Chesterton and Evil 9780823295272

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Chesterton and Evil

STUDIES IN RELIGION AND LITERATURE

John L. Mahoney, series editor 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

John L. Mahoney, ed. Seeing into the Life ofThings: Essays on Religion and Literature. David Leigh, S.J. Circuitous Journeys: Modern Spiritual Autobiographies. J. Robert Barth, S.J. The Symbolic Imagination: Coleridge and the Romantic Tradition. Beth Hawkins. Reluctant Theologians: Franz Kafka, Paul Celan, Edmond Jabes. J. Robert Barth, S.J., ed. The Fountain Light: Studies in Romanticism and Religion. Essays in Honor cifJohn L. Mahoney. Dennis Taylor and David Beauregard, eds. Shakespeare and the Culture of Christianity in Early Modern England.

Chesterton and Evil MARK KNIGlifT

Fordham University Press New York 2004

Copyright © 2004 Fordham University Press All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any other-except for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher. Studies in Religion and Literature Series, No.7 ISSN 1096-6692

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Knight, Mark, 1972Chesterton and evil I Mark Knight.-1st ed. p. cm.-(Studies in religion and literature, ISSN 1096-6692 ; no. 7) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8232-2309-4 1. Chesterton, G. K. (Gilbert Keith), 1874-1936-Religion. 2.Christianity and literature-England-History-20th century. 3. Good and evil-History of doctrines-20th century. 4. Evil in literature. I. Title. II. Studies in religion and literature (Fordham University Press); no. 7. PR4453.C4Z67 2004 828.'91209-dc22 2003023758

Printed in the United States ofAmerica 08 07 06 05 04 5 4 3 2 1 First edition

CONTENTS Acknowledgments

vii

1.

Introduction

1

2.

The 1890s, Detective Fiction, and the Nature of Evil

29

3.

Creation and the Grotesque

59

4.

Nothingness, Solipsism, and the Grotesque

88

5.

Confession, the Church, and the Problem of Evil

125

Works Cited

153

Index

167

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Sections of this book have been published previously, and I am grateful to the editors and presses concerned for permission to reproduce the material here. An earlier version of the discussion at the end of chapter 5 was originally published as "Chesterton and the Problem of Evil" in Literature and Theology 14, no. 4 (2000): 373-84; parts of chapter 3 originally appeared as "G. K. Chesterton and the Cross" in Christianity and Literature 49, no. 4 (2000): 485-97; and some of the discussion of Basil Howe in chapter 3 was first published in a book review of Denis Conlon's edition of this novel in English Literature and Transition 45, no. 4 (2002): 464-67. Before progressing further with my acknowledgments, it is worth saying that all the faults of this book are my own responsibility. Such statements may have become rather cliched of late in authors' acknowledgments, but it is only now, with the publication of my first book, that I have really appreciated the importance of accepting full responsibility for my own shortcomings rather than implicating other people in them. The roots of this work lie in a Ph.D. that I undertook at King's College, London, between 1995 and 1999. In the acknowledgments page of that thesis I thanked a number of people for their help, and I remain as grateful to them now as I did then. Some of the people mentioned there-Rachel Carr, Denis Conlon, Adrian Gosling,John Hoyles,Aidan Mackey, Andrew Miles, and Martin Stone-were kind enough to read through parts of my doctoral thesis, and their insightful comments have remained useful in the ensuing years as my thinking on the subject has undergone further development. I also wish to thank Brian Horne, who supervised my thesis and has remained supportive of my work ever since. His friendship continues to be a great encouragement, and I still find his wise words helpful. Moreover, Brian's interest in people and his

