The Defendant

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. As an author he created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and produced several notable works on apologetics including Orthodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). He routinely referred to himself as an 'orthodox' Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. He was born in Kensington, educated at St Paul's School, and later attended the Slade School of Art, a department of University College London, to become an illustrator. He also took classes in literature at UCL but did not complete a degree in either subject. His first positions were within publishing houses, during which time he also became a freelance art and literary critic, and in 1902 the Daily News gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in the London Illustrated News for which he continued to write for the next 30 years. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg who played a large role in his career as amanuensis and personal manager. Throughout the course of his career Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays, and several plays. His writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour, and he would often employ paradox while making serious comments on the world, politics, economics, philosophy, theology, and many other topics. The Defendant (1901) is Chesterton's earliest collection of essays, and the book that established him as a writer to be reckoned with. The subjects he rises to defend in the collection include skeletons, china shepherdesses. heraldry and detective stories, none of which one would necessarily consider required defending!