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Horizons, v. 6, issue 3, whole no. 22, March 1945

Page 7

CHESTERTON, Gilbert Keith
The Napoleon of Notting Hill
(1) New York & Lonedon: John Lane, 1904, 302pp, 19 cm., [3?]1.50 (6/-). Seven illustrations by William Graham Robertson and a map of the seat of war. (Second impression of this edition: 1906.) (2) London: John Lane, 1920, 252pp, 19 cm., 2/-. (3) London: John Lane, 1922, 301pp., 21.5 cm., 7/- (illustrated as (1)). (4) London: John Lane, 1928, 302pp., 20 cm., 3/6 (in "Week-end Library Series). (5) London: John Lane, 1937, 300pp., 20 cm., 3/6 (in "Bodley Head Library" series).
Further information: The novel may also be found in A G. K. Chesterton Omnibus (1936) -- for further information on the latter see my bibliography listing for same. I suspect previous magazine publication in Britain, but could locate no definite data thereon. Above information was taken from U. S. Catalog of Printed Books and analogous British Catalog. -A. Langley Searles

Review: This is no exception to the usual type of Chesterton book which manages to mix obviously and successfully the writer's opinion on the things under consideration with an excellently plotted, superbly told tale. Further, like the "Father Brown" tales, it manages to reconcile blooshed and horrors with the message in question. "Chesterton begins the book with a half-dozen delightful pages of ridiculing those who prophesy the world of tomorrow, admits that it is going to be hard to do anything without fulfilling some prophecy or other, then starts off his tale in the London circa 1985, a carbon-copy in many respects of the London of 80 years earlier, but a bored London that had "lost faith in revolutions", wasn't sure who the King was and didn't care, and didn't mind the general boredom that prevailed. In the middle of this, a charming fellow by the name of Auberon Quin is accosted by two policemen, who tell him that he has just been made King. He immediately sets about to revive the old boroughs of London -Hammersmith, Kinsington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, Clapham, Balham, "and a hundred others", -into their old status as individual walled cities, thoroughly protected, with "a banner, a coat-of-arms, and, if convenient, a gathering cry". Enters, a few years later, one Adama Wayne, provost of Notting Hill, who is preventing a new road from being cut across his domain. Quin is thunderstruck to find that Wayne takes the whole gigantic jest in the most deadly earnest. The armies of the other boroughs march against Notting Hill, are repeatedly thrown back, at least conquer. Quin and Wayne, in a final chapter that cannot be conveniently described in space less than it occupies itself, at last realize the essential meaning of the strange contrasts of their beliefs and work, and march off together into the unknown world. "The book is not too easy to understand: the introductory verses (to Hilaire Belloc) are not as explicit as those that begin the book version of "The Man Who Was Thursday" and were so unfortunately omitted from its Famous Fantastic Mysteries publication. An essential of the story, moreover, fails to strike the American reader - the associations that the names of the London boroughs now evoke. Presumably Notting Hill fighting the rest of London is as incongruous as if Harrystown were suddenly to revolt against Hagerstown, but what Harrystown is to Hagerstown can't be understood by a person who hasn't lived here and visited it. "In reading a Chesterton novel, it is sometimes important to remember that laughing at the funny parts is by no means blasphemy. And there are some remarkably amusing episodes herein, particularly Wayne's first effort to evoke patriotism in the mundane souls of the shopkeepers of Pump Street. Equally astonishing is the adventure of the war correspondent of a great London newspaper, covering one of the battles. "To understand the book thoroughly, some acquaintance with Chesterton's philosophy as expressed through his essays and other non-fiction is valuable; a perusal of the easily obtainable "Man Who Was Chesterton" is the quick and simple method. Even without such background, on the reader's part, however, I can recommend this volume unreservedly. -Harry Warner, Jr., Horizons, No. 22.

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CHESTERTON, Gilbert Keith The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1) New York & Lonedon: John Lane, 1904, 302pp, 19 cm., [3?]1.50 (6/-). Seven illustrations by William Graham Robertson and a map of the seat of war. (Second impression of this edition: 1906.) (2) London: John Lane, 1920, 252pp, 19 cm., 2/-. (3) London: John Lane, 1922, 301pp., 21.5 cm., 7/- (illustrated as (1)). (4) London: John Lane, 1928, 302pp., 20 cm., 3/6 (in "Week-end Library Series). (5) London: John Lane, 1937, 300pp., 20 cm., 3/6 (in "Bodley Head Library" series). Further information: The novel may also be found in A G. K. Chesterton Omnibus (1936) -- for further information on the latter see my bibliography listing for same. I suspect previous magazine publication in Britain, but could locate no definite data thereon. Above information was taken from U. S. Catalog of Printed Books and analogous British Catalog. -A. Langley Searles Review: This is no exception to the usual type of Chesterton book which manages to mix obviously and successfully the writer's opinion on the things under consideration with an excellently plotted, superbly told tale. Further, like the "Father Brown" tales, it manages to reconcile blooshed and horrors with the message in question. "Chesterton begins the book with a half-dozen delightful pages of ridiculing those who prophesy the world of tomorrow, admits that it is going to be hard to do anything without fulfilling some prophecy or other, then starts off his tale in the London circa 1985, a carbon-copy in many respects of the London of 80 years earlier, but a bored London that had "lost faith in revolutions", wasn't sure who the King was and didn't care, and didn't mind the general boredom that prevailed. In the middle of this, a charming fellow by the name of Auberon Quin is accosted by two policemen, who tell him that he has just been made King. He immediately sets about to revive the old boroughs of London -Hammersmith, Kinsington, Bayswater, Chelsea, Battersea, Clapham, Balham, "and a hundred others", -into their old status as individual walled cities, thoroughly protected, with "a banner, a coat-of-arms, and, if convenient, a gathering cry". Enters, a few years later, one Adama Wayne, provost of Notting Hill, who is preventing a new road from being cut across his domain. Quin is thunderstruck to find that Wayne takes the whole gigantic jest in the most deadly earnest. The armies of the other boroughs march against Notting Hill, are repeatedly thrown back, at least conquer. Quin and Wayne, in a final chapter that cannot be conveniently described in space less than it occupies itself, at last realize the essential meaning of the strange contrasts of their beliefs and work, and march off together into the unknown world. "The book is not too easy to understand: the introductory verses (to Hilaire Belloc) are not as explicit as those that begin the book version of "The Man Who Was Thursday" and were so unfortunately omitted from its Famous Fantastic Mysteries publication. An essential of the story, moreover, fails to strike the American reader - the associations that the names of the London boroughs now evoke. Presumably Notting Hill fighting the rest of London is as incongruous as if Harrystown were suddenly to revolt against Hagerstown, but what Harrystown is to Hagerstown can't be understood by a person who hasn't lived here and visited it. "In reading a Chesterton novel, it is sometimes important to remember that laughing at the funny parts is by no means blasphemy. And there are some remarkably amusing episodes herein, particularly Wayne's first effort to evoke patriotism in the mundane souls of the shopkeepers of Pump Street. Equally astonishing is the adventure of the war correspondent of a great London newspaper, covering one of the battles. "To understand the book thoroughly, some acquaintance with Chesterton's philosophy as expressed through his essays and other non-fiction is valuable; a perusal of the easily obtainable "Man Who Was Chesterton" is the quick and simple method. Even without such background, on the reader's part, however, I can recommend this volume unreservedly. -Harry Warner, Jr., Horizons, No. 22.