And so on. It runs very easily; we recognize the old touch; the epigrams are not worked to death; and the chains of argument are not mere strings of damped brilliancies. And before 1914 had come to its end, in another pamphlet, Letters to an Old Garibaldian, the same style, the same freshness of thought, and the same resurgent strength were once again in evidence. Then illness overcame.

Of all futures, the future of literature and its professors is the least predictable. We have all, so to speak, turned a corner since August, 1914, but we have not all turned the same way. Chesterton would seem to have felt the great change early in the war. Soon he will break his silence, and we shall know whether we have amongst us a giant with strength renewed or a querulous Nonconformist Crusader, agreeing with no man, while claiming to speak for every man. Early in the course of this study a distinction was drawn between Christians and Crusaders. Chesterton has been throughout his career essentially a Crusader. He set out to put wrongs to rights in the same spirit; in much the same spirit, too, he incidentally chivvied about the Jews he met in his path, just as the Crusaders had done. He fought for the Holy Sepulchre, and gained it. Like the Crusaders, he professed orthodoxy, and, like them, fell between several "orthodoxies." He shared their visions and their faith, so far as they had any. But one thing is true of all Crusaders, they are not necessarily Christians. And there is that about Chesterton which sometimes makes me wonder whether, after all, he is not "a child of the French Revolution" in a sense he himself does not suspect. He has cursed the barren fig-tree of modern religious movements. But there comes a suspicion that he denies too much; that from between those supple sentences and those too plausible arguments one may catch a glimpse of the features of a mocking spirit. Chesterton has given us the keenest enjoyment, and he has provoked thought, even in the silly atheist. We all owe him gratitude, but no two readers of his works are likely to agree as to the causes of their gratitude. That, in itself, is a tribute. Wherefore let it be understood that in writing this study I have been speaking entirely for myself, and if any man think me misguided, inappreciative, hypercritical, frivolous, or anything else, why, he is welcome.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (To July, 1915)


Works

1900.

Greybeards at Play. Brimley Johnson. Cheaper edition, 1902.

The Wild Knight. Grant Richards. Second edition, Brimley Johnson, 1905. Enlarged edition, Dent, 1914.

1901.

The Defendant. Brimley Johnson. Second enlarged edition, 1902. Cheap edition, in Dent's Wayfarer's Library, 1914.

1902.

Twelve Types. A. L. Humphreys. Partly reprinted as Five Types, 1910, same publisher. Cheap edition, 1911.

G. F. Watts. Duckworth. In Popular Library of Art. Reissued at higher price, 1914.

1903.

Robert Browning. In English Men of Letters Series. Macmillan.

1904.

The Patriotic Idea. In England a Nation. Edited by Lucien Oldershaw. Brimley Johnson.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill. John Lane. With 7 full-page illustrations by W. Graham Robertson and a Map of the Seat of War.

1905.

The Club of Queer Trades. Harper. Cheap edition, Hodder and Stoughton, 1912.

Heretics. John Lane.

1906.

Charles Dickens. Methuen. Cheaper edition, 1907. Popular edition, 1913.

1908.

The Man who was Thursday. Arrowsmith.

All Things Considered. Methuen.

Orthodoxy. John Lane.

1909.

Tremendous Trifles. Methuen.

1910.

Alarms and Discursions. Methuen.

Five Types. A. L. Humphreys. Reprinted from Twelve Types, 1905.

What's Wrong with the World? Cassell. Cheap edition, 1912.

William Blake. Duckworth. In Popular Library of Art.

George Bernard Shaw. John Lane. Cheap edition, 1914.

The Ball and the Cross. Wells Gardner, Darton.

1911.

The Ballad of the White Horse. Methuen.

Appreciations of Dickens. Dent. Reprinted prefaces from Everyman Series edition of Dickens.

The Innocence of Father Brown. Cassell.

1912.

Simplicity and Tolstoy. A. L. Humphreys. Another edition, H. Siegle. In Watteau Series, 1913.

A Miscellany of Men. Methuen.

Manalive. Nelson.

1913.

Magic. Martin Seeker.

The Victorian Age in Literature. Williams and Norgate. In Home University Library.

