Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy : The Making of GKC, 1874-1908

On the publication of Orthodoxy in 1908, Wilfrid Ward hailed G. K. Chesterton as a prophetic figure whose thought was to be classed with that Burke, Butler, Coleridge, and John Henry Newman. When Chesterton died in 1936, T. S. Eliot pronounced that 'Chesterton's social and economic ideas were the ideas for his time that were fundamentally Christian and Catholic'. But how did he come by these ideas? Eliot noted that Chesterton attached 'significance also to his development, to his beginnings as well as to his ends, and to the movement from one to the other'. It is on that development that this book is focused. Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy is an exploration of G.K. Chesterton's imaginative and spiritual development, from his early childhood in the 1870s to his intellectual maturity in the first decade of the twentieth century. William Oddie draws extensively on Chesterton's unpublished letters and notebooks, his journalism, and his early classic writings, to reveal the writer in his own words. In the first major study of Chesterton to draw on this source material, Oddie charts the progression of Chesterton's ideas from his first story (composed at the age of three and dictated to his aunt Rose) to his apologetic masterpiece Orthodoxy, in which he openly established the intellectual foundations on which the prolific writing of his last three decades would build. Part One explores the years of Chesterton's obscurity; his childhood, his adolescence, his years as a student and a young adult. Part Two examines Chesterton's emergence on to the public stage, his success as one of the leading journalists of his day, and his growing renown as a man of letters. Written to engage all with an interest in Chesterton's life and times, Oddie's accessible style ably conveys the warmth and subtlety of thought that delighted the first readership of the enigmatic GKC. Contents......Page 8 Abbreviations for Works Most Frequently Cited......Page 10 PART I......Page 12 Introduction......Page 14 1. The Man with the Golden Key, 1874–83......Page 26 ‘The permanent anticipation of surprise’......Page 29 The view through the proscenium arch......Page 31 ‘Literary Composition among Boys’......Page 36 The realism of fairyland......Page 44 ‘The white light of wonder’......Page 49 2. School Days: St Paul’s and the JDC, 1883–92......Page 54 Putting up a smokescreen......Page 58 The genius of St Paul’s......Page 59 ‘Don’t you wish that you were me?’......Page 64 ‘A literary faculty which might come to something’......Page 70 The emergence of a theo-philanthropist......Page 74 Reform, revolution, and the religion of mankind......Page 85 Travels into an uncertain time......Page 93 3. Nightmare at the Slade: Digging for the Sunrise of Wonder, 1892–4......Page 95 Revolution and reform......Page 106 ‘A sick cloud upon the soul’......Page 114 A ‘mystical minimum of gratitude’......Page 132 4. Beginning the Journey round the World, 1894–9......Page 137 ‘A faith to hold to and a gospel to preach’......Page 144 A penny plain and twopence coloured: the return to Skelt......Page 150 ‘The tremendous Everything that is anywhere’......Page 154 Moving on......Page 167 ‘...who brought the Cross to me’......Page 174 PART II......Page 182 5. Who is GKC? 1900–2......Page 184 ‘No one ever had such friends as I had’......Page 186 ‘The twiformed monster... the Chesterbelloc’......Page 192 Paradox and the democracy of truth......Page 198 ‘Gilbert Chesterton’: is it a pseudonym? Greybeards at Play and The Wild Knight......Page 206 Early journalism: The Speaker and The Daily News, 1900–1......Page 213 ‘The Pessimists who ruled the culture of the age’......Page 216 Patriotism and anti-imperialism I......Page 221 Early married life......Page 227 6. The Man of Letters as Defender of the Faith, 1903–4: Robert Browning; Blatchford I; The Napoleon of Notting Hill......Page 237 The ‘drift towards orthodoxy’......Page 246 Defender of the faith I: the Blatchford controversy (1903)......Page 250 Patriotism and anti-imperialism II......Page 267 The Napoleon of Notting Hill......Page 275 7. The Critic as Polemicist, 1904–6: G. F. Watts; Blatchford II; Heretics; The Ball and the Cross; Charles Dickens......Page 281 Defender of the faith II: the Blatchford controversy (1904)......Page 287 Heretics: why ‘man can be defined as an animal that makes dogmas’......Page 295 The Ball and the Cross......Page 308 Liberal politics and liberal principles: the general election of 1906......Page 313 Charles Dickens and the triumph of ‘vulgar optimism’......Page 320 8. Battles in the Last Crusade, 1907–8: The Man who was Thursday and Orthodoxy......Page 334 The Man who was Thursday......Page 337 The war over the creeds: Gore, Scott Holland, and Campbell......Page 345 Becoming Everyman......Page 352 The thrilling romance of orthodoxy......Page 368 Epilogue......Page 379 Bibliography......Page 396 C......Page 404 G......Page 409 M......Page 410 T......Page 411 Y......Page 412 "Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy is an exploration of the G. K. Chesterton's imaginative and spiritual development, from his early childhood in the 1870s to his intellectual maturity in the first decade of the twentieth century. William Oddie draws extensively on Chesterton's unpublished letters and notebooks, his journalism, and his early classic writings, to reveal the writer in his own words. In the first major study of Chesterton to draw on this source material, Oddie charts the progression of Chesterton's ideas from his first story (composed at the age of three and dictated to his aunt Rose) to his apologetic masterpiece Orthodoxy, in which he clearly established the intellectual foundations on which the prolific writing of his last three decades would be built." "Part One explores the years of Chesterton's obscurity; his childhood, his adolescence, his years as a student and a young adult. Part Two examines Chesterton's emergence onto the public stage, his success as one of the leading journalists of his day, and his growing renown as a man of letters. Written to engage all with an interest in Chesterton's life and times, Oddie's accessible style ably conveys the warmth and subtlety of thought that delighted the first readership of the protean GKC."--BOOK JACKET Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy is an exploration of G.K. Chesterton's imaginative and spiritual development, from his early childhood in the 1870s to his intellectual maturity in the first decade of the twentieth century. William Oddie draws extensively on Chesterton's unpublished letters and notebooks, his journalism, and his early classic writings. - ;On the publication of Orthodoxy in 1908, Wilfrid Ward hailed G.K. Chesterton as a prophetic figure whose thought was to be classed with that Burke, Butler, Coleridge, and John Henry Newman. When Chesterton died in 1936, T.S. Eliot pr Chesterton and the Romance of Orthodoxy is an exploration of G.K. Chesterton's imaginative and spiritual development, from his early childhood in the 1870's to his intellectual maturity in the first decade of the twentieth century. William Oddie draws extensively on Chesterton's unpublished letters and notebooks, his journalism, and his early classic writings. - ;On the publication of Orthodoxy in 1908, Wilfrid Ward hailed G. K. Chesterton as a prophetic figure whose thought was to be classed with that Burke, Butler, Coleridge, and John Henry Newman. When Chesterton died in 1936, T. S. Eliot William Oddie draws extensively on Chesterton's unpublished letters and notebooks, his journalism, and his early classic writings, to reveal the writer's spiritual development, from his early childhood in the 1870s to his intellectual maturity in the first decade of the twentieth century