DOCSLIB.ORG

Father Brown Mysteries Pdf

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Father Brown Mysteries Pdf Father brown mysteries pdf Continue For other purposes, see the character created by the British writer G.K. Chesterton. Father BrownFirst AppearanceSize G. K. ChestertonPortrayed by Walter Connolly Carl Swenson Alec Guinness Heinz Rumann Joseph Meinrad Kenneth Read More Leslie French Barnard Hughes Renato Rascel Andrew Sachs J. T. Turner Kevin O'Brien Mark WilliamsIn the universe of informationGenderMaleOccupationPristNationalityBrit father Brown is a fictional Roman Catholic priest and amateur detective who appears in 53 stories published between 1910 and 1936, written by the English writer G. C. C. Chesterton. Father Brown solved mysteries and crimes, using his intuition and deep understanding of human nature. Chesterton freely based it on the Reverend Mr. John O'Connor (1870-1952), a parish priest in Bradford who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922. Chesterton's character describes Father Brown as a short, puzzled Roman Catholic priest, with shapeless clothes, a large umbrella and a supernatural understanding of human evil. In Caesar's Head he is a former Cobhole priest in Essex and now works in London. He makes his first appearance in the history of the Blue Cross, published in 1910 and continues to appear over fifty stories in five volumes, with two more stories discovered and published posthumously, often assisted in his fight against the crime of the reformed criminal M. Erkul Flambo. Father Brown also appears in the third story - a total of fifty-three - that did not appear in the five volumes published in Chesterton's life, the Donnington case, which has a curious history. In the October 1914 issue of The Premier, Sir Max Pemberton published the first part of the story and then invited a number of detective story writers, including Chesterton, to use their talents to solve the mystery of the murder described. Chesterton and Father Brown's decision followed in the November issue. The story was first republished in Chesterton Review, 1981, page 1-35 in the book Thirteen Detectives. Unlike the more famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, Brown's father's methods are generally intuitive rather than deductive. He explains his method in Father Brown's Secret: You see, I killed them all myself.... I have very carefully planned each of the crimes. I wondered exactly how it could be done, and in what style or state of mind a person could actually do it. And when I was quite sure that I felt just like the killer myself, of course I knew who he was. Brown's abilities are also largely shaped by his experience as a priest and confessor. In blue cross, when asked by Flambo, who was disguised as a priest as he knew of all sorts of criminal horrors, Father Brown replies: Was it never you that that who does almost nothing but hear the real sins of people probably won't be completely unaware of human evil? He also claims, as he knew Flambeau was not really a priest: You attacked the cause. It's bad theology. Stories usually contain a rational explanation of who was the killer and how Brown worked it out. It always emphasizes rationality; Some stories, such as the Miracle of the Moon Crescent, the Oracle of the Dog, the Explosion of the Book and the Dagger with Wings, poke fun at the initially skeptical characters who are convinced of the supernatural explanation of some strange phenomenon, but Father Brown easily sees a perfectly ordinary, natural explanation. In fact, he seems to represent the ideal of a devout but significantly educated and civilized priest. This can be traced back to the influence of Roman Catholic thought on Chesterton. Father Brown is characteristically humble and usually quite quiet, except to say something profound. While he tends to handle crime with a steady, realistic approach, he believes in the supernatural as the greatest cause of all. Many of Brown's later stories were produced for financial reasons and with great speed, and Chesterton wrote in 1920 that I think it's fair to admit that I myself wrote some of the worst stories in the world. Father Brown's interpretation was a means to convey Chesterton's view of the world and, of all his characters, perhaps the closest thing to Chesterton's own perspective, or at least the impact of his point of view. Father Brown solves his crimes through a rigorous process of reasoning more preoccupied with spiritual and philosophical truths than with scientific details, making it almost equal to the Sherlock Holmes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, whose Chesterton stories were read. However, the Father Brown series began before Chesterton became a Catholic on his own. In his letters from prison, the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci made this partisan statement about his preference: Father Brown is a Catholic who pokes fun at the mechanical thought processes of Protestants and the book is mostly apologists of the Roman Church regarding the Anglican Church. Sherlock Holmes is a Protestant detective who finds the end of the criminal skin, starting from the outside, relying on science, on an experimental method, on induction. Father Brown is a Catholic priest who, through exquisite psychological experience, offered confession and the constant activities of the fathers of moral casuistry, though not neglecting science and experimentation, but relying especially on the deduction and introspection, completely defeats Sherlock Holmes, makes him look like a pretentious little boy, shows his narrowness and pettiness. Besides, Chesterton was a great artist while Conan Doyle was a mediocre writer, though was knighted