Authentic Digital Classics Series

Chesterton's timeless exploration of the essentials of Christian faith and of his pilgrimage to belief (more than 750,000 copies sold in the Image edition) is now reissued.

For G.K. Chesterton, orthodoxy carries us into the land of romance, right action, and revolution. In Orthodoxy, a classic in religious autobiography, he tells of his pilgrimage there by way of the doctrines of Christianity set out in the Apostles' Creed.

Where science seeks to explain all things in terms of calculation and necessary law, Chesterton argues on behalf of the Christian doctrines of mystery and free will. Sanity, he says, belongs to the poet who accepts the romance and drama of these beliefs rather than to the logician who does not. This sanity is not static. It does not mean merely learning the right doctrines and then lapsing into a refined meditation on them. Chesterton dismisses such an inactive belief as "the greatest disaster of the nineteenth century." For him, right thinking is a waste without right action.

For Chesterton the populist, political ction often spells revolution. He discovers in the doctrines of original sin and the divinity of Christ ever-present seedbeds of revolt in the face of the tyrannies of money and power.

All Things Considered

by G K Chesterton

Published 1 January 1969

"All Things Considered" features more than thirty columns that G. K. Chesterton wrote for the London Daily News in the years before World War I. Covering a variety of themes, each is written with the same high quality that readers have come to expect of Chesterton. In an essay on canvassing, Chesterton ponders some unusual double standards. In another, he writes about daily annoyances. Another covers literature. But regardless of the topic, each of the essays in "All Things Considered" is the usual Chesterton masterpiece, tempting the reader to track down even more of the 4,000 newspaper columns penned by Chesterton during his career. G. K. Chesterton is well known as a novelist, essayist, storyteller, poet, philosopher, theologian, historian, artist, and critic. He's less well-known as a journalist these days, yet all evidence indicates that he viewed his work for the various newspapers as his primary raison-de-etre.

The New Jerusalem

by G K Chesterton

Published 1 March 2005

Heretics

by G K Chesterton

Published 4 April 1905

In Heretics, Gilbert K. Chesterton rails against what he sees as wrong with society. He points out how society has gone astray and how life and spiritually could be brought back into focus. It is foolish, generally speaking, for a philosopher to set fire to another philosopher in Smithfield Market because they do not agree in their theory of the universe. That was done very frequently in the last decadence of the Middle Ages, and it failed altogether in its object. But there is one thing that is infinitely more absurd and unpractical than burning a man for his philosophy. This is the habit of saying that his philosophy does not matter, and this is done universally in the twentieth century, in the decadence of the great revolutionary period. - G. K. Chesterton

The Ball and the Cross

by G K Chesterton

Published 1 November 1984

The Ball and the Cross by G.K. Chesterton has 20 chapters: (I. A DISCUSSION SOMEWHAT IN THE AIR II. THE RELIGION OF THE STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATE III. SOME OLD CURIOSITIES IV. A DISCUSSION AT DAWN V. THE PEACEMAKER VI. THE OTHER PHILOSOPHER VII. THE VILLAGE OF GRASSLEY-IN-THE-HOLE VIII. AN INTERLUDE OF ARGUMENT IX. THE STRANGE LADY X. THE SWORDS REJOINED XI. A SCANDAL IN THE VILLAGE XII. THE DESERT ISLAND XIII. THE GARDEN OF PEACE XIV. A MUSEUM OF SOULS XV. THE DREAM OF MACIAN XVI. THE DREAM OF TURNBULL XVII. THE IDIOT XVIII. A RIDDLE OF FACES XIX. THE LAST PARLEY XX. DIES IRAE) and this book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format.