The Return of G. K. Chesterton

 Imagine What Exists

and other recovered texts

Available in Amazon 

From the editor´s note:

Between 2017 and 2019 I worked in the translation into Spanish of a selection of essays on literature by G. K. Chesterton. For the task, I explored the collections of Chesterton’s papers available at the British Library, the G. K. Chesterton Library (then located at Oxford), and the Harry Ransom Center of the University of Texas, in Austin. As Chesterton’s creative output would suggest, the number of unpublished materials (poems, short stories, essays, and even his characteristic doodles) was impressive. For years, I contemplated the idea of editing a volume with a selection of those materials and, if you have this book in your hands, my procrastination has finally ended.

The texts here included are transcriptions from handwritten essays, notebooks and typescripts encompassing Chesterton’s creative life, since his early years as a member of the Junior Debating Club until weeks before his death. To the best of my knowledge, most of them have never been published. Only a few of the typescripts indicate original publications in newspapers, but none of those has been included in G. K. Chesterton’s collections. Since it is impossible to date most of them, I have opted for a thematic order, building up from excerpts, early writings, considerations on literature and specific authors to Chesterton’s most cherished themes: Catholicism, Distributism and a “Nonsense World.” Any markings or incidental information found in the originals are referenced in the endnotes.

A few comments on some of the texts:

It can be guessed that Chesterton wrote his essay on Walt Whitman in his early twenties (circa 1894), as a prologue to an edition of Whitman’s selected poems which most probably was never published.

“Father Brown in Hollywood” is a letter in which Chesterton expresses his thoughts and expectations about an imminent series of films, in the early 1930s, inspired by his famous priest-detective. The letter could be taken as a reference to appreciate posterior media representations of Father Brown, and to consider how close they are to Chesterton’s vision. In this and other texts without an original title, I have ventured to add descriptive titles.

The essay on Alice Meynell was a fortunate finding, at the Harry Ransom Center (where, by the way, the manuscript of The Man Who Was Thursday is safeguarded). Just a few weeks before, I had reread Chesterton’s Autobiography and found there an intriguing and most praising reference to Mrs. Meynell. This essay confirms Chesterton’s admiration for the today almost forgotten poet and essayist.

The longest essay here included, “By a Roman Convert,” was Chesterton answer to Mr. Arnold Lunn, who in 1924 had published a book criticizing Catholicism by commenting on some prominent converts, such as Cardinal Newman, Hillarie Belloc and G. K. Chesterton. Chesterton’s answer offers an excellent overview of his religious and social ideas, and addresses and dismisses some of the charges some sectors of posterity keep using to impair his legacy. It is not a minor detail —perhaps not completely unrelated to Chesterton’s answer— the fact that Mr. Lunn eventually would convert to Catholicism.

In a few cases, I have reproduced incomplete essays, under the assumption that the surviving fragments are interesting enough. I have done my best effort to decipher Chesterton’s evolving and not always clear penmanship; and, in a couple of articles, I have tried to guess missing words. I have pointed also the very few occasions were guessing would be not only wild, but most probably inaccurate. In a moderate and, hopefully, respectful way I have adjusted punctuation when it seemed necessary. Regarding the images, they speak for themselves.

Table of content:

Editor’s note   9

 

IMAGINE WHAT EXISTS (EXCERPTS FROM NOTEBOOKS)       13

POETRY OF THE PRESENT DAY      27

A POET’S HEART    31

THE SONGS OF A NATION      33

EROS AND PSYCHE, BY ROBERT BRIDGES      35

THE SACREDNESS OF LIBRARIES  39

THE GREAT TRANSLATION   45

THE CLEVER MAN AND THE FAIRY TALES     51

THE SAVAGE AS A POET 55

REALIST AND THE UNREAL   67

THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE SWORD  73

THE DEFINITION OF THE DRAGON        77

WALT WHITMAN   83

THE BURNS WE LOVE    103

WORDSWORTH     109

A BOOK FOR A DESERT ISLAND     111

DICKENS AND THACKERAY   117

STEVENSON AND THE CULT OF VILLON         123

THE HUMOR OF J. M. BARRIE         129

ALICE MEYNELL   135

FATHER BROWN GOES TO HOLLYWOOD        151

THE MORAL IN MURDER STORIES 157

THE FREEDOM OF MARRIAGE       163

ETIQUETTE AND THE PROFESSORS       167

THE FLAMES OF FREEDOM   173

BY A ROMAN CONVERT 179

A NONSENSE WORLD    205

THE THREE FINGERS    213

 

Notes on the Texts and Pictures 217