for literary merit; So in Chesterton there is a stylistic gap between the content, the plot of the detective story, and the form, and therefore the subtle irony regarding the subject matter that makes these stories so delicious. After Chesterton as Sherlock Holmes, Lord Peter Wimsey and Nero Wolfe, tales involving the detective priest of Chesterton continue to be created even after the death of the original author. John Peterson wrote forty-four more mysteries solved by Father Brown. In the Italian novel Il destino di Padre Brown (The Fate of Father Brown) Paolo Gulisano, a detective priest elected by the Pope after Pius XI with the pontifical name Innocent XIV. In other media, Walter Connolly starred as the main character in the 1934 film Father Brown, Detective, based on the Blue Cross. Connolly was later cast as another famous fictional detective, Nero Wolfe, in the 1937 film League of Frightened Men and played Charlie Chan on NBC radio from 1932 to 1938. In the 1954 film Father Brown (released in the United States as a detective), Alec Guinness was featured as Brown's father. Like the 1934 film with Connolly in the title role, it was based on The Blue Cross. The experience during the character's play reportedly prompted Guinness' own conversion to Roman Catholicism. Heinz Rumann played Father Brown in two German film adaptations of Chesterton's short stories, Das schwarze Schaf (Black Sheep, 1960) and Er kann's nicht lassen (He Can't Stop Doing It, 1962) with both scores written by German composer Martin Buttcher. In these films Brown is an Irish priest. The actor later appeared in Operazione San Pietro (also starring Edward G. Robinson, 1967) as Cardinal Brown, but the film is not based on any Chesterton story. The Radio Mutual Broadcasting System radio series, The Adventures of Father Brown (1945), featured Carl Swenson as Father Brown, Bill Griffiths as Flambo and Gretchen Douglas as Nora, the priest housekeeper. In 1974, to mark the centenary of Chesterton's birth, five stories by Brown's father, starring Leslie French as Father Brown and Willie Rushton as Chesterton, were broadcast on BBC Radio 4. BBC Radio 4 produced a series of Brown's Father Stories from 1984 to 1986, starring Andrew Sachs as Brown's father. A series of 16 Chesterton stories was produced by the Colonial Radio Theatre in Boston, Massachusetts. Actor and voice-over artist J.T. Turner played Brown's father; all the scripts were written by British radio dramatologist M.J. Elliott. Imagination Theatre added this series to their rotation with the broadcast of The Hammer of God on May 5, 2013. Joseph Mainrad's television played Brown's father in the Austrian TV series (1966-1972), who followed Chesterton's subjects quite closely. In 1974, Kenneth More starred in the 13-episode TV series Father Brown, each episode of which was adapted from one of the Stories. The series, produced by Sir Lew Grade for Associated TeleVision, was screened in the United States as part of the PBS mystery!. They were released on DVD in the UK in 2003 by Acorn Media UK, and in the US four years later by Acorn Media. American film, made for television, Sanctuary of Fear (1979), starred as Barnard Hughes as the Americanized, modernized father of Brown in Manhattan, New York. The film was conceived as a pilot for the series, but the critical and viewer reaction was unfavorable, in large part due to changes in character and mundane plot thriller. The Italian television miniseries in six episodes, I racconti di padre Brown (Tales of Father Brown) starring Renato Russell and Arnoldo Foa as Flambo was produced and broadcast by national television RAI between December 1970 and February 1971 for a wide audience (one episode reached 12 million viewers). Ralph McInerney used Brown's father as a spiritual inspiration for his father Dowling's pilot script, which launched Father Dowling Mysteries, a television series that ran from 1987 to 1991 on US television. An anthology of stories by two detectives entitled You Don't Kill: Father Brown, Father Dowling and Other Church Detectives was released in 1992.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • THE QUEER FEET G. K. Chesterton If You Meet a Member of That Select
    THE QUEER FEET G. K. Chesterton If you meet a member of that select club, "The Twelve True Fishermen," entering the Vernon Hotel for the annual club dinner, you will observe, as he takes off his overcoat, that his evening coat is green and not black. If (supposing that you have the star-defying audacity to address such a being) you ask him why, he will probably answer that he does it to avoid being mistaken for a waiter. You will then retire crushed. But you will leave behind you a mystery as yet unsolved and a tale worth telling. If (to pursue the same vein of improbable conjecture) you were to meet a mild, hard-working little priest, named Father Brown, and were to ask him what he thought was the most singular luck of his life, he would probably reply that upon the whole his best stroke was at the Vernon Hotel, where he had averted a crime and, perhaps, saved a soul, merely by listening to a few footsteps in a passage. He is perhaps a little proud of this wild and wonderful guess of his, and it is possible that he might refer to it. But since it is immeasurably unlikely that you will ever rise high enough in the social world to find "The Twelve True Fishermen," or that you will ever sink low enough among slums and criminals to find Father Brown, I fear you will never hear the story at all unless you hear it from me. The Vernon Hotel at which The Twelve True Fishermen held their annual dinners was an institution such as can only exist in an oligarchical society which has almost gone mad on good manners.
