G. K. Chesterton was a journalist, playwright, poet, biographer, novelist, essayist, literary commentator, editor, orator, artist, and theologian. Orthodoxy is his great apologia for the Christian faith, which was prompted by a serious attack in 1903 against Christianity by well-known newspaper editor Robert Blatchford.
Published just five years later, Chesterson’s famous reply took the form of an autobiographical account of his own indoctrination into the faith. Rather than attempt to explain how Christianity can be believed, he emphasizes what fulfillment in this life can come from believing. His argument is that people in western society need a life of “practical romance, the combination of something that is strange with something that is secure. We need so to view the world as to combine an idea of wonder and an idea of welcome.”
Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) published numerous works which include compilations of his voluminous journalism, novels, biographies, histories, criticism, Christian apologetics, poetry, and plays. Many of his novels have the genuine marks of genius. His books on Dickens (for whom he had a considerable affinity) and Saint Thomas Aquinas are considered classics in their fields.
Fred Williams, a graduate of the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, works in theater, film, television, and radio in England, Ireland, and America. Besides narrating audiobooks, he is a performer in living-history reenactments, an archer, and a poet.