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

willingness to explore new ideas openly, enthusiastically, and rigorously remain a model of academic life for me. I am grateful to Fordham University Press for their decision to publish this book. G. K. Chesterton is not the most popular of subjects in some scholarly circles, but their support for this project has been unwavering and greatly appreciated. From the very start,John Mahoney has proved himself to be an excellent series editor, offering a level of transparency, professionalism, and encouragement that has been extremely welcome. I am also indebted to the helpful comments provided by the anonymous readers and the copy editor, Andrew Pidoux, as well as to the excellent work put in by the staff at the press. This book has taken shape while I have been part of the School of English and Modern Languages at Roehampton University of Surrey. My colleagues have provided a supportive environment for me as I have worked on the manuscript. They have contributed indirectly to this book by shaping my thinking on a wide range of issues, from how I read texts to the way in which I understand a whole host of theoretical issues. I also wish to acknowledge the contribution of my students to my thinking over the past few years. Although there is a tendency among certain elements of the higher education system to depersonalize students and treat them as commodities, clients, or even an inconvenience, I, like many others, have increasingly come to value the multitude of ways in which they enrich my life. The more that I work with students, the more that I appreciate the striking interaction that exists between teaching and research. If any of my former students should happen to chance upon a copy of this book and remember its author, I hope they will see their own profound influence upon the thought within it. John Schad, Mark Turner, and Tom Woodman were kind enough to read through parts of the manuscript and offer helpful comments. They have been great sources of assistance as I have prepared this book, and I would like to thank them for all their time. I also wish to express my appreciation to those who have shared coffee with me at the British Library and helped to keep me sane. In particular my thanks go to Ross Forman, Andrew King, Graham Law, Andrew Maunder, and Ana Vadillo.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

IX

As all academics will be aware, scholarly actiVIty is not as divorced from the "real" world as some would have us believe. On a general level, ideas have consequences, but on a more mundane note, none of us writes and thinks in a vacuum. I say this as a prelude to acknowledging the many ways in which friends and family members have contributed to this project. I am fortunate to be part of a wonderful group of people at Raynes Park Community Church, and I continue to be inspired by the individuals there. Among others, my good friend Russell Rook has helped me to aspire and work toward living out the Christian faith I profess, and I am indebted to him. My family has been another generous source of support, and my thanks go out to Mum, Dad, and my in-laws for all the love they have shown me. And finally,Jo, my wife and best friend. Faced with the evil that confronts us through the media and our own daily experiences, it is easy to lose sight of the joy that life holds for us. Jo provides a constant reminder of just how much there is to be grateful for in this world, and this book is dedicated to her.

1

Introduction THE PUBLICATION in December 1901 of The Difendant by Gilbert Keith Chesterton (187 4-1936) caused considerable debate. Gathering together a series of essays that had appeared in the Speaker earlier that year, the book offered a defense of various aspects of popular culture, including penny dreadfuls, detective stories, and useful information. 1 Were a similar book to be published today, it would not be unreasonable to add Chesterton himself to the list of things in need of a contemporary apologist. Yet while his admirers are fewer in number than they were at the start of the twentieth century, people continue to read Chesterton's work. The willingness of publishers to keep reprinting books by him attests to this, as does the presence of several societies devoted to promoting and discussing his work. One might also note that the increasing number of undergraduate degree courses on crime fiction has helped to acquaint a new generation of readers with Chesterton via the Father Brown stories and ensure that he does not lie completely forgotten. In the process of writing this book, I have spoken to various scholars who, when pressed, recall "something interesting" in a work of Chesterton that they once read. Yet in spite of the healthy awareness among current scholars of his potential to contribute something interesting, there is little doubt that Chesterton has of late become an increasingly marginal figure in literary studies. Surveys of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries regularly ignore him altogether, as in the case of Douglas Hewitt's English Fiction of the Early Modern Period, 1890-1940 (1988), or include only the briefest of references to him. In David Trotter's The English Novel in History, 1895-1920 (1993), for instance, there is a short discussion of the Father Brown stories and just one other quote from Chesterton (relating to Charles Dickens). Glancing through the indexes of more

