St. Francis of Assisi (poem)

 

October 3 is the Feast of the Transitus of St. Francis - the day he actually made the transition from earthly to heavenly life. But as he did so in the evening, the Church made the following day, October 4, he feast day. 

Chesterton is justly famous for his biography of St. Francis, published in 1923. But long before he published that biography, or became a Catholic, indeed, at a time when he was struggling with faith, he wrote a poem about St. Francis in 1892 when he was just 18. 

St. Francis of Assisi
by G. K. Chesterton

In the ancient Christian ages, while a dreamy faith and wonder
Lingered, like the mystic glamour of the star of Bethlehem,
Dwelt a monk that loved the sea-birds as they wheeled about his chapel,
Loved the dog-rose and the heath-flower as they brushed his garment hem;

Did not claim a ruthless knowledge of the bounds of grace eternal,
Did not say, “Thus far, not further, God has set the hopes of life.”
Only knew that heaven had sent him weaker lives in earth's communion,
Bade him dwell and work amongst them, not in anger nor in strife.

Aye, though far and faint the story, his the tale of mercy's triumph,
Through the dimmest convent casements men have seen the stars above;
Dark the age and stern the dogma, yet the kind hearts are not cruel,
Still the true souls rise resistless to a larger world of love.

Is there not a question rises from his word of “brother, sister,”
Cometh from that lonely dreamer what today we shrink to find?
Shall the lives that moved our brethren leave us at the gates of darkness,
What were heaven if ought we cherished shall be wholly left behind?

Is it God's bright house we dwell in, or a vault of dark confusion,
Yonder sunlit April meadows, with the singing brooks at play,
With God's daisies clustering wide-eyed o'er the breezy fields of morning,
And God's skylarks whirring westward to the cloudless deeps of day?

Laugh aloud, O death and darkness, grin the skulls of crypt and charnel,
All God's glorious flowers of being flame and fade upon a tomb;
Mystic woods and aureoled blossoms, spirit-birds and goblin lizards,
All that faerie-world goes downward, sloping darkly into doom.

Is it so, one half of nature choked beneath the breath of ruin,
Does death tread at last a victor on the lives we loved so well?
Take us, too, devouring chaos, hide us from the vast injustice,
Dust to dust be ours for ever, with the world wherein we dwell.

While the flush of kindred feeling at the cursed wrong and violence,
Done amid our human brothers, on the helpless and infirm,
Throbs, though fainter, to our being, down the cycles of creation,
For the shrivelling of the night-moth and the writhing of the worm.

While from things of field and forest, eyes of tenderness and trusting
Look to ours and link them to us, as we journey side by side
Shall we lift a blind denial to the brotherhood of nature,
Shall we break the bonds of kinship in the madness of our pride?

Shall not rather hope be with us: noble, broadened, undefined,
Since all life is as a riddle, since all faith is but a guess:
Hope that every life that liveth has a nobler way before it,
Has a deathless purpose founded on the everlasting yes.

He that in his mighty gardens shakes the meanest seed of nature,
Soweth with the seed a promise whence no power can make him free,
He that on his lonely summits feeds the narrowest stream of being,
Dooms its way through fields and forests on its eternal sea.

Good Parenting Advice From O'Connor (and Lewis)

 

I came across an interesting article by Theresa Civantos Barber over on Aleteia,
"Flannery O’Connor’s perfect parenting advice."

The article begins:

When my kids don't want to do their chores or go on a family hike, you can count on me quoting Flannery O'Connor!

There’s a phrase of Flannery O’Connor’s that I quote so much I’ve started to take it as a motto for parenting. 

O’Connor wasn’t talking about parenting when she said it. She was actually talking about education. But are those really so different? The Catechism itself says that parents are called to be their children’s “primary educators.” 

Barber then quotes O'Connor:

"And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed." 

She also brings C. S. Lewis into the discussion:

"Aristotle says that the aim of education is to make the pupil like and dislike what he ought… The little human animal will not at first have the right responses. It must be trained to feel pleasure, liking, disgust, and hatred at those things which really are pleasant, likeable, disgusting and hateful."

Barber points out the importance of the parents forming the child's tastes through activities from chores to homework to hikes. And she finds joy in that.

"One of the best things about being a parent is sharing the things we love with our kids, so we can enjoy them together."

Check out the rest of what Barber also has to say.

