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Seton Hall University

Chronology

Gilbert Keith Chesterton
1874-1936

G.K. Chesterton Sihlouette

 

1874  (29 May) Born to Marie Louise (née Grojean) wife of Edward Chesterton, at 32 Sheffield Terrace, Campden Hill, London, W.8.
1879 Birth of Cecil Chesterton. Family moves to 11 Warwick Gardens.
1887 (January) Enters St. Paul’s School, Hammersmith, London. 
c.1890  Begins lifelong friendship with schoolmate Edmund Clerihew Bentley.
1891-1893  Debates and writes for The Debater.
1892 Contributes “The Song of Labour” to The Speaker.
1892-1895 Attends Slade School of Art. Hears lectures in English Literature in University College.
1895-1901 On publishers’ staff (Redway; then from 1895 T. Fisher Unwin).
1895 Reviews for The Ruskin Reader for Academy, publication 22 July. 
1899-1903 Reviewing and writing long biographical critical essays (Carlyle, Tennyson, Thackeray).
1900  Greybeards at Play (comic verse) published by R. Brimley Johnson (October).

The Wild Knight and Other Poems (Grant Richards; November).

Meets Hillaire Belloc, gentle start of lifelong friendship (28 June).
1901  (28 June) Marries Frances Blogg after long courtship, visiting her in Bedford Park from 1896. Residence briefly in Edwardes Square, Kensington, then Overstrand Mansions, Battersea
1901-1913  Columnist for Daily News, some columns later essay-books.
1901  The Defendant (Brimley Johnson; December). Essays. 
1902 Twelve Types (Arthur L. Humphries; October). Literary Essays.
1903 Robert Browning (Macmillan: May). Critical study.
1903-1904 Participates in Clarion controversy about religion. 
1904

Meets inspiration for Father Brown (Reverend John O’Connor, but in mid-1920’s Father Brown also resembles Reverend Vincent McNabb, O.P.)

G.F. Watts (Duckworth; March. Also New York: E. P. Dutton). Critical study. 

The Napoleon of Notting Hill (John Lane; 22 March). Novel.

1905-1936 Bruce G. Ingram makes G.K. Chesterton weekly columnist (“Our Note-Book”) for Illustrated London News. Chesterton serving lifetime. 
1905  

The Club of Queer Trades (Harper and Brothers; March). Linked short stories.

Heretics (John Lane; 6 June). Linked essays, a few being reworked reviews.

Introduces translation from Russan of Maxim Gorky, Creatures that Once Were Men (Alston Rivers, February).

1906

Charles Dickens (Methuen; 30 June. Also New York: Harper). 

Contributes to sermons (10, 30 March) to series in St. Paul’s Church, Covent Garden, London, series published as Preachers from the Pew.

1907-1909  Vigorous contributor to controversies in New Age under Nietzschean A.R. Orage.
1907-1910  Introduces successive volumes of the works of Charles Dickens for the publishers Dent in their “Everyman’s Library” under the general Editorship of Ernest Rhys (10 in 1907, 6 1908, 4 1909, 2 1910, several of which must have coincided with his writing The Man Who Was Thursday and Orthodoxy.
1907

Introduces George Haw, From Workhouse to Westminster: The Life Story of Will Crooks, MP (Cassell: March).

Introduces The Book of Job (S. Wellwood: May, thus preceding the writing of Thursday very closely).

The Man Who Was Thursday apparently published in pilot edition with tiny run to judge demand, one copy dated 1907 reported 1949, no extant copy now known (month unknown but probably December).

1908 The Man Who Was Thursday (Arrowsmith (Bristol) and Simpkin, Marshall (essentially wholesale distributors) of London: February). 4000 copies printed, no new edition until September 1912.

All Things Considered (Methuen; 10 September). Essays from Illustrated London News.

Orthodoxy (John Lane; 25 September). 5,310 copies. Also New York: Lane. Counterpart to Heretics.

