Hilaire Belloc was born in 1870 in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, and raised in England. Educated in Birmingham before voluntarily serving his military term of service in France, Belloc then returned to England to study History at Baliol College, Oxford, where he graduated with a First class degree.
Writing on everything from poetry to war to travel, Belloc has been called one of the Big Four of Edwardian Letters, along with H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and G. K. Chesterton, all of whom debated each other into the 1930s. Belloc was closely associated with Chesterton, and Shaw coined the term Chesterbelloc for their partnership. A deeply religious Catholic, Belloc wrote considerably about his faith, and throughout his literary career he was concerned with the problems of social reform. He was a political activist and an MP for Salford from 1906 to 1910 for the Liberal party, and his written non-fiction work criticized both capitalism and aspects of socialism. He died in 1953.