Rochester Chesterton Society Season Begins

 

Tonight the Rochester Chesterton Society will meet to begin its 2025/26 season. The Society meets from September to May on the second Thursday of the month - except in January, taking a break due to the frequently snowy weather.

At the meetings, we read a book by Chesterton. The last two years it has been Heretics and The Ball and the Cross. Tonight we start The Man Who Was Thursday.

We read the books aloud, pausing to discuss. It's wonderful getting other people's insights and discovering things about the books that I did not know.

I have a fondness for Thursday. I read it a number of years ago, and I'm looking forward to rereading it. Moreover, when I began contributing to the blog I was assigned Thursday, so I was literally "The Man Who Is Thursday." 

Our Society used to sponsor an annual Chesterton Conference. Alas, the donation that was used ot pay for the conferences finally ran out. In addition, the order with which we used to work is no longer active in our diocese, and the college where they used to be assigned was no longer an easily available venue.

I wonder how many local Chesterton Societies there are. I wonder if they are as active as we are. I wonder if they follow the same format we do. 

To quote the great one: “The world will never starve for want of wonders; but only for want of wonder.”

Final Notes on LOTR Books vs Movies

 

I finished reading The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien. What a great pleasure to read - or in my case, reread.

In a previous post I noted some differences between the books and the movies. I spotted some more, but I'm going to just touch on two of them.

In the movies, I noted that I actually hoped Aragorn would have ended up with Eowyn. The suggestions is made that she will end up with Faramir, but it seems kind of abrupt.

In the book, we learn more about the growth of the relationship between Eowyn and Faramir, and it makes far more sense. 

One thing left out of the movies entirely is the "scouring of the Shire." Our four hobbits return to the Shire to find it overrun with thugs and criminals, and Saruman behind it. Our heroes rouse their fellow hobbits and oust the servants of evil. This is entirely missing from the movies. I understand the reasons given the length of the movies already and their focus, but I think it was a loss. The scouring helps to show the growth of Pippin and Merry and their heroism along with that of Sam.

Overall, I enjoyed the rereading. I also enjoy the movies, and will view them again.     

The Lord of the Rings Book vs. Movies

 I am currently rereading The Lord of the Rings. I'm up to the third volume: The Return of the King.

This is my third rereading of the entire trilogy. 

I've also seen the movies multiple times, though it has been a while. When I watched the movies I saw some differences between them and the books. I understood that they are different genres, and so there ahead to be some changes, including some material in the book having to be left out. If they included everything, the movies would have been hours longer that their current running time of about 10 hours in the theaters (and more than 11 in the extended editions.) Adding in all the cut or reduced characters and scenes would have made them rediculously long.

As I read, I am paying attention to some of those changes.

The first big change I had noticed when I first saw the movies was that one of my favorite characters from the The Fellowship of the Ring, Tom Bombadil, was left out entirely. I actually based a character on him in the bedtime stories I told my daughters. While I missed him, from the standpoint of making a movie, I understood why he was left out. He does not play a significant direct role later, and the interlude with him would have added a lot to the movie - including the incident with the deadly willow and the barrow-wights.

On the other hand, leaving out the barrow-wights did leave something unexplained in The Return of the King. Merry acquired his sword in the lair of the barrow-wights, and it was that special sword that enabled him to wound the Black Rider (the Witch King), setting it up for Eowyn's stroke. 

The battle also has a significant change. In the book, the army of the dead helps Aragorn capture the ships. he then frees them, and fills the ships with men who sail with him to join the battle. In the movie they have the army of the dead sweep off the ships and attack the enemy army. Visually with was a great scene, but it was not in the book.

Back in The Felowship of the Ring, Frodo at the Ford of Bruinen is threatened by the evil Nazgul. In the book, he is saved by the elf Glorfindel. In the movie, Arwen saves him. Giving her more screen time, I guess. Personally, I found Liv Tyler's Arwen kind of a weak part of the movies. I actually found myself wishing Aragorn would end up with Eowyn! 

Faramir played a more prominent, heroic role in the books. And Gimli is a much more nuanced, stalwart character in the books; in the movies, he was almost a comic figure. 

I know there are more. When I finish The Return of the King I might have to watch the movies again!