    [Show full text]
  • It Was My Instinct to Defend Liberty in Poor Nations and Poor Families; That Is, to Defend the Rights of Man As Including
    G. K. Chesterton & G. K.Freedom Chesterton “It was my instinct to defend liberty in poor nations and poor families; that is, to defend the rights of man as including the rights of property; especially the property of the poor. I did not really understand what I meant by Liberty, until I heard it called by the new name of Human Dignity.” —Autobiography © 2012 G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture “The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does, he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog.” —Broadcast talk, June 1935 “Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to en- dure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.” —What’s Wrong With the World G. K. Chesterton “The man of the true religious tradition understands two things: liberty and obedience. The first means knowing what you really want. The second means knowing what you really trust.” —G. K.’s Weekly, August 18, 1933 © 2012 G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture Fr. Ian Boyd on Chesterton & Freedom “The two ideas upon which Christian theology was based were the ideas of Reason and Liberty.” So said Chesterton in November 1911 in his address to a meeting at Cambridge organized by a student club who called themselves “The Heretics.” He went on to say that Reason was real.
    [Show full text]
  • Father Brown Mysteries Chesterton, G.K
    Father Brown Mysteries Chesterton, G.K. G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936), British author, essayist, and theologian, was also an accomplished mystery writer. He produced between 1910 and 1935 a number of short stories (collected into five volumes) featuring the unlikely sleuth and Roman Catholic priest Father Brown. The humble priest’s unassuming air, masking a profound knowledge of human nature, enabled him to solve many a mystery. The Father Brown stories are available from the New Bern-Craven County public Library in a one-volume edition. Audio tapes are also available for The Innocence of Father Brown and the Wisdom of Father Brown. The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) Short story collection containing: The Blue Cross, The Secret Garden, The Queer Feet, The Flying Stars, The Invisible Man, The Honour of Israel Gow, The Wrong Shape, The Sins of Prince Saradine, The Hammer of God, The Eye of Apollo, The Sign of the Broken Sword, and The Three Tools of Death. The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914) Short story collection containg: The Absence of Mr. Glass, The Paradise of Thieves, The Duel of Dr. Hirsch, The Man in the Passage, The Mistake of the Machine, The Head of Caesar, The Purple Wig, The Perishing of the Pendragons, The God of the Gongs, The Salad of Colonel Cray, The Strange Crime of John Boulnois, and The Fairy Tale of Father Brown. The Incredulity of Father Brown (1926) Short story collection containing: The Resurrection of Father Brown, The Arrow of Heaven, The Oracle of the Dog, The Miracle of Moon Crescent, The Curse of the Golden Cross, The Dagger with Wings, The Doom of the Darnaways, and The Ghost of Gideon Wise.
