In addition to the wonderful talks and getting to interact with fellow Chestertonians at the Rochester Chesterton Conference, one of the joys is perusing the books/magazines/etc. for sale. Dale Ahlquist and Joseph Pearce are almost always there hawking their books and materials.
Last year, Dale brought along the Ignatius edition of "Lepanto" that he had edited, and that included explanatory notes and commentary..
Even though I had read the poem before, I bought the book. I finally got around to reading it this week.
I can't say enough about the book. It brought the poem to life.
The wonderful notes explained references and context, and linked the poem to passages from Chesterton's other works. Brandon Rogers nicely explained the background for the poem, Colonel Melvin Kriesel offered a military analysis of the battle, William Cinfici describe the aftermath, and Dale provided some analysis of the poem.
The wonderful notes explained references and context, and linked the poem to passages from Chesterton's other works. Brandon Rogers nicely explained the background for the poem, Colonel Melvin Kriesel offered a military analysis of the battle, William Cinfici describe the aftermath, and Dale provided some analysis of the poem.
The edition also includes two of Chesterton's essays - "The True Romance" and "If Don John of Austria Had Married Mary Queen of Scots." Again, I had read these previously, but it was nice to link them with the poem.
I can't wait for this year's conference to see what delightful books they will be hawking this time around.
