G K Chesterton at the Daily News:

Literature, Liberalism and Revolution, 1901–1913

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Editor: Julia Stapleton

The Pickering Masters

This critical edition includes all of G K Chesterton’s contributions to the Daily News from 1901 to 1913. Many of these have never been republished since their initial appearance. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an important figure in the Edwardian literary world. He engaged closely with the vibrant new influences in literature and thought including those of Nietzsche, Ibsen, Maeterlinck, Shaw, Kipling, Whitman, Tolstoy and Wells. Shaped by these encounters, he reviewed a stream of new editions, biographies, and memoirs associated with literature, poetry and art for the Daily News. Increasingly relentless in his criticism of the Liberal Party, Chesterton’s articles for the paper also demonstrate his strong democratic and Christian convictions.

In addition to Chesterton’s articles the edition includes letters from readers in the correspondence columns that provide evidence of the reception of his work. Several of these letters are from well-known writers and activists. Chesterton and his correspondents were engaged in most of the key debates of the time, such as education, eugenics, imperialism, temperance reform, women’s suffrage and foreign alliances. These writings are of interest to all historians working on Edwardian Britain, newspaper and periodical culture, religious, spiritual and political movements, social and literary criticism, science and philosophy.

Assisted by the Arts and Humanities Research Council

• First critical edition of Chesterton’s journalism
• Contains some 750 items, including articles, literary reviews and correspondence that have previously only been available in archival, microfilm form
• Makes available twelve unsigned essays by Chesterton from 1901 for the first time since their original publication
• Extensive annotations contextualize the articles for the modern reader
• Includes footnotes, textual variants and a cumulative index, as well as a lengthy introduction

Sample pages

• 'What is a Conservative?' [from the Editor's postbag, Sept 11, 1906] + 'The Changing Vision' [Sept 15, 1906]
• 'Am I a Worm?' [Aug 10, 1907] + 'Ut Experientia Docet' [Aug 21, 1907]

Contents

Part I

Volume 1
General introduction
Columns, reviews and letters, 1901–2

Volume 2
Columns, reviews and letters, 1903–4

Volume 3
Columns, reviews and letters, January 1905 – June 1906

Volume 4
Columns, reviews and letters, July 1906 – December 1907

Part II

Volume 5
Columns, reviews and letters, January 1908 – June 1909

Volume 6
Columns, reviews and letters, July 1909 – September 1910

Volume 7
Columns, reviews and letters, October 1910 – December 1911

Volume 8
Columns, reviews and letters, January 1912 – February 1913

Items from 1916 and 1928

Appendix: Reviews of Chesterton's Books in the Daily News, 1901–1913

Related titles

• Lives of Victorian Literary Figures, Part VII : Joseph Conrad, Henry Rider Haggard and Rudyard Kipling by their Contemporaries
• Political Future Fiction : Speculative and Counter-Factual Politics in Edwardian Fiction
• The Collected Short Stories of George Moore : Gender and Genre
• The Correspondence of H G Wells

Leaflets

• Colour leaflet

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