    [Show full text]
  • Detective Fiction Reinvention and Didacticism in G. K. Chesterton's
    Detective Fiction Reinvention and Didacticism in G. K. Chesterton’s Father Brown Clifford James Stumme Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the degree of Master of English College of Arts and Science Liberty University Stumme 2 Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................3 Chapter 1: Introduction ....................................................................................................................4 Historical and Autobiographical Context ....................................................................................6 Detective Fiction’s Development ..............................................................................................10 Chesterton, Detective Fiction, and Father Brown ......................................................................21 Chapter 2: Paradox as a Mode for Meaning ..................................................................................32 Solution Revealing Paradox .......................................................................................................34 Plot Progressing Paradox ...........................................................................................................38 Truth Revealing Paradox ...........................................................................................................41 Chapter 3: Opposition in Character and Ideology .........................................................................49
    [Show full text]
  • Chesterton's View of Human Nature Through Father Brown Mark Eckel Crossroads Bible College
    Inklings Forever Volume 7 A Collection of Essays Presented at the Seventh Frances White Ewbank Colloquium on C.S. Article 4 Lewis & Friends 6-3-2010 Devils in My Heart: Chesterton's View of Human Nature through Father Brown Mark Eckel Crossroads Bible College Follow this and additional works at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever Part of the English Language and Literature Commons, History Commons, Philosophy Commons, and the Religion Commons Recommended Citation Eckel, Mark (2010) "Devils in My Heart: Chesterton's View of Human Nature through Father Brown," Inklings Forever: Vol. 7 , Article 4. Available at: https://pillars.taylor.edu/inklings_forever/vol7/iss1/4 This Essay is brought to you for free and open access by the Center for the Study of C.S. Lewis & Friends at Pillars at Taylor University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Inklings Forever by an authorized editor of Pillars at Taylor University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. INKLINGS FOREVER, Volume VII A Collection of Essays Presented at the Seventh FRANCES WHITE COLLOQUIUM on C.S. LEWIS & FRIENDS Taylor University 2010 Upland, Indiana Devils in My Heart Chesterton’s View of Human Nature through Father Brown Mark Eckel “I had murdered them all myself.”1 Father Brown perhaps comes closest to true, biblical mystery. While a crime may have been solved, the good padre still wondered after the human penchant toward sin. Sherlock Holmes fans are used to deductive reasoning: a scientific analysis, assessing problems from the outside, in. Father Brown became the murderer because he was a murderer. Chesterton‟s sleuth, a Catholic priest, saw people as they were, from the inside, out.
    [Show full text]
  • The Chesterton Review Are Part of the Center for Catholic Studies
    G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture Established in 1974 G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture Established in 1974 About G. K. Chesterton G. K. Chesterton, (1874-1936) was an English writer. His prolific and diverse output included philosophy, poetry, plays, journalism, public lectures and debates, literary and art criticism and fiction. He has been called “the prince of paradox.” His diverse body of work and his ability to write about serious subjects in a style accessible to the ordinary reader made him one of the most beloved figures twentieth- century literature. His thought and philosophy of life are of particular importance to those who value the sacramental tradition, Catholic social teaching and Christian spirituality. His works have been translated into many languages and because his writings are the subject of study by students and scholars, they continue to reach new generations of readers. About the Institute History The G. K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture founded by Father Ian Boyd in 1974 is based at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey. Previously, from 1974 to 1999 the Institute was based at St. Thomas More College in Saskatchewan, Canada where Father Boyd was a member of the faculty of the English Department. Mission The purpose of the Institute is to promote the thought of G. K. Chesterton and his circle and, more broadly, to explore the application of Chestertonian ideas to the contemporary world through social and economic projects, lectures and seminars and their application in the world of today. The work of the Institute is one * of recovery through Chesterton and the tradition he represents * it proposes a re-awakening of the moral and sacramental imagination * a renewed sense of human dignity * a re-evangelization of culture * And a return to social sanity The Institute does this work through its publications is engaged in a growing programme of research, conferences and symposiums in the United States and around the world.
