Chesterton Reading Goal Met

One of my long-term reading goals was to read all of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown mysteries.

Having now read The Scandal of Father Brown, I have met that goal.

All told, he wrote 53 Father Brown tales. They were collected in the Ignatius Press G. K. Chesterton: Collected Works. 

Chesterton once declared  "I think it only fair to confess that I have myself written some of the worst mystery stories in the world.".

I don't agree with him. I have certainly read far worse mystery stories. And some of the Father Brown tales are wonderful mysteries.

I do acknowledge, however, that some of the tales do not measure up to the good ones. Some of them read as if he wrote them in a hurry, or had some need to scribble one - such as money. I remember one tale, for example, where a character was referred to as another person's daughter, then, later, as that person's granddaughter. Chesterton also uses some stereotypes when referring to certain ethnic groups, or used the "n" word when referring to Blacks. Yes, I understand that the stereotypes and words he used were not offensive in his time, but they certainly made me uncomfortable as a modern reader. And too often the tales are stretched out with Father Brown dropping hints about the solution, but kept delaying revealing what he knew. Was there a certain length or word count guiding Chesterton?

Still, I enjoyed the journey. I could see a really fine book collecting 8-10 stories, "the best of Father Brown."

My next Chesterton goal is to finish reading all of his novels.

I have read:

The Napoleon of Notting Hill

The Man Who Was Thursday

Manalive

I have yet to read the novels:

The Flying Inn

The Ball and the Cross 

The Return of Don Quixote 

I read somewhere that the Quixote book was the one that convinced Chesterton to give up writing novels. Hmm. I will at least read the first two titles!

There are also some story collections I might tackle at some point:

The Club of Queer Trades

Tales of the Long Bow

The Man Who Knew Too Much

I actually have copies of these three collections. There are at least two more collection, though I do not have them:. 

The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond

The Poet and the Lunatics

If I find them, I will probably read them at some point.

Pax et bonum