An Apologia for Buffoons: The Paradox of G.K. Chesterton’s Literary Authority in His Autobiography

Abstract

G.K. Chesterton’s literary career follows a trajectory opposite to that commonly associated with major authors. In the first years of the twentieth century, his spectacularly successful newspaper column transformed him overnight from an unknown minor editor to a household name. The Daily News’ circulation doubled on the day when Chesterton’s column ran; literati and prime ministers alike sought him out socially.¹ He soon proved to be not merely a journalist but an impossibly prolific literary polymath. In 14 years, he would write nine influential works of literary criticism, five well-received essay collections, five novels, four works of theology and social criticism, three books of poetry, two genre-defining collections of detective stories, and a successful play. The more he wrote, the more his popularity grew. By 1910, his essay collections would run through as many as six editions in the first two months of release; in World War I, soldiers would chant his poems in the trenches.² By his 40th birthday in 1914, he was considered to be one of the era’s greatest men of letters. He was popularly hailed as a ‘sage’ or ‘prophet’ and was so renowned as a literary critic that the University of Birmingham recruited him for a university chair in English literature though he possessed no college degree.³