- Hardcover: 328 pages
- Publisher: Wm B Eerdmans Pub Co; Reprinted Edition edition (Mar 1983)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0802835503
- ISBN-13: 978-0802835505
- Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,561,118 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
"Gilbert Keith Chesterton has been the subject of several biographies, but none as comprehensive as The Outline of Sanity, a life of G. K. Chesterton by Alzina Stone Dale."
--THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
"A biography in which the imaginative and intellectual stature of the man is seen in its full measure."
--SUNDAY TIMES (UK) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
--THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
"A biography in which the imaginative and intellectual stature of the man is seen in its full measure."
--SUNDAY TIMES (UK) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
About the Author
Alzina Stone Dale is a freelance author/lecturer who has published biographies of Dorothy L. Sayers, G. K. Chesterton, and T. S. Eliot and edited Love All: The Comedies of Dorothy L. Sayers, Dorothy L. Sayers, the Centenary Celebration, and Sayers on Holmes. Dale had also written mystery travel guides to London, England, New York, Chicago, and Washington D.C., two of which have won Malice Domestic?s Agatha Awards. A contributor to As her Wimsey Took Her, and The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery, Dale is a member of the Sayers Society, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, the Authors Guild, and the Society of Midland Authors.
--This text refers to the
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is the only biography of G.K. Chesterton that equals Maisie Ward's seminal work or Joseph Pearce's work of 1996. The title, taken from one of Chesterton's own works, suggests accurately the emphasis this work puts on Gilbert's early and sustained need for balance in all spheres of his thought. And the book itself sets itself the brief of balancing earlier portraits of Chesterton; in particular early on Dale corrects many mistakes of the first biography of Chesterton, written anonymously by his brother, Cecil, in 1908. Dale is eager to correct Cecil's argument that Gilbert was a crypto-catholic from much earlier on in his life. She successfully balances this misrepresentation by stressing the different stages in Chesterton's mental development, showing him believing different but connected truths at eighteen and at forty-six. This emphasis differs markedly from, say, Dudley Barker's biography, which suggests that Chesterton's 'real' conversion occurred a good fifteen years earlier.
The book probes deeper than any other biography into Chesterton's thought and has very good contextualised summaries of all his work. It is very good in showing how Chesterton's Christianity is entwined with his political and sociological opinions. Its main difference from other biographies is its detailed setting of the political and journalistic scene that surrounded most of Gilbert's mature work. In particular its sustained narrative on British politics from 1900 to Chesterton's death provides unique and invaluable context for much of Chesterton's work. It is an eminently public and political biography, as well as an intellectual one. Chesterton's letters or notebooks are hardly used, probably because this had been done extensively by Ward and Barker.
Beautifully written and quite accessible, this work balances scholarly brilliance without becoming stodgy or dry. Anyone with a serious interest in the life, times and works of Chesterton should read this book.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
1 review
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
The Best Introduction to Chesterton
25 Sep 2008
Format:Paperback
This really is, in my opinion, the best introduction to the thought and life of G.K. Chesterton. I have read a couple other biographies that came nowhere near the level of understanding Alzina Stone Dale brings to this work.
While it is commonly accepted that Chesterton was a literary genius, he has not fared well with the current arbiters of taste. Usually, biographers treat Chesterton as a Quixotic figure, essentially a deeply conservative man born out of his time, or they focus on the dark parts of the man, his supposed anti-Semtism, his excesses in food and drink, etc. Stone Dale has an objective tone that grasps the complexities of the man, while showing a strong compassion for her subject. She writes well about his politics, aesthetics and religion, with a real feel for his cultural time and place. Chesterton was a paradoxical man and that's what makes him so interesting. I think his politics will be seen as very forward-thinking someday and will probably be studied by those looking for a third way out of the capitalism vs. socialism mess we are in at the time I write this.
His faith was foundational in his life, and Stone Dale treats it with sophistication, without bringing in her own bias (as some writers do). She gives you real sense of the energy of Edwardian London and the business of journalism at the time. I can't recommend the book enough for those interested in Chesterton's thought.
While it is commonly accepted that Chesterton was a literary genius, he has not fared well with the current arbiters of taste. Usually, biographers treat Chesterton as a Quixotic figure, essentially a deeply conservative man born out of his time, or they focus on the dark parts of the man, his supposed anti-Semtism, his excesses in food and drink, etc. Stone Dale has an objective tone that grasps the complexities of the man, while showing a strong compassion for her subject. She writes well about his politics, aesthetics and religion, with a real feel for his cultural time and place. Chesterton was a paradoxical man and that's what makes him so interesting. I think his politics will be seen as very forward-thinking someday and will probably be studied by those looking for a third way out of the capitalism vs. socialism mess we are in at the time I write this.
His faith was foundational in his life, and Stone Dale treats it with sophistication, without bringing in her own bias (as some writers do). She gives you real sense of the energy of Edwardian London and the business of journalism at the time. I can't recommend the book enough for those interested in Chesterton's thought.
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