Varied Types (New York: Dodd, Mead; September) Twelve Types plus seven other biographical essays reprinted from Daily News, etc.
1909 

George Bernard Shaw (Lane [London and New York]; 24 August). “The Later Phases” added 1935. 

Tremendous Trifles (Methuen: 23 September). Essays from Daily News.

The Gilbert Chestertons move residence from Battersea to Overroads, Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.

1910 The Ball and the Cross (Wells Gardner, Darton; 24 February. Novel.

What’s Wrong With the World (Cassell; June).

Alarms and Discursions (Methuen; 3 November). Daily News essays.

William Blake (Duckworth; November).
1911

Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens (Dent: February). The Everyman’s Library introductions.

The Innocence of Father Brown (Cassell; July). Short Stories.

The Ballad of the White Horse (Methuen; 31 August). Poem.

1912

Manalive (Nelson; February). Novel.

A Miscellany of Men (Methuen: 10 October). Daily News essays.

1911-1912  Verse, mostly ballads, contributed to Eye-Witness.
1912 -1916  Verse, including many songs without music, contributed to New Witness. 
1913

Leaves Daily News (February) and writes for Daily Herald (from April 1913 to September 1914).

Cecil Chesterton editing New Witness inflames Marconi Scandal, tried (27 May) for criminal libel, fined £100.

The Victorian Age in Literature (Williams and Norgate [Home University Library; February]. History and Criticism. 

Magic a Fantastic Comedy (Martin Secker; November). Play.

1914 

The Flying Inn (Methuen; 22 January 1914). Novel, including songs previously in New Witness.

(first week of August) Outbreak of World War I.

The Wisdom of Father Brown (Cassell; October). Short stories.
 
The Barbarism of Berlin (Cassell; November). Polemic, articles first printed Daily Mail (October-November). 

(November) unconscious for many weeks probably from dropsy. Illustrated London News column suspended after 21 November until 22 May 1915.

1915

Letters to an Old Garibaldian (Methuen; 7 January) but copies ready in December 1914 whence writing must have been before illness. Polemic.

Poems (Burns and Oates: April). Collected verse, probably assembled by Frances Chesterton.

Wine, Water and Song (Methuen; 6 August). Songs, almost all in The Flying Inn. 

The Crimes of England (Cecil Palmer and Hayward; November). Polemic, Part Historical.

1916 (October) Replaces brother Cecil (now in the army) as Editor of New Witness with consequent blizzard of articles. 
1917

A Short History of England (Chatto and Windus; 18 October).

Cecil Chesterton marries Ada Jones while in the army.

Utopia of Usurers (New York: Boni and Liveright; no UK publication). Essays from Daily Herald.

1918

Visits Ireland (October-November) initially to encourage Irish enlistment in HM Armed Forces, debates there with Shaw, present in Ireland on similar errand.

Death of Cecil Chesterton (6 December). 

1919 Irish Impressions (Collins; 4 November). Slightly revised reports to New Witness sent from wartime Ireland and post-armistice, with some additional matter.
 
Visits Palestine (December, back April 1920).
1920 The Superstition of Divorce (Chatto and Windus; 29 January). Essays, including New Witness series March-April 1918.

Old King Cole (charity publication for Beaconsfield Convalescent Home:? Summer). Old rhyme rewritten successively in the manner of Tennyson, Yeats, Whitman, Browning, Swinburne. Chesterton in Supportive pageant as Old King Cole. 

The Uses of Diversity (Methuen; 26 October). Essays from Illustrated London News and New Witness.

The New Jerusalem (Hodder and Stoughton; 19 November). Series in Daily Telegraph, August-September. 

1921 Lecture tour in the United States.
1922

Eugenics and Other Evils. (Cassell; February).

What I Saw in America (Hodder and Stoughton; 1 September). Reports from New Witness.

The Ballad of St. Barbara. (Cecil Palmer; October). Poems, some previously in New Witness.
 
The Man Who Knew Too Much and Other Stories. (Cassell, November). Stories, some self-standing.