2

CHESTERTON AND EVIL

recent specialized studies covering aspects of literature in this period, a newcomer to Chesterton might easily conclude that the writer belonged to a different era altogether. 2 Part of the reason for the decline in Chesterton's reputation is the difficulty we face when trying to categorize the period in which he wrote his major work. Academics may have become more conscious in recent years of the arbitrary demarcations that we use when talking about literary history, but faced with the inevitability of demarcations of one sort or other, we continue to turn to the categories of Victorianism and modernism. The most fruitful recent attempt to deal with material that falls between these categories, namely, the journal English Literature in Transition 1880-1920, still defines itself in terms of a "transition" between these periods, rather than creating a truly independent space. One of the problems with this reliance on Victorianism and modernism is that both categories have an inherent tendency to exclude serious consideration of Chesterton. Those who wish to extend the remit of the Victorian period often make reference to the "lateVictorian period" or the "long nineteenth century." Helpful though this is, little of the work that has appeared under this rubric in the past decade or so has paid much attention to Chesterton. The unease among scholars about including in this bracket a writer who did not publish a full-length work before 1900 is understandable, but at the same time it highlights the limitations of extending the nineteenth century to account for the years at the start of the twentieth century. Similat difficulties lie behind the exclusion of Chesterton from the recent resurgence of interest in the 1890s and the fin de siecle, though the formative nature of this period for Chesterton makes the exclusion particularly unfortunate. Attempts to locate Chesterton within the framework of modernism have proved no more successful. Although modernism has come to be seen in more fluid terms of late, it remains difficult to accommodate Chesterton within this paradigm. In his new book G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist, and Critic (2002),John Coates attempts to solve this dilemma by focusing on the cultural dimension of modernism. The broader scope that this approach involves allows Coates to establish a continuity between

INTRODUCTION

3

the epistemological uncertainties of modernism and the other cultural crises he perceives in our own day. Coates then uses this framework to posit Chesterton as a figure who diagnosed the root causes of these "cultural" problems at an early stage. 3 While there is something to be said for the reading that Coates offers, one of its weaknesses is that Chesterton's work became increasingly distant from the literary experimentation employed by writers such as James Joyce (1882-1944). We can only conclude from this that elastic definitions of modernism do not really help us connect Chesterton with the central writers and techniques of this movement. An alternative approach to relating Chesterton and modernism is offered by Robert Caserio in his contribution to Lynne Hapgood and Nancy Paxton's Outside Modernism: In Pursuit if the English Novel, 190()-30 (2000). Rather than seeing Chesterton as an absolute outsider, Caserio argues that The Man Mlho Was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908) utilizes the ambiguity and equivocal meanings of modernism as means to an end. Building on the suggestion that Chesterton uses the techni~ue to help establish the certainty he seeks, Caserio conjectures that "modernism in general, no less than The Man Mlho Was Thursday, is the double-writing Chesterton uses as an ultimate exit from error, as after all a foil to equivocation" (67). Caserio's ingenious argument provides a means of connecting Chesterton to modernism, but even if it does turn out to be "tenable" (67), it is not easily transported into the rest of Chesterton's fictional work. In the face of what she terms the "monolith of modernism" (24), Nicola Humble adopts a different strategy to accommodate the material that she wishes to cover in The Feminine Middlebrow Novel (2001). Instead of trying to modify modernism in an attempt to squeeze her material in, Humble prefers to look for a different label. She explains:"We can renegotiate its [modernism's) definition endlessly, but it brings us no closer to seeing the literary map of the time as contemporaries would have seen it" (25). Humble's point is well made, and the category of the feminine middlebrow novel that she uses is entirely suitable for the writers of the interwar years that she wishes to examine. However, it is far harder to find an equivalent niche in which to locate Chesterton.