Maybe Somebody Should Have Put Baby In A Corner

A Grace
by G. K. Chesterton

You say grace before meals.
All right.
But I say grace before the play and the opera,
And grace before the concert and pantomime,
And grace before I open a book,
And grace before sketching, painting,
Swimming, fencing, boxing, walking, playing, dancing;
And grace before I dip the pen in the ink.

Chesterton apparently had nothing against dancing per se, especially when it is part of celebrating. It is a natural human expression of joy and worship.

We see dancing in the context of worship and celebrating in the Bible as well. ("Let them praise His name with dancing; let them sing praises to Him with timbrel and lyre." - Psalm 49: 3 and "A time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance." Ecclesiastes 3: 4 to cite two examples.)

And don't forget Snoopy's joyful dance!

But, of course, dancing has its limits, especially when it strays from celebration - such as David before the Ark - to sensuality - as with Salome before Herod.

Indeed, dance in Western civilizations too often strays into the realm of sensual and erotic. That is why the Catholic Church prohibits it in Masses (except when the Mass is for a cultural group that has dance as part of its worship):

" Here dancing is tied with love, with diversion, with profaneness, with unbridling of the senses. . . . For that reason it cannot be introduced into liturgical celebrations of any kind whatever: That would be to inject into the liturgy one of the most desacralized and desacralizing elements, and so it would be equivalent to creating an atmosphere of profaneness which would easily recall to those present and to the participants in the celebration worldly places and situations." - Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship, Dance in the Liturgy (1975)

One Saint who clearly did not like dance was St. Jean Vianney, The Cure of Ars. In the collection of his sermons (The Sermons of the Cure of Ars, translated by Una Morrissy), he decried dancing again and again.

Is there any place, any time, any occasion wherein so many sins of impurity are committed at the dancehalls and their sequels? Is it not in these gatherings that people are most violently prompted against the holy virtue of purity? Where else but there are the senses so strongly urged towards pleasurable excitement? If we go a little more closely into this, should we not almost die of horror at the sight of so many crimes which are committed? Is it not at these gatherings that the Devil so furiously kindles the fire of impurity in the hearts of the young people in order to annihilate in them the grace of Baptism? Is it not there that Hell enslaves as many souls as it wishes? If, in spite of the absence of occasions and the aids of prayer, a Christian has so much difficulty in preserving purity of heart, how could he possibly preserve that virtue in the midst of so many sources which are capable of breaking it down?

Did the Holy Fathers of the Church say too much about it? St. Ephraim tells us that dancing is the perdition of girls and women, the blinding of men, the grief of angels, and the joy of the devils. Dear God, can anyone really have their eyes bewitched to such an extent that they will still want to believe that there is no harm in it, while all the time it is the rope by which the Devil pulls the most souls into Hell?

St. Augustine tells us that those who go to dances truly renounce Jesus Christ in order to give themselves to the Devil.

And he says even more. Yikes.

We do need to be aware of the context of his condemnation. When he was stationed in Ars, the parish had been without a priest for a while. The population had seriously lapsed when it came to church teachings and practices, and to morality. So he was trying to shock them to break them of bad - and sinful - habits. Dancing was in some ways an entry-level activity for some of those habits.

Now it is true that there are forms of dance that do indeed cross the line. And they may indeed lead into sin. (Why did they call that movie Dirty Dancing?)

Personally, I think, like Chesterton, that dancing can be a good thing in the right forms and the right circumstances. I like that in the poem he calls for saying grace before dancing.

On the other hand, he did advise us not to dismiss the wisdom of the saints: "It is better to speak wisdom foolishly like the saints than to speak folly wisely like the deans."

St. John did have a point. And we know how foolish deans can be.

Speaking of foolishness, reading his sermons did inspire a clerihew (of course).

St. Jean Vianney
went to the hootenanny
but left in horror when he happened to glance
some people starting to dance.

On Vacation, So Quotations!

I'm on vacation this week, with wife and dog at a cottage as a base from which to venture forth to see the sights. So just a few quotations from Gilbert!

"The traveler sees what he sees, the tourist sees what he has come to see."

"An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered."

"They say travel broadens the mind, but you must have the mind."

"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land."

What Tolkien Can Teach Us About the Creative Life

 

"Beyond his much-beloved books, The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion, J. R. R. Tolkien was a poet, philologist, translator, and inventor of languages. His letters, collected in The Letters of J. R. R. Tolkien, are particularly illuminating, as they offer a glimpse of Tolkien as a writer—one who was often in need of precious, uninterrupted time to write. And though few of these letters are directed to other writers about writing, they reveal some important truths about the craft."  

