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This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's works that he published in the late 1920s, including The Catholic Church and Conversion (1926), which explores Catholicism's transformation into a positively new religion, and The Return of Don Quixote (1927). The chapter first considers the secretaries who worked for Chesterton, from Freda Spencer and a certain Mrs Walpole to Winifred Pierpoint, Kathleen Chesshire, and Dorothy Collins. It then turns to Chesterton's travel to Barcelona in April 1926 on the invitation of the Catalan branch of the P.E.N. (Poets, Essayists, and Novelists) Club, along with the founding of the Distributist League in 1926 in Essex. It also discusses Chesterton's The Judgement of Dr Johnson: A Comedy in Three Acts, published in October 1927, and Chesterton's debate with George Bernard Shaw. Finally, the chapter examines Chesterton's views about his conversion to Catholicism.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's last years, beginning with his travel to Dublin in June 1932 for the 31st International Eucharistic Congress. It then considers Chesterton's articles that he wrote for the English Catholic weekly newspaper the Universe and one article for the Jesuit periodical Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review; those articles were subsequently published in book form in November 1932 as Christendom in Dublin. The chapter turns to Chesterton's attendance of a lunch in London in July 1933, given by the Royal Society of Literature for the Canadian Authors' Association, before proceeding with a discussion of Chesterton's holiday with his wife Frances and Dorothy Collins. Finally, it recounts Chesterton's death on June 14, 1936, followed by Frances Chesterton on December 12, 1938.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's works that he published as he and his wife Frances traveled to Rome and then to America, including The Thing (1929), The Resurrection of Rome (1930), and Come to Think of it...A Book of Essays (1930). It considers Chesterton's meeting with Pope Pius XI while he was in Rome before turning to G.K.C. as M.C., a selection of the introductions that Chesterton had written for books published between 1903 and 1929. It also discusses Chesterton's selection as the first president or “Ruler” of the Detection Club, the brainwave of Anthony Berkeley Cox, along with his second lecture tour of America.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's works that he published after his conversion to Catholicism, including The Man who Knew too Much (1922), Fancies versus Fads (1923), St Francis of Assisi (1923), Tales of the Long Bow (1925), and The Everlasting Man (1925). The Everlasting Man was at least in part a response to H. G. Wells's The Outline of History, published in serial paperback form in 1919 and then as a hardback in 1920. The chapter also examines Chesterton's views on Christianity and his reasons for leaving the Church of England to join the Church of Rome, along with the continued financial troubles experienced by his weekly paper, New Witness.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's works that were published during World War I. It first considers Chesterton's return to his propaganda work following a bout with illness before turning to a discussion of his writings, including The Crimes of England (1915), Divorce versus Democracy (1916), and The New Jerusalem (1920). It then examines Chesterton's response to the controversy involving Ford Madox Hueffer, whose 1915 book Zeppelin Nights received a scathing review from J. K. Prothero in the New Witness. It also looks at Chesterton's articles on divorce that were published in the New Witness, along with the inaugural meeting of the New Witness League in London in 1918. Finally, the chapter assesses the proposal to erect a war memorial to honor the dead of Beaconsfield.

This chapter focuses on the controversy between G. K. Chesterton and Robert Blatchford regarding Christianity. In March 1903 in the Clarion, Blatchford challenged Christians to respond to his attack on Christianity following a review of a reprint of an anti-Christian polemic by the zoologist Ernst Haeckel, who used the theory of evolution to justify racism, aggressive nationalism and social Darwinism. Chesterton took up the challenge in the Daily News, using the methodology of hypothesis to justify religious belief and to defend Christianity. Chesterton also challenged Blatchford's determinism and “Calvinism,” contrasting the latter with the “free will of Catholicism” that Chesterton is defending. The chapter also considers Chesterton's book G. F. Watts, which was published in March 1904 and marked his return to art criticism.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's debates with George Bernard Shaw over politics and religion that began in April 1905 regarding William Shakespeare and would last for several years. Chesterton first criticized Shaw for his accusation that Shakespeare wrote for popular appeal and for money. The two men developed a friendship despite their contrasting personalities. Also in December 1907, Chesterton and H. G. Wells responded to Hilaire Belloc's article entitled “Thoughts about Modern Thought,” published in the Socialist journal New Age. In January 1909, Chesterton got involved in another controversy when he published an article in the modernist Church Socialist Quarterly contrasting traditional Christianity with modernist Christianity. This chapter also examines Chesterton's book George Bernard Shaw, which tackles the seriousness associated with Puritanism, as well as his views on subjects such as Socialism, Indian nationalism, and Conservatism. Finally, it considers the Chestertons' move from London to Beaconsfield in October 1909.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories and the so-called Marconi scandal. It first considers Wilfrid Ward's review of Chesterton's book Orthodoxy and Chesterton's meeting with the Conservative politician Lord Hugh Cecil. It then turns to the first of the Father Brown stories, “The Blue Cross,” published in September 1910 in the Storyteller magazine. It also discusses Chesterton's novel, Manalive, published in February 1912 before concluding with an analysis of the Marconi scandal of 1911 involving the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company and its managing director, Godfrey Isaacs.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's travel to America in 1921 with his wife Frances and his conversion to Catholicism a year later. It first considers Chesterton's reaction to Herbert Samuel's appointment in June 1920 as High Commissioner in Palestine and the financial difficulties experienced by his paper, New Witness. It then looks at the letters written by Chesterton to various people, including Maurice Baring. It also examines Chesterton's views on Anglicanism and concludes by discussing his conversion to Catholicism.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's early days based on his posthumously published Autobiography (1936). It begins with Chesterton's family background and his childhood in Kensington, London, where he was born. It then considers the influence Chesterton's father had on his formative years before turning to his education, with particular emphasis on his involvement with the Junior Debating Club and the Debater periodical at St Paul's School. It also discusses Chesterton's engagement with Spiritualism and art and concludes by examining his “orthodoxy”.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's book The Victorian Age in Literature, published in 1913, and his illness due to heart complications. It first considers the libel suit filed by William Lever against Chesterton and his brother Cecil before turning to The Victorian Age in Literature, which expresses Chesterton's views and impressions about the significance of Victorian literature. It then discusses George Bernard Shaw's Common Sense about the War, a pamphlet published on November 14, 1914 in the New Statesman.

