"G. K. Chesterton," declared William B. Furlong in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, "was a legend in London literary circles even during his lifetime. George Bernard Shaw called him 'a man of colossal genius,' and as a young man Chesterton was hailed as Fleet Street's reincarnation of Samuel Johnson." Dabbling in genres including journalism, social activism, politics, literary criticism, poetry, drama, and mystery fiction, this huge (over three hundred pounds) genial man dominated British letters during the first decades of the twentieth century. Ian Boyd explained in the Dictionary of Literary Biography, "He belonged to that category of writer which used to be called the man of letters, and like the typical man of letters he wrote journalism which included a wide variety of literary forms and literature which possessed many of the characteristics of journalism." Chesterton is best remembered for his detective character Father Brown, a...