Reception in Roman Catholic Church, 30 July.

1923

Francies versus Fads. (Methuen; 6 September). Essays from London Mercury, New Witness, Illustrated London News.

End of New Witness (May).

St. Francis of Assisi. (Hodder and Stoughton; 26 October). Hagiography.

1924 The End of the Roman Road (Classic Press; March). Essay.
1925

The Superstitions of the Sceptic (Heffer and Sons [Cambridge]; 4 March). Controversy with G.G. Coulton).

Editor of G.K.’s Weekly (serving from 21 March until death). 


Tales of the Long Bow (Cassell; June). Linked short stories.


The Everlasting Man (Hodder and Stoughton; 30 September). Theology. Echoes of Orthodoxy.


William Cobbett (Hodder and Stoughton; 20 November). Biography.

1926

The Incredulity of Father Brown (Cassell; June). Short stories. 


The Outline of Sanity (Methuen; 2 December). G.K.’s Weekly essays.


Chesterton introduces Thursday dramatized by Cecil’s widow Ada.


The Queen of Seven Swords (Sheed and Ward; December). Verse, not included in Collected Poems (1927).

1927

The Catholic Church and Conversion (Burns, Oates, and Washbourne; January). Theology. 

The Return of Don Quixote (Chatto and Windus; 6 May). Novel. 

Collected Poems (Cecil Palmer/Burns, Oates and Washbourne; June).

The Secret of Father Brown (Cassell; September). Short stories, loosely linked by opening and closing “secrets”.

Culture and the Coming of Peril (University of London Press; October). Lecture, 28 June.

The Judgement of Dr. Johnson (Sheed and Ward; October). Play.

Robert Louis Stevenson (Hodder and Stoughton; 3 November). Critical study.

1928

Generally Speaking (Methuen; 18 October). Essays from Illustrated London News.

The Sword of Wood (Elkin Mathews and Marot; October). Short story. 

The Poet and the Lunatics (Cassell; July). Episodic novel.

The Thing (Sheed and Ward; October). Theology Essays.

1929

The Poet and the Lunatics (Cassell; July). Episodic novel.

The Thing (Sheed and Ward; October). Theology Essays.

1930

Four Faultless Felons (Cassell; August 1930). Loosely linked six-part stories with prologue and epilogue. The fourth story, “The Loyal Traitor,” has echoes of Thursday. 

The Resurrection of Rome (Hodder and Stoughton; 2 October). Essays from Illustrated London News.

1931 All is Grist (Methuen; 2 October). Essays from Illustrated London News.

(May) Ends North-American lecture tour begun previous September. 
1932 Chaucer (Faber and Faber; 11 April). Critical study.
                     
Sidelights on New London and Newer York (Sheed and Ward; May). Essays from several periodicals, well-linked.
                     
Christendom in Dublin (Sheed and Ward; November). Reports from Eucharistic Congress, June.
1932-36 Regular broadcasting for BBC, almost all published in Listener.  
1933

All I Survey (Methuen; 23 March). Essays from Illustrated London News

St. Thomas Aquinas (Hodder and Stoughton; 21 September). Theology.

1934 Avowals and Denials (Methuen; 8 November). Essays from Illustrated London News.
1935

The Scandal of Father Brown (Cassell; March). Short stories.

The Well and the Shallows (Sheed and Ward; September). Theology. 

The Way of the Cross (Hodder and Stoughton; 3 December). Chesterton commentary on interpretation of Stations of the Cross by the artist Frank Brangwyn. 

1936

As I Was Saying (Methuen; 11 June). Essays from Illustrated London News.

Death of Gilbert Keith Chesterton (14 June).

Autobiography (Hutchinson; 5 November).

1937 The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond (Cassell; March). Short stories.
1938 The Coloured Lands (Sheed and Ward; November). Juvenilia, verse, prose, drawings. 

Prepared by Sheridan Gilley, Ph.D., 2008.