Due to his tremendous popularity, the BBC invited Chesterton to do a series of radio talks in 1931. He accepted, tentatively at first, but then from 1932 until his death, he delivered over 40 talks per year. His informal talks were very popular and he was encouraged to improvise on the scripts. [1]
Gilbert Keith Chesterton, usually known as G.K. Chesterton, who died on 14 June 1936, was an English critic known for his exuberant personality and rotund figure. Chesterton’s literary output was vast and diverse, encompassing essays, novels, short stories, biographies, and poetry, but he considered himself primarily a journalist.
He is perhaps best known for his detective fiction featuring the character Father Brown, a humble Roman Catholic priest with a knack for solving mysteries. The first Father Brown story, The Blue Cross, was published in 1910, and Chesterton continued to write stories about this beloved character throughout his career. Father Brown is featured in 53 short stories published between 1910 and 1936. Chesterton loosely based him on the Rt Rev. Msgr. John O’Connor (1870–1952), an Irish Catholic parish priest in England.
Another notable work by Chesterton is The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (1908), a metaphysical thriller that explores themes of anarchism and the battle between good and evil. This novel is often regarded as one of his most enduring and thought-provoking works.
Chesterton wrote over 4,000 newspaper essays, around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, and several plays. He and George Bernard Shaw were famous friends and enjoyed their arguments and discussions. Although rarely in agreement, they each maintained good will toward, and respect for, the other.
G.K. Chesterton’s works are still widely read, and his ideas continue to influence writers, theologians, and thinkers across the world. He died of congestive heart failure on 14 June 1936, aged 62, at his home in Buckinghamshire, UK. His last words were a greeting of good morning spoken to his wife Frances.