Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Gilbert and George

I must admit, I'm one of those Chestertonians who was duped. I always thought the quote was authentic:

In the September 1923 issue of The Adelphi, the biographer Hesketh Pearson published what appeared to be a verbatim report of a private quarrel between Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. (Shaw: "Have you any adequate excuse for not being drunk?") In fact it was entirely Pearson's invention. Chesterton was delighted and told Pearson that he ought to write his next book for him. However, the transcript was thought to be authentic by most readers, and to this day it is accepted and often quoted by Chesterton scholars. [Ian Hunter, Nothing to Repent, London: 1987, p. 94]

1 comment:

jason gabriel leonard said...

Try page 577 of Volume 11 of the Collected Works of GKC. Seems like some authorities putting this together do claim it happened.

https://books.google.com/books?id=mIsAHxtXyEcC&pg=PA578&lpg=PA578&dq=%22Up+to+a+certain+point+I+am+willing+to+believe+that+all+this+paradox-prancing%22&source=bl&ots=YAxZMPYA45&sig=ACfU3U0I1ukJwCSVcqD_qVHRCeSK4jjscA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjuyIiDnbH9AhVZmmoFHYS6ALIQ6AF6BAgHEAM#v=onepage&q&f=false