Chesterton's 'The Innocence of Father Brown'

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1, Technical University of Braunschweig, course: The Detective Story Inside and Outside the Classroom, language: English, abstract: Gilbert Keith Chesterton started writing when he was still very young. He published hundreds of books and essays. His work consists of novels, short stories, poems and biographies. But today he is only known for his Father Brown stories and they are also the most widely read stories of all Chesterton's writing. Furthermore, they are the form of art in which he was most successful. You can call them his masterpiece. The Father Brown Stories consist of five books. Two of them are pre-War. They 'constitute a fascinating summary of Chesterton practising what he preached' (Hunter 1983, p.140). The first book of the Father Brown Stories is 'The Innocence of Father Brown' consisting of twelve stories dealing with Father Brown. Then there is the 'The Wisdom of Father Brown', 'The Incredulity of Father Brown', 'The Secret of Father Brown' and 'The Scandal of Father Brown'. All these books were published between 1911 and 1935. In my work I will concentrate on the first collection of Father Brown Stories, 'The Innocence of Father Brown' which was published in 1911 and was dedicated to Chesterton's old friend Waldo D'Avigdor and his wife Mildred. From this collection I chose three stories ('The Queer Feet', 'The Hammer of God' and 'The Sins of Prince Saradine'). I will give a summary of them and then I will compare them to find out differences or what is the same. After that I will talk about some striking elements in 'The Innocence of Father Brown'. As Father Brown is the only character that counts in the Father Brown Stories I will characterise him and later on write of his attitudes and role in this book. With the help of what I found out, I will try to explain the title of 'The Innocence of Father Brown'.