4

CHESTERTON AND EVIL

One possibility is to look to the Edwardian age. Reference works such as Sandra Kemp, Charlotte Mitchell, and David Trotter's Edwardian Fiction: An Oxford Companion (1997) make it clear that there is a wide range of interesting material in this area. Unfortunately, though, even if we leave aside the limitations of Edwardian fiction's fairly narrow chronological coverage, we are left with the problem of an era that has generally failed to capture the interest of the broader scholarly community. The lack of appeal that the Edwardian era holds for many scholars can be attributed partly to some of the major figures within it. One writer who immediately comes to mind in this list is Hilaire Belloc (1870-1953), a figure whom Chesterton met in 1900 and subsequently collaborated with on different projects. While Belloc has his fans, for many, the prospect of having to read this rather pompous writer alongside Chesterton is a good reason to forget about Chesterton altogether. But there is no reason why he must be thought about in terms of a friendship that George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) termed the "Chesterbelloc." Although the close friendship that Belloc enjoyed with Chesterton is an important factor in any consideration of Chesterton's economic and political views, Belloc is not the only person with whom he can be linked. As this study goes on to show, Chesterton enjoyed strong relationships with a range of other writers at the start of the twentieth century. His impact on English literary life at this time means that he can be fruitfully compared with a broader collection of writers, such as Joseph Conrad (1857-1924) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930).

CHESTERTON'S APPROACH TO FICTION

The problem of categorizing the period in which he wrote is not the only reason Chesterton lies neglected. Other factors include the status of high culture in the aftermath of modernism. Critics may routinely attack. the Bloomsbury set, among others, for privileging works of high art over popular fiction, but it is the former rather than the latter that continues to provide both the material and the criteria for much of this critical discussion. The pervasive influence of modernism on matters of literary taste is illustrated

INTRODUCTION

5

powerfully in George Orwell's Keep the Aspidistra Flying (1936). In this novel, Gordon Comstock insists on reading Shakespeare alongside Sherlock Holmes, yet this subversive juxtaposition of high and low reading matter and Comstock's mockery of the literary divisions made by the middle-class customers who frequent the library where he works are effectively undermined by his ongoing literary snobbery. Describing the "yellow-jacketed trash" (228) that lines the shelves of Mr. Cheeseman's twopenny library, the narrative registers Comstock's distaste: "Nothing has ever been devised that puts less strain on the intelligence" (228). Comstock's problem is one that many critics continue to share-a tendency to approach all writing via the aesthetic standards of high culture. In response to this tendency, Chesterton argued that different types of writing needed to be judged on their own merits. Writing on penny dreadfuls in The Defendant, he explained: "The boy's novelette may be ignorant in a literary sense ... but it is not vulgar intrinsically-it is the actual centre of a million flaming imaginations" (19). Unfortunately, this argument continues to be ignored as critics insist on comparing Chesterton's literary output to that of writers such as James Joyce and Virginia Woolf. Such comparisons, however, are entirely inappropriate given the range of Chesterton's writing and the emphasis that he placed upon his career as a journalist. Rather than trying to produce great works of literature, Chesterton poured much of his energy into Fleet Street, contributing, among other things, weekly essays to the Daily News (from 1901 to 1913) and the fllustrated London News (from 1905 to 1936). When Chesterton did turn his hand to fictional works, it was hardly surprising that he should approach them in the same way as he did his journalism: writing quickly and refusing to edit things carefully. Strangely enough, Chesterton's failure to follow in the footsteps of his modernist contemporaries was the cause of some disappointment to those who knew him best. His wife, Frances, wanted her husband to be a great writer rather than a prolific journalist. According to the biographer Alzina Stone Dale, Frances "was convinced he was meant to be a novelist" (Outline if Sanity, 57). She was supported in this view by others, including Dorothy Collins, who became Chesterton's secretary in 1926 and continued in this capacity until his death. Even Chesterton's brother

6

CHESTERTON AND EVIL

Cecil (1879-1918) expressed concern that his sibling's reputation might suffer in the future as a consequence of the diversity and amount of material he had produced. Despite revealing in G. K. Chesterton: A Criticism (1908) a degree of admiration for his brother's "effervescent desire to write everything that comes into his head" (261), Cecil expressed a worry that "Mr. Chesterton's extraordinary versatility and copiousness of output is beyond doubt a danger to his permanent position in literature" (260). While such views did not stop Chesterton from writing prolifically, they did affect his own perception of his work, as the following extract from his autobiography (1936) suggests: Considered as stories, in the sense of anecdotes, these things seem to me to have been more or less fresh and personal, but considered as novels, they were not only not as good as a real novelist would have made them, but they were not as good as I might have made them myself, if I had really even been trying to be a real novelist. And among many more abject reasons for not being able to be a novelist, is the fact that I always have been and presumably always shall be a journalist. (298)

