Biography

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in Campden Hill, Kensington on May 29th, 1874. Originally after attending St Paul’s School, he went to Slade to learn the illustrator's art and literature. In 1896, he joined a small London publisher and began his journalistic career as a freelance art and literary critic. In 1901, he married Frances Blogg, to whom he remained married for the rest of his life. Thereafter, he obtained weekly columns in the Daily News and The Illustrated London News. For many, he is known as a very fine novelist and the creator of the Father Brown Detective stories, which were much influenced by his own beliefs.

A large man – 6’ 4½” and 21st in weight – he was apt to be forgetful in that delightful way that the British sometimes are – a telegram home to his wife saying he was in one place but where should he actually be. But he was prolific in many other areas; he wrote plays, essays, loved to debate, and wrote hundreds of poems. This volume is the classic What’s Wrong With The World. Chesterton died of congestive heart failure on 14th June 1936 and is buried in Beaconsfield just outside of London.