Thus begins an article by Lindsey Weishar over at Word on Fire. 

She goes on to note: 

"For those of us who write, Tolkien offers a realistic approach to the writing life. Very few of us will be completely free to write as much as we wish. We have families who need us, day jobs to attend to, and obligations to ourselves and others that come with living life. There is beauty in picking up our joys (be that writing or another form of creativity) in the odd hours; so too, there is beauty in the call to the sometimes sacrifice of pouring ourselves out in other ways. Indeed, perhaps that is what makes works like Tolkien’s so rich: The stories lived in him so long and accompanied him throughout his life."

She further says:

"Though writing is often a solitary art, Tolkien’s life demonstrates that our ideas can come to full fruition only when we allow others to enter into them. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings appeared before the Inklings, and Tolkien speaks of the debt of gratitude he owed to C. S. Lewis for his encouragement. The Hobbit became a long-form story Tolkien told his children, and he relied on his children, and the son of his publisher, Rayner Unwin, then a young boy, to offer their feedback on The Hobbit. During World War II, he sent parts of Lord of the Rings to his son, Christopher Tolkien, both to comfort Christopher and because Tolkien valued his opinion."

The rest of the article is a good read - especially for those who would be writers!

Saint Tolkien

 

August 8, 2025

Perhaps I may say also now (as I have meant to do for some time) that though I only briefly thanked Austin [one of the correspondents] for his booklet on the Rosary (I hope I did!), I have now had it by me for a long time, and have derived profit and encouragement from it. I was late in finding the Rosary, and it has been in addition a great delight to know that others whose virtue and learning is far above mine are companions. I began to use it only after hearing Knox [Mgr. Ronald Knox, Tolkien’s chaplain at Oxford] (on a private occasion) say: ‘Personally I do not like the Rosary, but I have a suspicion that Our Lady does.’ Very Knox. But obedience to one’s Mother is only a beginning! It can be greatly rewarded.

J.R.R. Tolkien (letter 242a)

Over on Substack - which seems to a growing place for online writing, including blogs - there is a site called Saint Tolkien run by Kaleb Hammond. He describes himself as:  I am a Roman Catholic, an aspiring writer of both fiction and nonfiction and a graduate student at Holy Apostles College & Seminary pursuing an MA in Theology. My special topics of interest are St. Thomas Aquinas and J.R.R. Tolkien.

He offers a Tolkien Quote of the Day, and a Saint Tolkien Weekly Roundup in which he links to Tolkien-related posts by others, as well as links to other posts of interest to fans of the Inklings and Tolkien. 

August 7, 2025 

I shall miss you v. much at Christmas, though I know it cannot be helped. But I am cheered by the thought that I shall see you again before 1956 is very old. You know that I shall be thinking of you with love, and I know the same of you. I am not attempting to send any Christmas present, since I think it would be much nicer to find something when you are here. I enclose a cheque for £1, in the hope that you may find a chance to say two masses for me. One I should particularly like you to say, for my mother Mabel Tolkien; the other a mass in honour of Our Lady in thanksgiving, you could ‘send back’, if you are (as may well be) overburdened.

J.R.R. Tolkien (letter 179a, to his son, Fr. John, who could rarely come home for Christmas due to the busy parish season)

In the News (Two Clerihews)

 

Two people in the news lately inspired clerihews, Ozzy Osbourne and Syndey Sweeney..

Ozzy Osbourne
was by water borne
to the Alamo
where he was heard to mumble, "When ya gotta go, ya gotta go."

(Ozzy died July 22. Back in 1982, a drunken Osbourne publicly urinated in Alamo Plaza on the Alamo Cenotaph, a 60-foot monument commemorating the men and women who defended the Alamo in 1836.

He was arrested and paid a fine, and was banned from performing in San Antonio for 10 years. He apologized, and was eventually allowed to perform in that city again.

Then, in 2015, 33 years after the incident, he was finally welcomed back to the Alamo for a segment of the History Channel's series, Ozzy & Jack’s World Detour.