The dichotomy that Chesterton constructs here between art and propaganda is one that Ian Boyd contests in his influential study The Novels of G. K. Chesterton: A Study in Art and Propaganda (1975). Boyd persuasively argues that we should take Chesterton's fictional work more seriously and acknowledge the rich crossover between writing novels and being a journalist. Chesterton's journalism and fiction meet in the polemical style of writing that he adopted. In G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist, and Critic, John Coates describes Chesterton's novels in terms of the "Edwardian novel of ideas" (114). Naturally, as Coates's description implies, Chesterton was not the only author to adopt this genre. H. G. Wells (1866-1946) was another well-known exemplar of the novel of ideas, and this was the subject of his famous debate with Henry James (1843-1916) at the turn of the twentieth century about the role of the novelist. 4 The general consensus among critics that James won this argument has not been good for Chesterton's reputation, particularly given Chesterton's openness about his polemical intent. Believing that

INTRODUCTION

7

"[m)en tell more truth by their metaphors than by their statements" ("Objections to the Party System," 648), Chesterton defended the presence and use of propaganda in literature. In The Thing (1929) he wrote: "Personally, I am all for propaganda; and a great deal of what I write is deliberately propagandist. But even when it is not in the least propagandist, it will probably be full of the implications of my own religion; because that is what is meant by having a religion" (113). In practice, of course, fictional texts that are "full of the implications" of religion contain more ambiguity than Chesterton's admission of propaganda might initially suggest. Even so, Chesterton's polemical style has attracted substantial criticism over the years. Some of this is warranted, but much of it is exaggerated and bears the traces of a modernist propensity toward artistic disengagement. Ironically, George Orwell (1903-50), a writer who consciously rejected the apolitical stance of modernism for a style of writing that was more politically engaged, complained in "Great Is Diana of the Ephesians" (1948) that "Chesterton was a writer of considerable talent who chose to suppress his sensibilities and his intellectual honesty in the cause ofRornan Catholic propaganda .... Every book that he wrote, every paragraph, every sentence, had to demonstrate beyond possibility of mistake the superiority of the Catholic over the Protestant or the pagan" (Conlon, Half Century, 102). 5

THE RELIGIOUS CONTEXT

A closer look at Orwell's charge against Chesterton is quite telling. It reveals that the criticism that has helped marginalize Chesterton has more to do with the theological content of his work than with his polemical writing per se. Chesterton's awareness of this prejudice can be seen in the comments that he makes about propaganda in The Thing. He questions why theological propaganda should come in for special criticism when it is simply one of the countless philosophies expressed in literature: "[T)his world of to-day does not know that all the novels and newspapers that it reads or writes are in fact full of certain assumptions, that are just as dogmatic as dogmas .... Yet they have in practice all the double character of

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CHESTERTON AND EVIL

propaganda; they involve certain views with which everyone does not agree; and they do in fact spread those views by means of fiction and popular literature" (117). Chesterton's observation about the inconsistency of those who insist on excluding theology from literature is still pertinent a century on. There are a significant number of literary scholars who continue to treat theology with some suspicion. Perhaps the most glaring consequence of this is that religion is frequently written out of literary histories of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Ignoring recent developments in the history and sociology of religion, many literary critics continue to presume that a linear and comprehensive process of secularization was largely complete in Britain by the late nineteenth century. While it would be foolish to deny that England had undergone a significant degree of secularization by 1900, the process was more uneven and incomplete than some would have us believe. In Religion and Society in England, 1850-1914 (1996), the church historian Hugh McLeod specifically identifies "the period 1890-1914 as the one in which there was a general consciousness of religious crisis" (222-23). By situating 1890-1914 as the period in which the role of religion was at the forefront of public debate, McLeod indirectly helps to explain a number of other cultural trends of those years, including the interest in the occult and spirituality during the late nineteenth century; the turn to Catholicism among fin de siecle and modernist writers; and the interest in primal religion and sacred texts that is evident in the writings of figures such as D. H. Lawrence (1885-1930). These and other trends suggest a continuing place for religion in literary life at the turn of the twentieth century. In Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim (1900), Marlow may prefer to attribute unfortunate events to chance rather than to "a [deity's] sinister violence of intention" (50), but the narrator of Ford Maddox Ford's The Good Soldier (1915) cannot shake off the possibility that the events that transpire are "[l)ike one of those sinister jokes that Providence plays upon one" (64). Given the theological uncertainty to which these and other contemporary texts allude, rejecting the religious writings of Chesterton from our study of the period on the grounds that they are unrepresentative and culturally irrelevant is a circular argument.

