G. K. Chesterton’s Enclosure of Orthodoxy in ‘The Wrong Shape’

Abstract

Ellery Queen, in his survey of early detective fiction, was moved to describe Chesterton’s The Innocence of Father Brown (1911), his first collection of such stories, as the ‘miracle book’.2 There is just the faintest tinge of irony in this statement; this first set of clerical mysteries do indeed contain some of the most celebrated stories in the canon, but they are also perfect examples of how Chesterton sought to articulate, in fictional form, the desirable qualities of the Catholic faith: a faith which would ultimately become his own.