Tremendous Trifles Paperback - 2006

From the publisher

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. As an author he created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and produced several notable works on apologetics including Orthodoxy (1908) and The Everlasting Man (1925). He routinely referred to himself as an 'orthodox' Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. He was born in Kensington, educated at St Paul's School, and later attended the Slade School of Art, a department of University College London, to become an illustrator. He also took classes in literature at UCL but did not complete a degree in either subject. His first positions were within publishing houses, during which time he also became a freelance art and literary critic, and in 1902 the Daily News gave him a weekly opinion column, followed in 1905 by a weekly column in the London Illustrated News for which he continued to write for the next 30 years. In 1901 he married Frances Blogg who played a large role in his career as amanuensis and personal manager. Throughout the course of his career Chesterton wrote around 80 books, several hundred poems, some 200 short stories, 4,000 essays, and several plays. His writings consistently displayed wit and a sense of humour, and he would often employ paradox while making serious comments on the world, politics, economics, philosophy, theology, and many other topics. Tremendous Trifles (1909) is a collection of 39 sketches that first appeared in the Daily News, to which Chesterton contributed from 1901-13. Besides the quinessential On Lying in Bed, the book includes The Advantages of Having One Leg, What I Found in My Pocket, A Piece of Chalk, and his incomparable explanation of juries, The Twelve Men. In this selection Chesterton looks at the ordinary, common things we encounter in day-to-day life and asks us to see how extraordinary and uncommon they are - the things in his pockets, the objects in a railway station, the people in the street. With these simple, random things he is able to defend Christianity, western civilisation and democracy. He does not write merely to amuse: he amuses to make a point. The idea that what at first appears to be a trifle is in fact tremendous is a theme that runs throughout Chesterton's work.