G.K. Chesterton's 'The Wisdom of Father Brown'

Seminar paper from the year 2003 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Technical University of Braunschweig, language: English, abstract: Gilbert Keith Chesterton started writing when he was a schoolboy and today his work is well-known all over the world. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. But he also wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 books, hundreds of poems, five plays, five novels and more than two hundred short stories, including a popular series on "e;Father Brown"e; which I think is one of his greatest works. These stories on "e;Father Brown"e; have been written between 1911 and 1935 and are summarized in five books called "e;The Innocence of Father Brown"e;, "e;The Wisdom of Father Brown"e;, "e;The Incredulity of Father Brown"e;, "e;The Secret of Father Brown"e; and "e;The Scandal of Father Brown"e;. All the books "e;constitute a fascinating summary of Chesterton practising what he preached"e; 1 . In my work I will concentrate on the second Father Brown book called "e;The Wisdom of Father Brown"e;. It was published in 1914 and contains twelve stories on the priestdetective Father Brown. First I will give short summaries of the four stories I chose from the book and afterwards I will focus on the main character Father Brown, his attitudes and his development. To do this I will mainly give attention to the four stories I selected but also prove some of my statements by referring to one of the other stories. I will also compare Chesterton s views with the attitudes of his figure Father Brown.