    [Show full text]
  • The Incredulity of Father Brown- G.K.Chesterton
    The Incredulity of Father Brown G. K. Chesterton, (1926) ONE: The Resurrection of Father Brown THERE was a brief period during which Father Brown enjoyed, or rather did not enjoy, something like fame. He was a nine days’ wonder in the newspapers; he was even a common topic of controversy in the weekly reviews; his exploits were narrated eagerly and inaccurately in any number of clubs and drawing - rooms, especially in America. Incongruous and indeed incredible as it may seem to any one who knew him, his adventures as a detective were even made the subject of short stories appearing in magazines. Strangely enough, this wandering limelight struck him in the most obscure, or at least the most remote, of his many places of residence. He had been sent out to officiate, as something between a missionary and a parish priest, in one of those sections of the northern coast of South America, where strips of country still cling insecurely to European powers, or are continually threatening to become independent republics, under the gigantic shadow of President Monroe. The population was red and brown with pink spots; that is, it was Spanish - American, and largely Spanish - American - Indian, but there was a considerable and increasing infiltration of Americans of the northern sort - Englishmen, Germans, and the rest. And the trouble seems to have begun when one of these visitors, very recently landed and very much annoyed at having lost one of his bags, approached the first building of which he came in sight - which happened to be the mission - house and chapel attached to it, in front of which ran a long veranda and a long row of stakes, up which were trained the black twisted vines, their square leaves red with autumn.
    [Show full text]
  • GK Chesterton
    THE SAGE DIGITAL LIBRARY APOLOGETICS HERETICS by Gilbert K. Chesterton To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: Welcome to the SAGE Digital Library. We trust your experience with this and other volumes in the Library fulfills our motto and vision which is our commitment to you: M AKING THE WORDS OF THE WISE AVAILABLE TO ALL — INEXPENSIVELY. SAGE Software Albany, OR USA Version 1.0 © 1996 2 HERETICS by Gilbert K. Chesterton SAGE Software Albany, Oregon © 1996 3 “To My Father” 4 The Author Gilbert Keith Chesterton was born in London, England on the 29th of May, 1874. Though he considered himself a mere “rollicking journalist,” he was actually a prolific and gifted writer in virtually every area of literature. A man of strong opinions and enormously talented at defending them, his exuberant personality nevertheless allowed him to maintain warm friendships with people — such as George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells — with whom he vehemently disagreed. Chesterton had no difficulty standing up for what he believed. He was one of the few journalists to oppose the Boer War. His 1922 “Eugenics and Other Evils” attacked what was at that time the most progressive of all ideas, the idea that the human race could and should breed a superior version of itself. In the Nazi experience, history demonstrated the wisdom of his once “reactionary” views. His poetry runs the gamut from the comic 1908 “On Running After One’s Hat” to dark and serious ballads. During the dark days of 1940, when Britain stood virtually alone against the armed might of Nazi Germany, these lines from his 1911 Ballad of the White Horse were often quoted: I tell you naught for your comfort, Yea, naught for your desire, Save that the sky grows darker yet And the sea rises higher.
    [Show full text]
  • The Complete “Father Brown”, by G. K. Chesterton IT Is to Be Feared That
    The Complete “Father Brown”, by G. K. Chesterton THE ARROW OF HEAVEN IT is to be feared that about a hundred detective stories have begun with the discovery that an American millionaire has been murdered; an event which is, for some reason, treated as a sort of calamity. This story, I am happy to say, has to begin with a murdered millionaire; in one sense, indeed, it has to begin with three murdered millionaires, which some may regard as an embarras de richesse. But it was chiefly this coincidence or continuity of criminal policy that took the whole affair out of the ordinary run of criminal cases and made it the extraordinary problem that it was. It was very generally said that they had all fallen victims to some vendetta or curse attaching to the possession of a relic of great value both intrinsically and historically: a sort of chalice inlaid with precious stones and commonly called the Coptic Cup. Its origin was obscure, but its use was conjectured to be religious; and some attributed the fate that followed its possessors to the fanaticism of some Oriental Christian horrified at its passing through such materialistic hands. But the mysterious slayer, whether or no he was such a fanatic, was already a figure of lurid and sensational interest in the world of journalism and gossip. The nameless being was provided with a name, or a nickname. But it is only with the story of the third victim that we are now concerned; for it was only in this case that a certain Father Brown, who is the subject of these sketches, had an opportunity of making his presence felt.
