Treasures from the Rare Books Collection – G. K. Chesterton and WWI – St. Thomas Libraries Blog
Libraries, O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library, Special Collections and Archives

Treasures from the Rare Books Collection – G. K. Chesterton and WWI

The Chesterton-Belloc Collection housed the Department of Special Collections features over 1200 works by the English author G. K. Chesterton (1874 – 1936).  Chesterton’s writings feature wide variety of styles – prose, poetry, drama, journalism – and topics from current events to theology.   Among the materials in this collection, you will find a number of items documenting the prose and poetry written by him during World War I.

At the beginning of the First World War, Chesterton was among several leading British writers whom Charles Masterman, the head of Britain’s War Propaganda Bureau (WPB), recruited to help shape public opinion.  Chesterton wrote and published several pamphlets and numerous articles in Britain’s newspapers promoting the government’s views on the war. The best known of these works is the pamphlet The Barbarism of Berlin.

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During the First World War, charitable organizations such as the British Red Cross, The Daily Telegraph Belgium Fund and the Prince of Wale’s National Relief Fund raised over 70 million pounds for the war effort.  Chesterton was among many contemporary writers (including John Galsworthy and Rudyard Kipling) who contributed prose and poetry to works published and sold by charities.  Proceeds of these publications were used to aid war refugees and wounded military personnel.

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For more information on the UST Libraries rare books and manuscripts collections see : http://www.stthomas.edu/libraries/special/rare/ .

 

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