This chapter focuses on the publication of G. K. Chesterton's early works. It begins with Chesterton's account of the role played by Ernest Hodder Williams, a fellow student and friend at University College, in his change of intended career from art to literature. It then considers Chesterton's engagement with Frances Blogg and his time at Bedford Park, an outer suburb of West London frequented by artists and writers, including the Irish poet W. B. Yeats. It also discusses Greybeards at Play, Chesterton's first book, and The Wild Knight and Other Poems, both published in 1900.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's marriage to Frances Blogg on June 28, 1901 at St Mary Abbots Church in Kensington, London, and his rise to fame as a writer. It first provides a background on the Chesterton-Blogg wedding before turning to a discussion of Chesterton's first book of prose, The Defendant, published in December 1901. It then considers Chesterton' defense of the common man and denouncement of “the deep anti-popular bias of the modern intellectuals,” along with his involvement in a controversy regarding the Balfour government's educational bill, which abolished independent school boards and replaced them with municipal local-education authorities. It also examines Chesterton's second book of selected journalism, Twelve Types, published in October 1902 and concludes with an assessment of Chesterton's fascination with the grotesque and his criticism of Robert Browning's poetry.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's 1906 book Charles Dickens, a tribute to Charles Dickens. It first considers Chesterton's stint as writer of the “Our Notebook” column in the Illustrated London News that began in the autumn of 1905 before discussing his support for Liberal candidate Charles Masterman in England's general election of January 1906. It then turns to Charles Dickens, in which he defended Dickens against both realist and symbolist writers. It also examines Chesterton's novel The Man who was Thursday, published in 1908.

This chapter focuses on G. K. Chesterton's views on orthodox Christianity. It first considers the Chestertons' stay at a rented house at Rye in Sussex, next door to Lamb House, the mansion where Henry James once lived. It then turns to the death of Frances Chesterton's brother that made her depressed before proceeding with a discussion of Chesterton's collection of essays, All Things Considered, published in the Illustrated London News on September 10, 1908. Finally, it examines Chesterton's book Orthodoxy, which was also published in September 1908 and contains his arguments about the orthodox Christianity of the Apostles' Creed in relation to his philosophy.

Chapter 2 considers Lawrence’s early attraction to socialism and provides evidence that he intended to pursue a career in journalism from as early as 1908. It explores how his reading of A. R. Orage’s magazine the New Age shaped writing such as his paper ‘Art and the Individual’ (1908), which was revised and given the subtitle ‘A Paper for Socialists’ before it was sent to his correspondent Blanche Jennings, a socialist and suffragist who represented Lawrence’s ideal reader at this time. The chapter considers Lawrence’s early interest in the careers of writers now often classed as ‘middlebrow’ (partly due to their successful journalistic careers) such as G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw.

This chapter focuses on the most conceptual use of the ‘underground’ that divorces the term from direct spatial connotations. In this ideological framework, Marxism, nationalism and terrorism all converge in the network of subterranean, subversive activities, which extend beyond the borders of London to Russia, Ireland, Continental Europe and the Americas. Although socialist gatherings and political meetings were often spatialised in underground terms as hidden, secret and covert, the rhetoric of political movements was pervasive and contagious on the surface of the city, as political demonstrations and dynamite detonations terrorised the urban imagination. However, the chapter also examines the absence of terrorism in literary works, where the spectre of violence pervades the novel in private and domestic ways. As in previous chapters, women are aligned with subterranean activities, but in a revolutionary context, women are often depicted as ‘networkers’ in the web of intrigue, more threatening than the male counterparts themselves.