Showing results by author "G.K. Chesterton" in All Categories

Certain of the great roads going north out of London continue far into the country a sort of attenuated and interrupted spectre of a street, with great gaps in the building, but preserving the line. Here will be a group of shops, followed by a fenced field or paddock, and then a famous public-house, and then perhaps a market garden or a nursery garden, and then one large private house, and then another field and another inn, and so on.

"The Blue Cross" is a short story by G. K. Chesterton. It was the first Father Brown short story and also introduces the characters Flambeau and Valentin. It is unique among the Father Brown mysteries in that it does not follow the actions of the Father himself, but rather those of Valentin. It was first published on 23 July 1910, under the title "Valentin Follows a Curious Trail", in the Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia. Re-titled as "The Blue Cross", publication in London followed, in The Story-Teller magazine of September 1910.

"The Queer Feet" deals with Flambeau wanting to steal the silverware of the members of the Twelve True Fishermen having their annual club dinner at Vernon Hotel. The Vernon Hotel is an exclusive hotel and a "topsy-turvy product" (Chesterton 1994, p. 51).

The tenth story in The Innocence of Father Brown is entitled "The Eye of Apollo." At the beginning of this short story, Flambeau has just opened his detective agency in a new building located near Westminster Abbey. The other tenants in the building are a religious charlatan named Kalon, who claims to be "the New Priest of Apollo," and two sisters, who are typists. Flambeau and Father Brown instinctively distrust Kalon, who has installed a huge eye of Apollo outside his office.

In a London of the future, the drudgery of capitalism and bureaucracy have worn the human spirit down to the point where it can barely stand. When a pint-sized clerk named Auberon Quinn is randomly selected as head of state, he decides to turn London into a medieval carnival for his own amusement. One man, Adam Wayne, takes the new order of things seriously, organizing a Notting Hill army to fight invaders from other neighborhoods. At first his project baffles everyone, but eventually his dedication proves infectious, with delightful results.

"The Invisible Man" is a detective story written by G. K. Chesterton which concerns the nature of the crimes committed by one James Welkin, who had been harassing Laura Hope and menacing his romantic rival, Isidore Smythe (whom he would later murder), all without ever being seen.

A stormy evening of olive and silver was closing in, as Father Brown, wrapped in a grey Scotch plaid, came to the end of a grey Scotch valley and beheld the strange castle of Glengyle. It stopped one end of the glen or hollow like a blind alley; and it looked like the end of the world. Rising in steep roofs and spires of seagreen slate in the manner of the old French-Scotch chateaux, it reminded an Englishman of the sinister steeple-hats of witches in fairy tales; and the pine woods that rocked round the green turrets looked, by comparison, as black as numberless flocks of ravens.

I have strung these things together on a slight enough thread, but as the things themselves are slight, it is possible that the thread (and the metaphor) may manage to hang together. These notes range over very variegated topics, and in many cases, were made at very different times.

In The Secret of Father Brown, G.K. Chesterton bookends eight classic Father Brown mysteries with a fascinating encounter between the detective-priest and an admiring yet inquisitive American.

This book is meant to be a companion to "Heretics," and to put the positive side in addition to the negative. Many critics complained of the book because it merely criticised current philosophies without offering any alternative philosophy. This book is an attempt to answer the challenge. It is the purpose of the writer to attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian Faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it. The book is therefore arranged upon the positive principle of a riddle and its answer.

A short story from the British Library Crime Classic collection The Edinburgh Mystery. Father Brown joins his friend, amateur detective Flambeau, at Glengyle Castle in Scotland to investigate the mysterious death of the earl, and the mysterious behaviour of his servant, Israel Gow.

It is the day after Christmas. Colonel Adams and his daughter are throwing a party. The neighbor, the girl’s uncle, her godfather and the local priest Father Brown are invited. The uncle comes up with a plan: they are going to arrange a masquerade play with costumes. It seems like a very good idea, until the three diamonds the girl’s godfather had brought her as a gift disappeared from his pocket. Luckily Father Brown is there and he will try to solve this case as quickly as possible.

The Twelve True Fishermen are going on their annual dinner at an exclusive club where fifteen waiters are going to serve the guests. The fishermen are refined and insist on using their own ornate silver knives and forks, which are shaped like fish and have a pearl in the handles. The dinner goes as planned until the silver cutlery disappears. Have some of the waiters stolen it? Father Brown will find out. B. J. Harrison started his Classic Tales Podcast back in 2007, wanting to breathe new life into classic stories.

Father Brown, an amateur detective, takes up his first case ever. He has to find the infamous criminal Flambeau. The task is however very difficult because Flambeau is a master of disguise and nobody knows what he really looks like. The detective finds out that Flambeau is planning to head out to an international conference in London, most probably intending to steal some religious articles. So Father Brown decides to cross Flambeau’s path. What the detective had not expected is a police inspector from Paris to be crossing his path.

Isidore Smythe is in danger. He has received threating letters and he does not see a way out. John Angus offers Smythe his help and Smythe is escorted back to his flat. Angus is determined to find out who has sent the letters and he heads out to the former criminal Flambeau and the private detective Father Brown. Before he leaves Smythe’s apartment, he instructs four people to keep an eye on him. Yet when he comes back Smythe is missing and there's a bloodstain on the floor.

"The Man Who Knew Too Much" tells the story of Horne Fisher and the burden he had to carry throughout his whole life. He knew too much about politicians and aristocracy, about corruption and covered crimes. The prime minister of England was a friend of his father, the foreign minister married his sister. Without even intending to, he found out many things about the private life of politicians, which is very different from what is presented to the people. The question is, what is Fisher going to do with all this information? B. J.

Aristide Valentin holds a dinner party in his secret garden, which only has one main entrance. Many people are invited. Julius K. Brayne, one of Valentin’s rivals, is of the party as well. Everything goes as planned until one group of guests finds a beheaded corpse and the dinner turns into an investigation. Many questions begin to arise: How could someone be killed in a closed back garden without anyone noticing? Who is the victim? Who is the murderer? Where is the head? Find out the answers in "The Secret Garden". B. J.

"The Awful Reason of the Vicar's Visit" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. First appeared in Harper's Weekly (May 28 & June 4, 1904) "Cherub" Swinburne is asked to investigate the mysterious assault on the Vicar of Chuntsey (in Essex). It is a mystery when a distressed reverend begins his tale of a monstrous outrage committed against him.

"The Eccentric Seclusion of the Old Lady" is a Story by G. K. Chesterton. First appeared in Harper's Weekly (July 9 & 16, 1904). Rupert Grant rescues a lady from her kidnappers but cannot understand why she refuses to be rescued. The answer leads to the final unveiling of the mystery of The Club of Queer Trades.

The Club of Queer Trades is a collection of stories by G. K. Chesterton first published in 1905. Each story in the collection is centered on a person who is making his living by some novel and extraordinary means (a "queer trade", using the word "queer" in the sense of "peculiar"). To gain admittance one must have invented a unique means of earning a living and the subsequent trade being the main source of income.