The Wisdom of Father Brown

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Father Brown is a fictional character created by English novelist G. K. Chesterton, who stars in 51 detective short stories (and two framing vignettes), most of which were later compiled in five books. Chesterton based the character on Father John O'Connor (1870–1952), a parish priest in Bradford who was involved in Chesterton's conversion to Catholicism in 1922. The relationship was recorded by O'Connor in his 1937 book Father Brown on Chesterton.

[Interpretations and criticism]

Father Brown was the perfect vehicle for conveying Chesterton's view of the world and, of all of his characters, is perhaps closest to Chesterton's own point of view, or at least the effect of his point of view. Father Brown solves his crimes through a strict reasoning process more concerned with spiritual and philosophic truths rather than scientific details, making him an almost equal counterbalance with Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, whose stories Chesterton read and admired. However, the Father Brown series commenced before Chesterton's own conversion to Catholicism.

[The Wisdom of Father Brown]

1.The Absence of Mr Glass.
2.The Paradise of Thieves.
3.The Duel of Dr Hirsch.
4.The Man in the Passage.
5.The Mistake of the Machine.
6.The Head of Caesar.
7.The Purple Wig.
8.The Perishing of the Pendragons.
9.The God of the Gongs.
10.The Salad of Colonel Cray.
11.The Strange Crime of John Boulnois.
12.The Fairy Tale of Father Brown.