G. K. Chesterton, one of the most versatile men of letters of his generation--he distinguished himself, to a greater or lesser degree, as essayist, poet, novelist, playwright, detective story writer, polemicist, art critic, literary critic, Christian apologist--gives a clue to his attitude toward the biographer's art in his Autobiography, published posthumously in 1936 and composed during the last years of his life. He warns readers of Robert Browning (1903), the first of his biographies, that they will find in the book few biographical facts, and these nearly all wrong. The old man is, of course, having a bit of fun, but it remains true that Chesterton's approach to biography was scarcely orthodox, whatever his other orthodoxies. His work in this genre is best appreciated as the work of an amateur; its continuing value, which is considerable, is of the sort that can arise when the amateur is also a man of genius.
