G. K. Chesterton: Prophet of the FamilyOn the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the birth of G. K. Chesterton, Ediciones Encuentro has released a new edition of the biography written by Professor Joseph Pearce, with an introduction by writer Enrique García-Máiquez.
The biography is of interest primarily because of the author, a convert to Catholicism after reading Newman, Chesterton, Hilaire Belloc, C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien, among others. This is not his only incursion into this genre: he also signed the study "C. S. Lewis and the Catholic Church" or an important biography of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, with whom he was able to meet personally in Moscow and who gave his approval to the book once it was finished.
G. K. Chesterton. Wisdom and innocence
"Wisdom and Innocence" is, therefore, a rigorous study of Chesterton that, in addition, places his Christian faith in a preferential place, instead of relegating it to the background, as occurs in some biographies of Christian characters.
On the other hand, Pearce does not limit himself to narrating the life trajectory of the famous English writer, but also delves into some of his most important works.
Of great interest are the fragments that deal with his conversion process, since, although Chesterton became a Catholic in 1922, when he was 48 years old, since he began to believe in Christianity he was at the doors of the Church. In fact, the first collection of stories of Father Brown, the famous Catholic priest and detective invented by Chesterton (based on Father John O'Connor, who would hear his general confession years later), was published in 1910, years before his conversion, as was his famous "Orthodoxy" of 1908.
On the other hand, the text is enriched by letters and writings, both from Chesterton himself and from people close to him, which offer different perspectives on the character. As an example, a letter that the writer sent to his mother after having converted to Catholicism, a step in which he had been preceded by his younger brother, Cecil: "I am writing to tell you one thing before I tell anyone else, a thing which will probably place us in the situation of two inseparable Oxford friends who 'never differed in anything except their opinions'. [...] The story goes back a long way, to a certain extent, for I have come to the same conclusion as Cecil... and I am now a Catholic, as he was, having been claiming that title for a long time from an Anglo-Catholic sense. [...] These things do not spoil the relationship of those who love each other as much as we do; least of all when they did not involve the slightest difference of affection between Cecil and ourselves. [...] The other thing I wanted to tell you is that all this has come from me and has not been a sudden and sentimental impulse. [...] I think it is the truth" ("Wisdom and Innocence," pp. 350-351).
In short, this biography is of interest not only for regular readers of Chesterton, but also for those who want to know more about his figure, the English society of the time and his process of conversion to Catholicism.
