SOURCE: "The Man Who Was Orthodox," in Gilbert: The Man Who Was G. K. Chesterton, Jonathan Cape, 1989, pp. 167-89.

It the following excerpt, Coren provides an overview of The Man Who Was Thursday.

Gilbert's second novel, a work which he was unsure of and not satisfied with, appeared in the February of 1908. Subtitled 'A Nightmare', as The Man Who Was Thursday it received more recognition than any of his previous writings. He dedicated it to Edmund Clerihew Bentley, with an introductory poem

A cloud was on the mind of men,
   And wailing went the weather,
 Yea, a sick cloud upon the soul
   When we were boys together.
 Science announced nonentity
   And art admired decay;
 The world was old and ended:
   But you and I were gay;
 Round us in antic order
   Crippled vices came—
 Lust that had lost its laughter,
   Fear that had lost its shame.
 Like the...