IN1RODUCTION

9

Although not every critic is oblivious to the religious dimension of literary life in the early twentieth century, few have examined the subject in detail, and even fewer have looked at it in relation to Chesterton. Books covering Chesterton's religious perspective, ranging from David Fagerberg's relatively uncritical The Size of Chesterton's Catholicism (1998) to Quentin Lauer's more successful G. K. Chesterton: Philosopher Without Porifolio (1988), do not extend their discussion to include the cultural context of the early twentieth century. John Coates's Chesterton and the Edwardian Cultural Crisis (1984) and G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist, and Critic do examine Chesterton within his cultural context, but as Coates is the first to admit, neither is concerned primarily with Chesterton's religious thought. One book that manages to combine a discussion of religion with a broader appreciation of the immediate cultural context is Thomas Woodman's Faithful Fictions: The Catholic Novel in British Fiction (1991).Yet the fact that this book is concerned with a broad range of Catholic writers from the twentieth century means that the analysis of Chesterton's religious perspective is necessarily limited. That said, Woodman's observations are insightful and far more useful than the poorly developed analysis of The Man Ulho Was Thursday: A Nightmare and The Innocence if Father Brown to be found in Joseph Kestner's The Edwardian Detective, 1901-1915 (2000). The search for a thorough analysis of Chesterton's work that is culturally sensitive and theologically aware does not fare any better in Decadence and Catholicism (1997), Ellis Hanson's gendered reading of religion in the late nineteenth century. In contrast with the sustained and insightful readings of the other Catholic writers that he covers, Hanson finds space for only a couple of passing references to Chesterton. One of these, describing Chesterton as "a contemporary ofWilde and the very archetype of the smug and earnest convert" (264), is deeply misleading. Chesterton may have been an earnest convert, but he can hardly be called smug; his willingness to put his religious views into the public sphere for discussion calls for an entirely different assessment to be made. He regularly entered into debate with a range of figures, from the writer and proprietor of the Clarion, Robert

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CHESTERTON AND EVIL

Blatchford (1851-1943), to the American lawyer Clarence Darrow (1857-1938). 6 Despite their polemical style, many of Chesterton's novels extend this spirit of dialogue. In The Return of Don Quixote, for example,Jack Braintree and Douglas Murrel spend much of their time debating with one another, while in The Ball and the Cross the duel that James Turnbull and Evan Madan are willing to fight for the sake of their beliefs is one that soon gives way to dialogue and friendship. Commenting on this tendency, Coates argues in chapter 3 of G. K. Chesterton as Controversialist, Essayist, Novelist, and Critic that dialogue is central to the narrative structure of The Ball and the Cross and an important component in Chesterton's contribution to the Edwardian novel of ideas. Not only did Chesterton engage with the ideas of others, but he also became good friends with some of his fiercest opponents. Two of Chesterton's most famous sparring partners, H. G. Wells and George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), are examined in separate chapters of Heretics (1905). In both cases the strong rhetorical language with which Chesterton denounces the two men is matched by an acknowledgment of their respective strengths as thinkers. Wells is praised for his "honesty" (69) and described as a "man of genius" (67), while Shaw is admired for being "a thoroughly consistent man" (50). Although Shaw's relationship with Chesterton has been commented upon at length, notably by William Furlong in his book Shaw and Chesterton: The Metaphysical Jesters (1970), Wells's close friendship with Chesterton seems to have escaped detailed comment, hence, at least in part, my decision to dwell on the latter relationship in chapter 4. To be fair to Hanson, some of the things that have been written about Chesterton by enthusiasts of his writing encourage the view that Chesterton embodies a smug religiosity that is devoid of any critical thought. Sister Marie Virginia's G. K. Chesterton's Evangel (1937) provides a prime example of the sort of uncritical approach to Chesterton that has led many to dismiss his writings. The closing pages of Virginia's book bear more resemblance to a homily than to a critical assessment of Chesterton: "Before we turn the last pages of this book, let us pay our loving tribute to the memory of Mr. Chesterton. For him, Christ's crusader and Our Lady's minstrel, we shall often pray. His lips have been hushed by the Divine Master

