Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was an English writer, journalist, philosopher, and literary critic. An unparalleled essayist, he produced over four thousand essays during his lifetime, alongside eighty novels and two hundred short stories. Tackling topics of politics, history, philosophy and theology with tenacious wit and humour, G. K. Chesterton was often considered a master of the paradox. Himself both a modernist and devout Catholic, he is remembered best for his priest-detective short stories 'Father Brown', and his metaphysical thriller 'The Man Who Was Thursday'. In his lifetime Chesterton befriended and debated some of the greatest thinkers of the age, such as George Bernard Shaw, H. G. Wells, and Bertrand Russell, while his works went on to inspire figures including T. S. Eliot, Michael Collins, and Mahatma Gandhi.
