The Wholeness of Father Brown: The Complete Collection of Detective Mysteries

by G. K. Chesterton

Overview

Father Brown explains: "You see, I murdered them all myself... I planned out each of the crimes very carefully. I thought out exactly how a thing like that could be done, and in what style or state of mind a man could really do it. And when I was quite sure that I felt exactly like the murderer myself, of course I knew who he was." -- "Has it never struck you that a man who does next to nothing but hears men’s real sins is likely to be wholly aware of human evil?"

Father Brown is one of the great detectives in world literature. Here you are served not only some of the best detective stories ever written but great literature in every measurement. The tales are thought-provoking, humorous, satirical, poetical and philosophical. They usually have an uncanny, weird, almost supernatural atmosphere -- and nevertheless how rational and logical the solutions turns out to be, the explanations in themselves tends to feel even more mysterious. Many authors have tried to imitate the paradoxical nature of these 53 stories; none has succeeded.

The English author Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was a very prominent cultural figure at the beginning of the last century, a true intellectual freethinker who never submitted himself to conventional ideas only because they were in vogue. In Eugenics and Other Evils (1922), when the eugenic movement was at its peak, he warned for racial purity and totalitarianism decades before the world became aware of what had happened in Nazi Germany. As a Catholic and theologian, moral questions and problems were of the highest importance for him, and his love for crime fiction should be seen in that light.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789187611230
Publisher:	Timaios Press
Publication date:	12/15/2019
Edition description:	2nd ed.
Pages:	608
Sales rank:	130,310
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.63(d)

About the Author

British writer GILBERT KEITH CHESTERTON (1874-1936) expounded prolifically about his wide-ranging philosophies. A man of strong opinions, with a humorous style that earned him the title of the "prince of paradox," he is impossible to categorize as "liberal" or "conservative": he was a literary critic, historian, playwright, novelist, columnist, and poet. His thousands of essays and 80 books remain among the most beloved in the English language.

Table of Contents

THE INNOCENCE OF FATHER BROWN (1911)

The Blue Cross ... 7

The Secret Garden ... 19

The Queer Feet ... 32

The Flying Stars ... 44

The Invisible Man ... 53

The Honour of Israel Gow ... 64

The Wrong Shape ... 74

The Sins of Prince Saradine ... 86

The Hammer of God ... 98

The Eye of Apollo ... 109

The Sign of the Broken Sword ... 119

The Three Tools of Death ... 130

THE WISDOM OF FATHER BROWN (1914)

The Absence of Mr Glass ... 139

The Paradise of Thieves ... 149

The Duel of Dr Hirsch ... 160

The Man in the Passage ... 170

The Mistake of the Machine ... 181

The Head of Cæsar ... 190

The Purple Wig ... 200

The Perishing of the Pendragons ... 209

The God of the Gongs ... 222

The Salad of Colonel Cray ... 232

The Strange Crime of John Boulnois ... 241

The Fairy Tale of Father Brown ... 251



THE INCREDULITY OF FATHER BROWN (1926)

The Resurrection of Father Brown ... 259

The Arrow of Heaven ... 271

The Oracle of the Dog ... 287

The Miracle of Moon Crescent ... 301

The Curse of the Golden Cross ... 316

The Dagger with Wings ... 333

The Doom of the Darnaways ... 347

The Ghost of Gideon Wise ... 363

THE SECRET OF FATHER BROWN (1927)

The Secret of Father Brown ... 376

The Mirror of the Magistrate ... 381

The Man with Two Beards ... 394

The Song of the Flying Fish ... 406

The Actor and the Alibi ... 418

The Vanishing of Vaudrey ... 430

The Worst Crime in the World ... 443

The Red Moon of Meru ... 453

The Chief Mourner of Marne ... 464

The Secret of Flambeau ... 478

THE SCANDAL OF FATHER BROWN (1935)

The Scandal of Father Brown ... 482

The Quick One ... 492

The Blast of the Book (a.k.a The Five Fugitives) ... 506

The Green Man ... 515

The Pursuit of Mr Blue ... 528

The Crime of the Communist ... 540

The Point of a Pin ... 551

The Insoluble Problem ... 565

UNCOLLECTED STORIES

The Donnington Affair (1914; with Sir Max Pemberton) ... 576

The Vampire of the Village (1936) ... 585

The Mask of Midas (1936) ... 596