After his death, the Alamo, on its Instagram account, issued a statement:

We at the Alamo are saddened to hear of the passing of legendary musician Ozzy Osbourne. His relationship with the Alamo was marked initially by a deeply disrespectful incident in 1982. This act profoundly and rightfully upset many who hold this site sacred.

However, redemption and reconciliation eventually became part of his history as well. In 1992, Ozzy personally apologized to then-Mayor Nelson Wolff and expressed genuine remorse for his actions. Decades later, in 2015, he revisited the Alamo grounds to learn and appreciate the site's profound history, openly demonstrating humility and understanding.

At the Alamo, we honor history in all its complexities. Today, we acknowledge Ozzy Osbourne's journey from regret to reconciliation at the historic site, and we extend our condolences to his family, friends, and fans around the world. May he rest in peace.)

Sydney Sweeney,

noting that her costume for the next scene seemed especially teeny,

asked the director, "Is this all there is to it?"

Leering, he replied, "You can just leave it off if it doesn't fit."

(Sweeney has been in the news lately because of a fake controversy over her American Eagle Jeans ads. She earlier gained notoriety for her nude scenes in an HBO series.)

Carter vs Scranton Joe (Clerihew)

 

Good Jimmy Carter,
when it comes to presidents was one of the smarter.
Historians rank his presidency pretty low,
but it’s looking better these days thanks to “Scranton Joe.”

Joe Biden and his issues have been in the news lately. So naturally I thought of Jimmy Carter.

For years, Carter has been held out as an unsuccessful President, but as one of the best former Presidents because of all his international and national humanitarian efforts, earning him the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

Carter was elected in 1976, the first presidential election in which I was able to vote. I did not vote for him. I had the sense that despite him being a good man, he did not have what it took to be an effective President.  I was right. But he also faced a number of national and international crises that helped to drag down his presidency - the Iranian Revolution and the American hostages, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the oil crisis, and more. 

For years, conservative pundits have been arguing that Joe Biden was an even worse President than Carter. Now even mainstream commentators and historians are beginning to agree. His policies harmed the nation, his obvious mental decline is finally being acknowledged, and his lack of honesty and allegations of corruption are overshadowing his legacy. 

Oh, by the way, I didn't vote for Biden either, because I foresaw his shortcomings! 

Anyway, inspired by all the revelations about Biden coming out, I penned the above clerihew the other day. 

More Housekeeping

Four weeks ago I looked at the Blogs to which this blog linked. I found that many of them are no longer active.

Today I checked the other linked pages. Some of them are still active, but some have ceased to exist. 

All the Wikipedia Pages links still work: 

Muggeridge @ Wikipedia
H.G. Wells @ Wikipedia
Owen Barfield @ Wikipedia
Hilaire Belloc @ Wikipedia
Maurice Baring @ Wikipedia

Of the Chesterton Friendly links, only the American Chesterton Society is still active, though it is now The Society of G. K. Chesterton. If you want Gilbert Magazine,  you need to go there (and join the Society - if you haven't, why not?!). The Chesterton Quote of the Day link also no longer works.

The link to the Malcolm Muggeridge Society is no longer active. Ditto for the Dawson Collection at St. Thomas University, The Vision of Christopher Dawson, James V. Schall @ Ignatius Insight, and Joseph Pearce @ Ignatius Insight.

The Oscar Wilde Homepage still works. The same holds true for the Ronald Knox Society of North America, the Ronald Knox Bio, The Bernard Shaw Society, The Tolkien Society, and the Into the Wardrobe: Lewis Site.

The link to What About Charles Williams? does work, but it's a Touchstone and you need a subscription to gain access to the online content. It's aa great magazine, but I'm only a print subscriber to it, so I can't get to the articles. Sigh.   

Since I'm the most junior member of this blog's team - though apparently I'm the only still-active one - I have hesitated to make changes beyond my weekly posts. But I may do some cleaning up of the links, eliminating the ones where the links no longer work, and perhaps adding some new ones. 

I've started by changing American Chesterton Society to The Society of G. K. Chesterton. 

Peter Maurin, G. K. Chesterton, and Hilaire Belloc

Peter Maurin was a social activist and theologian, and a co-founder (with Dorothy Day) of the Catholic Worker movement. In his thinking he was influenced by Chesterton and Belloc, particularly when it came to economics. He specifically cited the distributism espoused by Chesterton and Belloc as part of the antidote to communism. 