    [Show full text]
  • Spring Films P 2011P
    Spring Films P 2011p PLUS: MUSIC, ART, AUDIO BOOKS, AND MORE! The definitive collection on the Shroud of Turin Three award-winning films by acclaimed British film producer and director David Rolfe. SEE PAGE 7 The story of St. Josephine Bakhita, patron of Sudan “A very beautiful film...” Pope Benedict XVI SEE PAGE 3 The award-winning documentary on the SEE Carmelite nuns PAGE 5 Winner of mutiple awards, this British box-office hit is now on DVD in the US for the first time! 1-800-651-1531 • www.ignatius.com New Spring Films Lourdes A Story of Faith, Science and Miracles ernard Guillaumet, a non-Christian French Bjournalist, is assigned the job of doing a story on Lourdes in the late 1990s. Just before he leaves for Lourdes, Bernard learns that his wife is preg- nant. However, he is not told that this pregnancy could put her life at risk—and that doctors are suggesting an abortion. While researching for his report on Lourdes, Bernard comes across the pages of an old family manuscript. The manuscript was written by his ancestor, Henri Guillaumet, a positivist scientist and non- believer who met Bernadette at Lourdes in 1858, a meeting which profoundly affected Henri and forced him to reconsider the miracles performed following the apparitions of the Madonna of Lourdes. One of the most important miracles Giullaumet had to reconsider was the healing of his wife Claire, who had been on her death bed as a result of tuberculosis, and was completely restored by the miraculous waters of the grotto in which Bernadette saw the Our Lady.
    [Show full text]
  • The Laughing Prophet the Seven Virtues & G.K
    EMILE CAMMAERTS THE LAUGHING PROPHET THE SEVEN VIRTUES & G.K. CHESTERTON FOREWORD BY DALE AHLQUIST The Laughing Prophet THE SEVEN VIRTUES AND G.K. CHESTERTON by Emile Cammaerts Foreword by Dale Ahlquist ACS BOOKS to Frances Chesterton First published in 1937 Interior and cover design by T. Schluenderfritz ACS Books Table of Contents Foreword by Dale Ahlquist ..................................1 INTRODUCTION The Ethics Of G. K. Chesterton ..............................5 Purpose of this book—Decadents and ‘Heretics’—Journalism—Quality of workmanship—Sincerity and Paradox—The Moralist—Conversion to Orthodoxy—Good and Evil—Art, History, Literary criticism—Prophet and Reformer—Consistency—The Seven Virtues CHAPTER I Faith.........................................................45 Personality—Optimism and Pessimism—The ethics of Elfland—Sense of wonder—Science and religion—Approach to Christianity—Acceptance of Reality—The key and the lock CHAPTER II Hope ........................................................69 Need of comfort—Spiritual hospitality—Love and marriage—Goodness and salvation—Humility—The virtue of small things—‘Frivolity’—Self-derision— Wit and humour—‘Second Childhood’ CHAPTER III Charity ......................................................99 Charity and Justice—Democracy and religion—Man and mankind—Social reforms—The common man—The dignity of the poor—State interference— Physical and moral values—Prohibition and eugenics—The defence of freedom CHAPTER IV Wisdom . 127 ‘La Clairvoyance du Père Brown’—Methods of thought—Vision
    [Show full text]
  • Investigating Father Brown: Chesterton's Detective Stories As Practical Theology
    A Quarterly Journal for Church Leadership Volume 10 • Number 4 • Fall2001 INVESTIGATING FATHER BROWN: CHESTERTON'S DETECTIVE STORIES AS PRACTICAL THEOLOGY 1f t appears to me that there is very little preaching of a lively kind in the kingdom; but that the greater part deliver it by way of reading from a written discourse. It may be reasonably maintained that a detective story is JOHN CALVIN meant to be read in bed, by way of courting sleep; it ought not to make us think-or rather, it ought to be a kind of catharsis, taking our minds off the ethical, political, theolog­ ical problems which exercise our waking hours by giving us elK lthough we begin to receive the fruit of this consola­ artificial problems to solve instead. If this is so, have we not tion when we are admitted into the church, yet we shall not good reason to complain of an author who smuggles into enjoy it fully till the last day of the resurrection is come, our minds, under the disguise of a police mystery, the very solicitudes he was under contract to banish? 1 when all things shall be most completely restored; and on this account it is called "the day of restitution." These words from Ronald Knox's 1954 essay "Chester­ JOHN CALVIN ton's Father Brown" apply to the series of Father Brown detective stories written by British author and critic G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936). Chesterton, one of the most controversial writers of the last century, wrote nearly every herever the gospel is preached, it is as if God himself l~)) genre of literature including poetry, novels, essays, plays, came into the midst of us.
    [Show full text]