Publisher's Synopsis
The Man Who Knew Too Much and other stories (1922) is a book of detective stories by English writer G. K. Chesterton, published in 1922 by Cassell and Company in the United Kingdom, and Harper Brothers in the United States.The book contains eight connected short stories about "The Man Who Knew Too Much", and additional unconnected stories featuring separate heroes/detectives. The United States edition contained one of these additional stories: "The Trees of Pride", while the United Kingdom edition contained "Trees of Pride" and three more, shorter stories: "The Garden of Smoke", "The Five of Swords" and "The Tower of Treason".The 1934 film and its 1956 remake have nothing except the title in common with this book. Alfred Hitchcock, who directed both films, decided to use the title because he held the film rights for some of the book's stories. ...Gilbert Keith Chesterton, KC*SG (29 May 1874 - 14 June 1936), was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic. He has been referred to as the "prince of paradox". Time magazine has observed of his writing style: "Whenever possible Chesterton made his points with popular sayings, proverbs, allegories-first carefully turning them inside out."Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and wrote on apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognised the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. George Bernard Shaw, his "friendly enemy", said of him, "He was a man of colossal genius." Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and John Ruskin.Early lifeChesterton was born in Campden Hill in Kensington, London, the son of Marie Louise, née Grosjean, and Edward Chesterton.He was baptised at the age of one month into the Church of England, [10] though his family themselves were irregularly practising Unitarians.According to his autobiography, as a young man he became fascinated with the occult and, along with his brother Cecil, experimented with Ouija boards.Chesterton was educated at St Paul's School, then attended the Slade School of Art to become an illustrator. The Slade is a department of University College London, where Chesterton also took classes in literature, but did not complete a degree in either subject.
