G. K. Chesterton was a writer of volcanic intelligence and gentle wit, who, over a forty-year career, produced hundreds of essays and over one hundred books. Approximately a dozen of these books have been described as novels, but they are as frequently called romances, extravaganzas, fantasies, parables, or allegories. For while they are thick with the details of everyday life, Chesterton's hastily written book-length fictions are outlandishly plotted and, in the main, unabashedly didactic. These books are often dismissed as trifling and incomprehensible, but the best of them, which are quite brilliant in their way, have always had their advocates and analysts and are often republished.

Chesterton was born in London. His father, Edward Chesterton, a well-off house agent, was accessible, witty, and, as Chesterton put it in his Autobiography (1936), "full of hobbies." Indeed, "Mr. Ed" spent less time at his place of business than in his study...