Quote:OVERVIEW

This collection bring together all the Father Brown mysteries of G.K. Chesterton in a single, convenient, high quality, but extremely low priced Nook volume!

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (29 May 1874 - 14 June 1936) was an English writer whose prolific and diverse output included philosophy, ontology, poetry, play writing, journalism, public lecturing and debating, literary and art criticism, biography, Christian apologetics, and fiction, including fantasy and detective fiction, namely with his exceedingly popular Father Brown short stories.

Father Brown, a short, stumpy Catholic priest with shapeless clothes and a large umbrella, has uncanny insight into human evil.
Father Brown solves his crimes through a strict reasoning process more concerned with spiritual and philosophic truths rather than scientific details, making him an almost equal counterbalance with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, whose stories Chesterton read and admired. Father Brown was the perfect vehicle for conveying Chesterton's view of the world and, of all of his characters, is perhaps closest to Chesterton's own point of view, or at least the effect of his point of view.

EXCERPT

"Six people sat around a small table, seeming almost as incongruous and accidental as if they had been shipwrecked separately on the same small desert island. At least the sea surrounded them; for in one sense their island was enclosed in another island, a large and flying island like Laputa. For the little table was one of many little tables dotted about in the dining saloon of that monstrous ship the Moravia, speeding through the night and the everlasting emptiness of the Atlantic. The little company had nothing in common except that all were travelling from America to England. Two of them at least might be called celebrities; others might be called obscure, and in one or two cases even dubious.

The first was the famous Professor Smaill, an authority on certain archaeological studies touching the later Byzantine Empire. His lectures, delivered in an American University, were accepted as of the first authority even in the most authoritative seats of learning in Europe. His literary works were so steeped in a mellow and imaginative sympathy with the European past, that it often gave strangers a start to hear him speak with an American accent. Yet he was, in his way, very American; he had long fair hair brushed back from a big square forehead, long straight features and a curious mixture of preoccupation with a poise of potential swiftness, like a lion pondering absent-mindedly on his next leap.

There was only one lady in the group; and she was (as the journalists often said of her) a host in herself; being quite prepared to play hostess, not to say empress, at that or any other table. She was Lady Diana Wales, the celebrated lady traveller."

TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE COMPLETE FATHER BROWN MYSTERIES
By G.K. Chesterton

The Innocence of Father Brown
The Blue Cross
The Secret Garden
The Queer Feet
The Flying Stars
The Invisible Man
The Honour of Israel Gow
The Wrong Shape
The Sins of Prince Saradine
The Hammer of God
The Eye of Apollo
The Sign of the Broken Sword
The Three Tools of Death

The Wisdom of Father Brown
The Absence of Mr Glass
The Paradise of Thieves
The Duel of Dr Hirsch
The Man in the Passage
The Mistake of the Machine
The Head of Caesar
The Purple Wig
The Perishing of the Pendragons
The God of the Gongs
The Salad of Colonel Cray
The Strange Crime of John Boulnois
The Fairy Tale of Father Brown

The Incredulity of Father Brown
The Resurrection of Father Brown
The Arrow of Heaven
The Oracle of the Dog
The Miracle of Moon Crescent
The Curse of the Golden Cross
The Dagger with Wings
The Doom of the Darnaways
The Ghost of Gideon Wise

The Secret of Father Brown
The Secret of Father Brown
The Mirror of the Magistrate
The Man With Two Beards
The Song of the Flying Fish
The Actor and the Alibi
The Vanishing of Vaudrey
The Worst Crime in the World
The Red Moon of Meru
The Chief Mourner of Marne
The Secret of Flambeau

The Scandal of Father Brown
The Scandal of Father Brown
The Quick One
The Blast of the Book
The Green Man
The Pursuit of Mr Blue
The Crime of the Communist
The Point of a Pin
The Insoluble Problem
The Vampire of the Village

Annotations: G.K. Chesterton's Literary Legacy