INTRODUCTION

11

whom he served so well with his pen, but his works will live" (239). A further example of uncritical devotion can be found in Patrick Braybrooke's comment in The Wisdom of G. K. Chesterton (1929): "What is Chesterton's worst book? There is but one answer. The book he has not yet written, the book he will never write" (240).

THE IMPORTANCE OF THE YEARS 1890TO 1914 Where Hanson is right, however, is in describing Chesterton as a contemporary of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900).This is far more helpful than selecting the median of the dates during which Chesterton's work was published and then presuming that he should be compared with other figures from the years immediately following the end of the First World War. If Chesterton is to be rehabilitated as a figure of literary interest, he needs to be examined in the context of the years 1890 to 1914. I have no plans to adhere rigidly to these dates in the study that followsdoing so would be as artificial as it would be limiting--but I do want to contend that this was the period in which Chesterton engaged most successfully with contemporary ideas and writers. It was also the period in which Chesterton produced his most imaginative writing. Despite the fact that his later work includes his outstanding autobiography, much of Chesterton's best work was written in the earlier part of his literary career. Some of the later Father Brown stories, notably those collected in The Scandal of Father Brown (1935), lack the innovation and wit of The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) and The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914), while the only novel published after 1914, The Return of Don Quixote (1927), fares badly in comparison with Chesterton's early work. John Coates may offer a more positive assessment of The Return of Don Quixote in Chesterton and the Edwardian Cultural Crisis, but he is still willing to admit a general decline in the quality of Chesterton's later fiction: "Collections of stories like Tales of the Long Bow (1925), The Poet and the Lunatics (1929), and Four Faultless Felons (1930) contain much that is both thoughtful and diverting but they cannot be compared with the pre-war novels" (17). I would go one step further than this and argue that, with

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the exception of the Father Brown tales, none of Chesterton's collections of short stories sustain a high standard. 7 In spite of their "thoughtful and diverting" content, these collections lack the depth and cohesion that is to be found in Chesterton's early work. There are many factors that help to explain the decline of Chesterton's literary work in the years after 1914: the impact of the First World War; periods of physical illness, including a nervous breakdown in 1914-15; the death of Cecil, his close friend and brother, in 1918; several periods of travel after the war; a tendency to produce more overtly theological works in the years surrounding and following his entry into the Catholic Church in 1922; and, most importantly, the taking over of the editorship of The New Witness from Cecil after his death. Relaunched as G. K. sUleekly in 1925, the periodical occupied a considerable amount of Chesterton's time and energy up until his death in 1936, both directly, because of the editorial work required, and indirectly, because of the need to publish new material of his own elsewhere in order to support the periodical financially. 8 Although Chesterton shed considerable light on English culture in the interwar period, his impact on the literary scene was at its greatest in the fourteen years preceding the outbreak of the First World War. With this in mind, the focus of this book is on the fiction that Chesterton published between 1900 and 1914. I argue that to understand this material properly we need to read it in the context of ideas that were circulating from the 1890s onward. Biographical a