“Where should I start with Chesterton?” is the question we are asked most often — at our meetings, at the conference book table and by email. It is a fair question. Chesterton wrote around eighty books, and some of the most famous are not the easiest. This guide offers a practical answer: a twelve-month reading plan, tips for reading him well, and suggestions for reading groups. It is the plan many of our own members have followed.
Three principles before you begin
- Start short. Chesterton is at his most irresistible in short forms: the essay and the detective story. Begin there, and the long books will come easily.
- Read aloud. Chesterton was a journalist and a public speaker; his sentences are built for the voice. A paragraph that looks dense on the page often becomes obvious — and funny — when spoken.
- Don’t stop for every allusion. He refers constantly to Edwardian politicians, forgotten controversies and books no one reads now. Keep going: the argument almost always makes sense without the footnote.
Step one: the essays
Chesterton’s newspaper essays are the best introduction to his mind. Each is a few pages long, starts from something trivial — a piece of chalk, a lost hat, cheese, a railway station — and ends somewhere unexpected and profound.
- Tremendous Trifles (1909) — includes “A Piece of Chalk”, “The Red Angel” and “The Twelve Men”.
- All Things Considered (1908) — includes the classic “On Running After One’s Hat”.
- Alarms and Discursions (1910) and A Miscellany of Men (1912) for more.
Step two: Father Brown
The Innocence of Father Brown (1911) is pure pleasure and teaches you Chesterton’s habits of thought without your noticing. Read “The Blue Cross” first, then “The Invisible Man” and “The Hammer of God”. Our article on Father Brown and the birth of the clerical detective offers more guidance.
Step three: two novels
The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) is the novel to read first: a fast-moving thriller about a poet-policeman who infiltrates a council of anarchists, each named after a day of the week, which turns into something far stranger. The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904) is a comic fable about local patriotism and the dignity of small things, with a surprisingly moving ending.
Step four: Orthodoxy
Now you are ready for Orthodoxy (1908), Chesterton’s account of how he came to believe in Christianity. Read it before Heretics (1905), even though it was written second; it is warmer and more personal. Don’t miss chapter four, “The Ethics of Elfland”. If a chapter defeats you, skip to the next and come back.
Step five: the poetry
Chesterton’s verse is meant to be declaimed. Start with “Lepanto” (1911), a thunderous ballad about the naval battle of 1571, and then The Ballad of the White Horse (1911), his epic of King Alfred. Shorter poems such as “The Donkey”, “The Rolling English Road” and “The Secret People” make good readings for a group evening.
Step six: the big books
- The Everlasting Man (1925) — Chesterton’s outline of human history centred on Christ, written partly in answer to H. G. Wells’s Outline of History.
- St. Francis of Assisi (1923) and St. Thomas Aquinas (1933) — two short, brilliant biographies. The Thomist philosopher Étienne Gilson is said to have called the second the best book ever written on its subject.
- What’s Wrong with the World (1910) — Chesterton’s social thought, the subject of our 2010 conference.
- Charles Dickens (1906) — his finest literary criticism; see our article on Chesterton and Dickens.
- Autobiography (1936) — save this for last, when you know the man well enough to enjoy his account of himself.
A twelve-month plan
Here is the plan in calendar form. It assumes about an hour of reading a week — roughly the pace of our own monthly discussion circle.
| Month | Read | Focus |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tremendous Trifles (selected essays) | Wonder in small things |
| 2 | The Innocence of Father Brown (first six stories) | Reason, sin and mercy |
| 3 | The Man Who Was Thursday | Order, anarchy and suffering |
| 4 | Orthodoxy, chapters 1–4 | Sanity and the ethics of elfland |
| 5 | Orthodoxy, chapters 5–9 | Paradox and the romance of orthodoxy |
| 6 | “Lepanto”, The Ballad of the White Horse (Books I–III) | Courage and fidelity |
| 7 | The Napoleon of Notting Hill | Love of place |
| 8 | St. Francis of Assisi | Holiness and joy |
| 9 | What’s Wrong with the World, Parts I–II | Home, family, property |
| 10 | The Everlasting Man, Part I | The creature called man |
| 11 | The Everlasting Man, Part II | The man called Christ |
| 12 | Autobiography (selected chapters) | The man himself |
Reading Chesterton in a group
Chesterton is a sociable writer, and he is best read in company. A few tips from our own meetings:
- Keep the reading short. One essay or one chapter per meeting is plenty; you will find more to discuss than you expect.
- Ask someone to introduce it. Five minutes of context — when was it written, whom was he arguing with? — helps everyone.
- Read a passage aloud at the start of the meeting, so that even those who did not finish the reading can join in.
- Argue, but kindly. Chesterton would be disappointed if everyone agreed with him, and more disappointed if anyone left angry.
- Use the recordings. A talk from our archive makes an excellent starting point for an evening.
Where to find the texts
Most of Chesterton’s books published before 1929 are in the public domain in the United States, and free editions of Orthodoxy, Heretics, the first Father Brown collections, the novels and many essay collections are available from Project Gutenberg and other digital libraries. For serious study, Ignatius Press has published a multi-volume Collected Works, and good paperback editions of the major books are widely available. The Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton (formerly the American Chesterton Society) publishes Gilbert magazine and many resources for readers.
And of course you are welcome to come and borrow a book from a fellow member. Write to us and we will send you our free printable version of this plan, with discussion questions for every month.
