The first one-volume reader of the best of G. K. Chesterton’s writing in the full range of genres he mastered. Chesterton was a towering literary figure of the early twentieth century, accomplished and prolific in many literary forms. A forceful proponent of Christianity and a critic of both conservatism and liberalism, he set out to describe nothing less than the spiritual journey of humanity in and his most enduring books. He is famous as well for his beloved Father Brown detective stories, his satirical and comic verse, his profoundly witty paradoxes and aphorisms, and his penetrating studies of such figures as Charles Dickens, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Thomas Aquinas. contains samples of his poems, stories, essays, and biographies, as well as the influential works of religious, political, and social thought in which he championed the common man and for which he is most admired. Table of Contents: AUTOBIOGRAPHY Hearsay Evidence The Man with the Golden Key CHARLES DICKENS The Dickens Period The Boyhood of Dickens The Youth of Dickens The Pickwick Papers The Great Popularity Dickens and America Dickens and Christmas The Time of Transition Later Life and Works The Great Dickens Characters On the Alleged Optimism of Dickens A Note on the Future of Dickens THE VICTORIAN AGE IN LITERATURE The Victorian Compromise and Its Enemies The Great Victorian Novelists The Great Victorian Poets ORTHODOXY Introduction in Defence of Everything Else The Maniac The Suicide of Thought The Ethics of Elfland The Flag of the World The Paradoxes of Christianity The Eternal Revolution The Romance of Orthodoxy Authority and the Adventurer THE EVERLASTING MAN Introduction: The Plan of This Book The Riddles of the Gospel The Strangest Story in the World The Witness of the Heretics The Escape from Paganism The Five Deaths of the Faith Conclusion: The Summary of This Book ST THOMAS AQUINAS On Two Friars The Aristotelian Revolution A Meditation on the Manichees The Approach to Thomism The Permanent Philosophy The Sequel to St Thomas FATHER BROWN STORIES The Blue Cross The Queer Feet The Wrong Shape The Resurrection of Father Brown The Miracle of Moon Crescent The Dagger with Wings The Doom of the Darnaways The Song of the Flying Fish The Red Moon of Meru The Chief Mourner of Marne The Scandal of Father Brown The Quick One The Blast of the Book The Green Man The Crime of the Communist The Vampire of the Village POEMS Wine and Water Antichrist, or the Reunion of Christendom: An Ode Elegy in a Country Churchyard Lepanto The Secret People The Rolling English Road The Donkey