Chesterton is probably best known for his popular priest-detective Father Brown, who appeared in over fifty short stories. However, he was also a poet, biographer, essayist, dramatist, critic, journalist, advocate of a political movement called ‘Distributism’ and, after his conversion to Catholicism in 1922, an influential writer on theological issues.

While Chesterton could move confidently and successfully between different literary genres, his journalism was at the heart of his life as a writer. He produced thousands of articles on a huge variety of topics, combining humour and seriousness for the Illustrated London News and the Daily News. For a while, he even had his own idiosyncratic newspaper, GK’s Weekly. He travelled widely on lecture engagements and was a powerful orator. Not renowned for his organizational skills, Chesterton would occasionally write his articles in Fleet Street bars and in railway station waiting rooms, having missed his train.