He was born in London in 1874 and enjoyed a very happy childhood, an experience which was to color his later writings and attitude to life, an attitude which has aptly been described as "childlike" in the best sense of the word.

This is what sets him apart from most "religious" writers, the fact that he approached religious themes, not as a theological expert, but as a layman with his eyes wide open to the wonder of the world. His exuberant and often paradoxical style has captivated many readers and ensured that his works remain extremely popular.

After a period at art school he became a journalist and author, gradually moving towards a more explicit Christianity. He married Frances Blogg in 1901 and they lived in his adopted town of Beaconsfield in Buckinghamshire. Their marriage was very happy but they had no children.

Although he had opposed the Boer War he saw World War I as justified with England as the underdog. In 1916 he began to edit a weekly journal called The New Witness, which had been begun by his brother Cecil who later died in the war. This eventually became G. K.'s Weekly and he continued to produce the paper until his death.

His output as both journalist and author was prodigious, and it was not just a case of quantity but also of quality. Unlike most writers he worked in about half a dozen areas, including poetry, fiction, philosophy, theology, biography and literary criticism. His bodily size matched his literary output, but his eccentric appearance - cape, swordstick, hat, and tiny glasses perched on the end of his nose - masked a humble and gracious character, a person who was liked even by his opponents.

And there was much for him to oppose in contemporary thinking. He warned about the dangers of materialism, immorality and the problems inherent in both capitalism and communism. To this end he worked with his friend Hilaire Belloc to promote the idea of "Distributism," which advocated a greater distribution of wealth and resources to ensure a fairer society.

An example of his approach is given by his criticism of those who said that little girls from poor homes should have their hair cut short in order to prevent the spread of head lice. Chesterton argued rather that we should ensure a just society where families had enough money to keep their children clean even with long hair, where mothers had time to mother, and where families were not oppressed by usurious rents; in short a far more just and equitable society. This may seem like a trivial example, but it shows his way of approaching fundamental problems in a simple and unpretentious way.

He became a Catholic in 1922, followed later by his wife, Frances, in 1926. Like the conversion of Msgr. Ronald Knox, this was seen by contemporaries as a major event. His attitude to his new beliefs is summed in this quote:

"We do not want, as the newspapers say, a Church that will move with the world. We want a Church that will move the world ... It is by that test that history will really judge, of any Church, whether it is the real Church or no." Thus his search had been, above all, for the truth, a truth he found in the Catholic Church: "The difficulty of explaining why I am a Catholic, is that there are 10,000 reasons all amounting to one reason, that Catholicism is true."

In 1923 he produced a biography of St Francis of Assisi, one which showed the true side of that great saint, while 1925 saw the publication of The Everlasting Man, his apologetic interpretation of history in the light of Christ and Christianity. This book had a profound influence on C. S. Lewis, an atheist at the time; subsequently he became a great Anglican apologist for Christianity.

In fiction he produced a number of outstanding works, including The Napoleon of Notting Hill, and The Man who was Thursday, as well as the ever-popular "Father Brown" detective stories. These differ from the usual "Sherlock Holmes" type deductions in that Father Brown solves his cases by his knowledge of human nature and through his Catholic and priestly intuition.

It is in his poetry and shorter works though that more explicitly Marian themes are found. His poem The Battle of Lepanto celebrates the great victory of the Catholic forces under Don Juan of Austria against the Turkish fleet at Lepanto in 1571, a victory commemorated by the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary on 7 October.

His article He is the boy is a commentary on "the return of liberty and prosperity" to Ireland, following the British withdrawal. He describes how he had heard a story in Donegal of someone meeting a beautiful peasant woman carrying a child, who on being asked for her name replied: "I am the Mother of God, and this is Himself, and He is the boy you will be wanting at the last."

On a lighter note, in his work on Chaucer, Chesterton described the views of a learned author who had said that it was "possible" that the medieval English poet had "passed through a period of intense devotion, more especially towards the Virgin Mary." Chesterton agreed that this was indeed possible and that, "It does occur from time to time." But, he then continued, "I do not quite understand why Chaucer must have 'passed through' this fit of devotion, as if he had Mariolatry like the measles. Even an amateur who has encountered this malady may be allowed to testify that it does not usually visit its victims for a brief 'period'; it is generally chronic and (in some sad cases I have known) quite incurable."

G. K. Chesterton died in 1936 and was named a "Defender of the Catholic Faith" by Pope Pius XI, a judgement borne out by succeeding generations of his readers, and by societies devoted to his memory who are increasingly making his many works better known.

This article was originally commissioned by Soul Magazine: http://www.bluearmy.com/

Sources: Stratford Caldecott, G. K. Chesterton Institute address; Edward Peters, Introduction to G. K. Chesterton; American Chesterton Society, Mission Statement; G. K. Chesterton's Conversion Story, ed. Dave Armstrong; F. J. Sheed, The Mary Book.

Chesterton Links:

G.K. Chesterton site
http://ic.net/~erasmus/RAZ27.HTM

Gilbert! the Magazine of G. K. Chesterton Web Site www.chesterton.org/gilbert

Good Chesterton archive at: www.dur.ac.uk/martin.ward/gkc/