Father Brown Short Stories

by G.K. Chesterton (Contributor)

G. K. Chesterton's fictional amateur detective, the genial Father Brown, was greeted with huge enthusiasm when he first appeared in The Story-Teller magazine in 1910. Depicted with Chesterton's characteristic elegance and wit, this unworldly but perceptive priest-sleuth soon became a major figure in the world of whodunit fiction and continues to charm readers today.

This anthology contains 24 Father Brown short stories, including 'The Blue Cross', 'The Secret Garden', 'The Wrong Shape', and 'The Three Tools of Death', in which the unassuming Father exercises his formidable powers of intuition and analysis to solve a range of crimes.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Mystery

Hardcover

Published November 15, 2018

About the author

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.

He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.

Reviews

[Samantha B]

Chesterton is a genius, and that is all.

(There were 24 stories; I guessed the answer to exactly one (1))

[Joshua]

Father Brown is quickly becoming my favorite fictional detective despite having a few less than interesting cases towards the end of the second book is this volume.
Instead of focusing on the crime itself most of the mystery revolves around how Father Brown solves it which does in some ways put a twist on the mystery stereotype which seems to either bother or bore the reader.
Being a wannabe fan of mystery, but feeling not smart enough to follow them sometimes, I did find this particular format refreshing.
I also loved how Father Brown utilizes his spiritual intuition and pastoral heart to solve the various cases.
Highly recommended (save for the *one* really racist story, of its time, so be forewarned).

Chesterton is having fun and you can tell he really loves this character.

[Jennifer Gyuricska]

I never thought I'd say this but the show is so much better than the book...

[Scott MacBurnie]

While some of the stories are interesting, it does not age as well as some other mysteries of that sort of era. The writing feels oddly stiff, and the stories, while incidentally interesting from time to time, do not quite seem to have the sort of timeless sparkle that some classic mysteries do.

[Lydia]

A compilation of two collections of short stories with Chesterton's Catholic Priest sleuth, Father Brown. The two collections are The Innocence of Father Brown and The Wisdom of Father Brown they contain the following stories: The Blue Cross, The Secret Garden, The Queer Feet, The Flying Stars, The Invisibile Man, The Honor of Israel Gow, The Wrong Shape, The Sins of Prince Saradine, The Hammer of God, The Eye of Apollo, The Sign of the Broken Sword, The Three Tools of Death, The Absence of Mr. Glass, The Paradise of Thieves, The Duel of Dr. Hirsch, The Man in the Passage, The Mistake of the Machine, The Head of Ceasar, The Purple Wig, The Perishing of the Pendragons, The God of the Gongs, The Salad of Colonel Cray, The Strange Crime of John Boulnois and The Fairy Tale of Father Brown.

This was a strange collection for me, and I think explains Chesterton a bit better, to me at least. The only other Chesterton I've read is The Man who Was Thursday which has the subtitle of "A nightmare" and that is how it read for me, not necessarily "scary" or "unnerving" just extremely disjointed and confusing. With the first, I would say third of this book I had the same feeling, I couldn't follow the story very closely (in generally I "see" books I'm reading as movies in my head, but these were more like sketchy stage plays, I could follow a section of dialogue, but when the scene changed or something else happened I would be lost) and just found the story a little confusing with no chance of figuring out the mystery. Then, right around The Sins of Prince Saradine something clicked and they were clear again! Which makes me very curious if Chesterton got a new editor or a fellow Inkling stepped in to help him polish his style more or some such at that time... or if my brain just adjusted to his style. The upshot being, at the beginning of the book, I didn't intend to continue reading Father Brown stories, but now I do!

Content notes: Mild, occasional British swearing, mostly just stated that a character swears; some offensive/derogatory language either from unlikable characters or because the word's meaning has changed, so was not meant to be offensive but would be considered so now. Affairs and romances are discussed, but never luridly. If the mystery involves a death, the method of death is described and sometimes characters are killed on page, but though detailed descriptions are included they are not graphic.

[John Nygma]

Somewhere around 2.5 stars, I think. Let's be honest: i read this because I adore the TV show and I wanted to know what the original stories were like. Long story short: Chesterton's stories aren't outright terrible, but they were simply not engaging most of the time. Like, I just didn't really care for what was going on. I like when Father Brown makes an appearance and says some smart but funny things, but that's kinda it. No interesting cast of characters and the cases that needed solving were a very mixed bag. Seeing what Flambeau is like in the original was interesting, though he's way more charismatic in the show. I couldn't name you one story that truly stood out to me. Like, I've read worse, but this also wasn't great. In conclusion: watch the TV show, it's way more fun and actually engaging.

[Sarah]

Father Brown is a hyper-observant Catholic priest who solves crimes with little fuss. He’s like Sherlock Holmes without the panache. The BBC series takes Chesterton’s character and runs with it to create a whole new universe- you won’t find Kembleford or Mrs. McCarthy in the stories.

[Doug Adamson]

This is the second time through for these stories but it has been many years since the previous time through.. This time, I didn't enjoy them as much as I had expected to but they did make me appreciate more the good job that the BBC has done with their new version of the Father Brown mysteries.

[Bill Quatier]

I love this book, but by the end of the 24 stories I was getting bored. The setups were getting more elaborate and the payoffs less satisfying. This would be a great book to read a story out of once a week, or once a month, but not to just sit down and read all the way through.

[Justin Barker]

I honestly really enjoyed these stories. There were twists and turns and all the classic hallmarks of good mysteries. But better yet, was Chesterton's nuanced focus. Instead of focusing on the crime itself, he focused on the human conditions that surround and lead to the crime.

[Hayley Thompson]

DNF 🥲 I got a bit into it but just didn’t enjoy the writing style. To be fair, it was written in the early 1900’s. I bought the novel while in Ireland. It is very pretty and maybe one day I’ll get around to it again…

[Beth Rawson]

I'd like to say something a bit more intelligent than "these stories are pants" but I won't as they're all pants.

[Lucy Kent]

I absolutely love Father Brown. I love the TV series as this goes into more details than the books and more characters have been added. The books are s good way of visiting the character .

[Lisa Church Sielen]

I love the show, but the stories while cute, just don’t have the depth.

[Mimi]

I read five stories for the Close Reads Membership podcast. I had always heard about these and expected something more substantive and more mysterious

[Susan B]

nothing like the PBS series. After readig 2 Chesterton books I wont be readingany more

[Jennifer Rhineheimer]

fantastic, thought provoking mysteries! read between the lines, these stores say a lot. Chesterton .... pure genius!

[Allison Stewart]

Fun quick mysteries.