The Defendant

<p>In 1901 with only two poetry volumes to his name G.K. Chesterton was very much in the up-and-coming bracket among writers. But he had already built a reputation for brilliant wit original incisiveness and a love of paradox in many essays published in journals.</p><p><br></p><p>A group of these had a common theme: they were defences discussing things which society to his mind dismissed unfairly or at the very best undervalued. Lifting sixteen of them from the pages of <em>The Speaker</em> he compiled his very first book of prose.</p><p><br></p><p>In <em>A Defence of Rash Vows</em> he despises the limitations imposed by mealy-mouthed cowardice; in <em>A Defence of Skeletons</em> he revels in essential coarseness; in <em>A Defence of Nonsense</em> he insists that childlike wonder requires preservation in our culture; in <em>A Defence of Heraldry</em> he frowns upon the lowest common denominations which modern democracy espouses; in <em>A Defence of Ugly Things</em> he celebrates nature's unashamed exuberance; in <em>A Defence of Humility</em> he similarly supports the beauty of the commonplace; and in <em>A Defence of Patriotism</em> he bemoans the vulgarity which has usurped the true patriot's necessary sensitivity.</p><p><br></p><p>These short essays and the nine others in this book illustrate a mind whose original political and social insight and piercing critical instincts though they were sometimes led astray by his irascibility cut through dogma and convention to an extraordinary degree.</p>