Gilbert Keith Chesterton is one of the most celebrated and reverently esteemed figures in modern literature. He was a phenomenally prolific writer. After achieving early success as an illustrator, he subsequently established his fame as a playwright, novelist, poet, literary commentator, pamphleteer, essayist, lecturer, apologist, and editor. The depth and range of his work are astounding.
A pagan at twelve and totally agnostic by sixteen, Chesterton had the remarkable experience of developing a personal, positive philosophy that turned out to be orthodox Christianity. Orthodoxy, his account of it all, has not lost its force as a timeless argument for the simple plausibility of traditional Christianity. C. S. Lewis and many other emerging Christian thinkers have found this book a pivotal step in their adoption of a credible Christian faith. This intellectual and spiritual autobiography of the leading twentieth-century essayist combines simplicity with subtlety in a model apologetic that appeals to today's generations of readers who face the same materialism and anti-supernaturalism as did the "man at war with his times".
Of the numerous works that Chesterton wrote, the most scintillating synthesis of his philosophy and deeply religious faith was manifested in his masterpiece Orthodoxy, written when he was only thirty-four and which tells, in his inimitable, soaring prose, of his earth-shaking discovery that orthodoxy is the only satisfactory answer to the perplexing riddle of the universe. Orthodoxy is perhaps the most outstanding example of the originality of his style and the brilliance of his thoughts.
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