like the end of the world. Rising in steep roofs and spires of sea-green slate in the manner of the old French-Scotch chateaux, it reminded an Englishman of the sinister steeple-hats of witches in fairy tales; and the pine woods that rocked round the green turrets looked, by comparison, as black as numberless flocks of ravens.

Mr. Edward Nutt, the industrious editor of The Daily Reformer, sat at his desk, opening letters and marking proofs to the merry tune of a typewriter, worked by a vigorous young lady. He was a stoutish, fair man, in his shirt-sleeves; his movements were resolute, his mouth firm and his tones final; but his round, rather babyish blue eyes had a bewildered and even wistful look that rather contradicted all this. Nor indeed was the expression altogether misleading.

The Mistake of the Machine is a short story by Gilbert Keith Chesterton: Flambeau and his friend the priest were sitting in the Temple Gardens about sunset; and their neighbourhood or some such accidental influence had turned their talk to matters of legal process. From the problem of the licence in cross-examination, their talk strayed to Roman and mediaeval torture, to the examining magistrate in France and the Third Degree in America.

The Absence of Mr Glass: "But What about the two voices?" asked Maggie, staring. - "Have you never heard a ventriloquist?" asked Father Brown. "Don't you know they speak first in their natural voice, and then answer themselves in just that shrill, squeaky, unnatural voice that you heard?" - There was a long silence, and Dr Hood regarded the little man who had spoken with a dark and attentive smile. "You are certainly a very ingenious person," he said; "it could not have been done better in a book.