The Wisdom of Father Brown

by G. K. Chesterton

Overview

From London to Cornwall, then to Italy and France, a short, shabby priest runs to earth bandits, traitors, killers. Why is he so successful?

The reason is that after years spent in the priesthood, Father Brown knows human nature and is not afraid of its dark side. Thus he understands criminal motivation and how to deal with it.

The stories included are "The Paradise of Thieves," "The Duel of Dr. Hirsch," "The Man in the Passage," "The Mistakes of the Machine," "The Head of the Caesar," "The Purple Wig," "The Perishing of the Pendragons," "The God of the Gongs," "The Salad of the Colonel Cray," "The Strange Crime of John Boulnois" and "The Fairy Tale of Father Brown."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783849650803
Publisher:	Jazzybee Verlag
Publication date:	11/30/2017
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	339 KB

About the Author

English journalist and author, who came of a family of estate-agents, was born in London on the 29th of May 1874. He was educated at St Paul's school, which he left in 1891 with the idea of studying art. But his natural bent was literary, and he devoted himself mainly to cultivating that means of expression, both in prose and verse; he did occasional reviewing, and had some experience in a publisher's office. In 1900, having already produced a volume of clever poems, The Wild Knight, he definitely took to journalism as a career, and became a regular contributor of signed articles to the Liberal journals, the Speaker and Daily News. He established himself from the first as a writer with a distinct personality, combative to a swashbuckling degree, unconventional and dogmatic; and the republication of much of his work in a series of volumes (e.g. Twelve Types, Heretics, Orthodoxy), characterized by much acuteness of criticism, a pungent style, and the capacity of laying down the law with unflagging impetuosity and humour, enhanced his reputation. His powers as a writer are best shown in his studies of Browning (in the "English Men of Letters " series) and of Dickens; but these were only rather more ambitious essays among a medley of characteristic utterances, ranging from fiction (including The Napoleon of Notting Hill) to fugitive verse, and from artistic criticism to discussions of ethics and religion.

Table of Contents

1 The Absence of Mr. Glass 7

2 The Paradise of Thieves 25

3 The Duel of Dr. Hirsch 47

4 The Man in the Passage 67

5 The Mistake of the Machine 89

6 The Head of Caesar 109

7 The Purple Wig 129

8 The Perishing of the Pendragons 151

9 The Salad of Colonel Cray 175

10 The Strange Crime of John Bulnois 193

11 The Fairy Tale of Father Brown 213

About the Author 231

Editorial Reviews

Mr. Chesterton deserves a rousing cheer—in fact, three rousing cheers—for giving us another series of real and fine detective tales.”

New York Times