Chesterton as a
novelist carries the art yet a step farther and has added elasticity to
the word. It would, I think, be probably untrue to say that Chesterton
is a popular novelist; he is much too unlike one to be so. That he is
read by a wide public is not the same thing; he has not the following of
the millions that Charles Garvice had, for the millions who understood
him might find Chesterton difficult. Really Chesterton is read by a
select number of people who would claim to be intellectual; very
up-to-date clergymen rave about his catholicity, high-brow ladies of
smart clubs delight in his knave whimsicalities, but the girl in the
suburban train to Wimbledon passes by on the other side.

One of the characteristic features of Chesterton's novels is his clever
selection of titles that are by their very nature fit to designate his
original works. If in journalism nine-tenths of the importance of an
article depends upon its title, it is equally true that the title of a
novel is of the same import. Either a title should give some indication
of the nature of the book, or it should be of the kind that makes us
want to read it; this is the case with regard to the Chesterton novels,
their designations are so phantastic that our curiosity is aroused. Thus
'The Man who was Thursday' gives no possible explanation of what it is
about, but it does suggest that it is interesting to know about a man
who was Thursday; 'The Flying Inn' may be a forecast of prohibition or
it may be a romance of the time when inns shall fly to the ends of the
earth; 'The Napoleon of Notting Hill' leads us to suppose that perhaps
there was a hidden history of that part of London, that Notting Hill can
boast of a past that makes it worthy of having been a station on the
first London tube.

It is unsafe to prophesy any limit to the versatility of Chesterton, but
it is improbable that he could write an ordinary novel; the reason is, I
fancy, that he cannot write of the ordinary emotions with the ease that
he can construct grotesque situations. This is why I have said that, as
a novelist, Chesterton is not popular in the sense that he is read by
the masses (that word that the Church always uses to indicate those who
form the bulk of the community). As a novelist, Chesterton stands apart,
not because he is better than contemporary writers of fiction, but
because his books are unlike those of any one else.

I have taken Chesterton's most famous novels and