1914.

The Wisdom of Father Brown. Cassell.

The Flying Inn. Methuen. (The Songs of the Simple Life appeared originally in The New Witness.)

The Wild Knight. Dent. Enlarged edition, first published 1900.

The Barbarism of Berlin. Cassell.

Letters to an Old Garibaldian. Methuen.

1915.

Poems. Burns and Oates.

And articles on Tolstoy, Stevenson, Tennyson, and Dickens in a series of booklets published by The Bookman, 1902-1904.


Prefaces to the Following Books

1902.

Past and Present. By Thomas Carlyle. In World's Classics. Grant Richards.

1903.

Life of Johnson. Extracts from Boswell. Isbister.

1904.

The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table. By O. W. Holmes. Red Letter Library. Blackie.

Sartor Resartus. By Thomas Carlyle. Cassell's National Library.

The Pilgrim's Progress. By John Bunyan. Cassell's National Library.

1905.

Creatures That Once Were Men. By Maxim Gorky. Rivers.

1906 etc.

Works of Dickens. In Everyman Library. Dent.

1906.

Essays. By Matthew Arnold. In the Everyman Library. Dent.

Literary London. By Elsie M. Lang. Werner Laurie.

1907.

The Book of Job. (Wellwood Books.)

From Workhouse to Westminster; the Life Story of Will Crooks, M.P. By George Haw. Cassell. Cheaper edition, 1908.

1908.

Poems. By John Ruskin. Muses Library. Routledge.

The Cottage Homes of England. By W. W. Crotch. Industrial Publishing Co.

1909.

A Vision of Life. By Darrell Figgis. Lane.

Meadows of Play. By Margaret Arndt. Elkin Mathews.

1910.

Selections from Thackeray. Bell.

Eyes of Youth. An Anthology. Herbert and Daniel.

1911.

Samuel Johnson. Extracts from, selected by Alice Meynell. Herbert and Daniel.

The Book of Snobs. By W. M. Thackeray. Red Letter Library. Blackie.

1912.

Famous Paintings Reproduced in Colour. Cassell.

The English Agricultural Labourer. By A. H. Baverstock. The Vineyard Press.

Fables. By Æsop. Translated by V. S. Vernon Jones. Illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Heinemann.

1913.

The Christmas Carol. In the Waverley Dickens.

1915.

Bohemia's Claim for Freedom. The London Czech Committee.


Illustrations to the Following Books by Other Writers

1901.

Nonsense Rhymes. By W. C. Monkhouse. Brimley Johnson. Cheaper edition, 1902.

1903.

The Great Enquiry. By H. B. (Hilaire Belloc). Duckworth.

1904.

Emmanuel Burden. By Hilaire Belloc. Methuen.

1905.

Biography for Beginners. By E. Clerihew. Cheaper edition, Werner Laurie, 1908. Cheap edition, 1910.

1912.

The Green Overcoat. By Hilaire Belloc. Arrowsmith.


Contributions to Periodicals

Bookman. From 1898 onwards, passim.

The Speaker (afterwards The Nation). From 1898 onwards.

The Daily News. Weekly article, 1900-1913. Also occasional poems and reviews.

The Daily Herald. Weekly article, 1913-1914.

The Illustrated London News. 1905-1914; 1915-

The Eye-Witness (afterwards The New Witness). Poems and articles, 1911 onwards.

Also correspondence columns of The Tribune (1906-1908), The Clarion, and the London Press in general.

The Oxford and Cambridge Review (afterwards The British Review). Articles 1911, etc.

The Dublin Review. Occasional articles.


Contributions to Official Publications

Evidence before the Joint Select Committee of the House of Lords and the House of Commons on Stage Plays (Censorship), included in the Minutes of Evidence, 1909.


Speeches

1908.

The Press. Speech at Pan-Anglican Congress. Proceedings published by The Times.

1910.

What to do with the Backward Races. Speech at the Nationalities and Subject Races Conference, London. Proceedings published by P. S. King.

1914.

Do Miracles Happen? Report of a Discussion at the Little Theatre in January, 1914. Published as a pamphlet by The Christian Commonwealth Co.

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