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  • Published: 15 October 2001
  • ISBN: 9780375757914
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $24.00

The Man Who Was Thursday

A Nightmare



G. K. Chesterton's surreal masterpiece, edited and with an introduction by Matthew Beaumont

G. K. Chesterton's surreal masterpiece is a psychological thriller that centers on seven anarchists in turn-of-the-century London who call themselves by the names of the days of the week. Chesterton explores the meanings of their disguised identities in what is a fascinating mystery and, ultimately, a spellbinding allegory. As Jonathan Lethem remarks in his Introduction, The real characters are the ideas. Chesterton's nutty agenda is really quite simple: to expose moral relativism and parlor nihilism for the devils he believes them to be. This wouldn't be interesting at all, though, if he didn't also show such passion for giving the devil his due. He animates the forces of chaos and anarchy with every ounce of imaginative verve and rhetorical force in his body.

  • Published: 15 October 2001
  • ISBN: 9780375757914
  • Imprint: Random House US Group
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 224
  • RRP: $24.00

Other books in the series

Maldoror and Poems
On Sparta
Love
Annals
Military Dispatches

About the author

G K Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874 - 1936) studied art at Slade School and literature at University College London before ending his studies early without qualifications. From 1900 he worked his way to become a freelance art and literary critic then a regular columnist and later a prolific writer (he has many essays, poems, short stories, novels and plays to his name).

Forty eight of the Father Brown short stories first appeared in various, now unknown, magazines and were later collected into five books: The Innocence of Father Brown, published in 1911; The Wisdom of Father Brown, published in 1914; The Incredulity of Father Brown, published in 1926; The Secrets of Father Brown, published in 1927; and The Scandal of Father Brown, published in 1935.

This edition also includes 'The Doddington Affair', the first half of which was published in Premier Magazines in 1914 with the challenge to G. K. Chesterton to finish and solve the mystery. He did so in the following issue. 'The Vampire of the Village', which also appears in this edition under The Scandal of Father Brown, was first published in 1936.

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