Maurin, who was born in France and moved to the United States, summed up his thinking in poems called "Easy Essays." In those essays he cited Chesterton multiple times, and especially Chesterton's observation, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried.” He sometimes quoted this observation directly, but more often paraphrased it. 

Over the years the Easy Essays were printed in the Catholic Worker newspaper. He used many of the essays repeatedly, changing them slightly, or adding or removing portions of them. Here is a version of one known as "Not Practical." 

1. Chesterton says

     "The Christian ideal 

     has not been tried 

     and found wanting. 

2. It has been found difficult 

     and left untried." 

3. Christianity has not been tried 

     because people thought 

     it was impractical. 

4. And men have tried everything 

     except Christianity. 

5. And everything 

     that men have tried 

     has failed.
6. And to fail
     in everything
     that one tries
     is not to be practical
7. Men will be practical
     when they try to practice
     the Christianity
     they profess
     to believe in.

When he recommended books to read he included two by Chesterton: The Outline of Sanity and St. Francis of Assisi.

He cited Belloc less often, but he is there. He also liked his book The Servile State. 

One Easy Essay where Belloc appears is called "The Trouble Has Been."

Hilaire Belloc says:

1. The modern proletarian

     works less hours

     and does far less

     than his father.

2. He is not even

     primarily in revolt

     against insecurity.

3. The trouble has been 

     that the masses

     of our town

     lived under

     unbearable conditions.

4. The contracts

     they were asked to fulfill

     were not contracts

     that were suitable

     to the dignity of man.

5. There was no personal relation

     between the man

     who  was exploited

     and the man

     who exploited him.

6. Wealth has lost

     its sense of responsibility.

Given his appreciation of Chesterton and Belloc, and of distributism, I think it's safe to say Maurin could be counted as a "Friend."

Joining Some Inklings Fan Groups

I was continuing my look at some of the blogs and pages to which this blog is linked when I came across ones about C. S. Lewis and the Inklings (Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, Christopher Tolkien, Owen Barfield, Hugo Dyson, Warren Lewis, etc.). That led me in turn to Lewis and Inkling Facebook groups.

Yes, not only do I blog, I am on Facebook. I guess I am old!

Anyway, being easily distracted, I joined a few of them. One of them required that I list first some of the Inkling books I have read and/or taught.

So I compiled a list of ones I'd read in the five years since I retired.

Tolkien related:

Tolkien’s Faith: A Spiritual Biography by Holly Ordway

The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

Tolkien: A Biography by Humphrey Carpenter

The Father Christmas Letters by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien

The Two Towers by J. R. R Tolkien

The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

C. S. Lewis related:

Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis

Perelandra by C. S, Lewis

That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

The Screwtape Letters (with Screwtape Proposes a Toast) by C. S. Lewis

And one by Charles Williams:

Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams

I have not read the works of some of the other Inklings. To be honest, I looked, but they are hard to find in our local libraries, or even for purchase (plus I'm trying to downsize anyway, so I don't want to buy more books at this time).

I was accepted by the Facebook pages, by the way.

Since this is a Chesterton blog, I also compiled a list of works that are Chesterton-related, or written by his circle of friends, that I've read in the last five years.

The Poet and the Lunatics by G. K. Chesterton
The Surprise by G. K. Chesterton
The Judgement of Dr. Johnson by G. K. Chesterton

Heretics by G. K. Chesterton

The Flying Inn by G. K. Chesterton

The Ball and the Cross by G. K. Chesterton

Saint Thomas Aquinas by G. K. Chesterton

The Secret of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

The Incredulity of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K, Chesterton

“The Donnington Affair” by G. K. Chesterton

“The Vampire of the Village” by G. K. Chesterton

The Ballad of the White Horse by G.K. Chesterton 

Lepanto: With Explanatory Notes and Commentary by G. K. Chesterton

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

Knight of the Holy Ghost by Dale Ahlquist

The Path to Rome by Hilaire Belloc

The Children’s Crusade by Frances Chesterton

Sir Cleges by Frances Chesterton

Piers Plowman’s Pilgrimage by Frances Chesterton

The Golden Key and Other Fairy Tales by George MacDonald

Phantastes by George MacDonald

The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

Trent’s Last Case by E. C. Bentley

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy L. Sayers

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers

Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers

Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers

Okay, enough of that. Back to looking at the linked pages.