The Innocence of Father Brown

Gilbert Keith “G. K.” Chesterton (1874-1936) was a British writer, Christian theologian, art and literary critic, and philosopher. He was born on May 29, 1874, in Campden Hill, Kensington, London, to Marie Louise (née Grosjean) and Edward Chesterton. He was baptized as an Anglican as an infant, but when he was growing up, his family irregularly practiced Unitarianism. In 1892, he started attending University College London’s Slade School of Art, where he studied literature and art illustration but did not graduate. After leaving college, he worked for publisher George Redway and then for T. Fisher Unwin. Chesterton then began working as a journalist and a literary and art critic before writing as a journalist for the Daily News.

In 1900, he published his first book, a collection of poems and accompanying illustrations titled Greybeards At Play, before marrying Frances Blogg a year later. After marrying Blogg, he returned to Anglicanism. Chesterton also wrote two essay collections, The Defendant and Twelve Types, as well as multiple biographies. In 1904, he published his first novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill. One year later, he published his first series of theological essays, Heretics. He wrote another theological book, Orthodoxy, in 1908.