Bevis Hillier's little book is excellent in its way, and I have enjoyed it and recommend it. But what I would really like is a complete GKC — everything he ever wrote, including his countless articles for the Illustrated London News and his own papers, the Eye-Witness and GK's Weekly, all put sturdily between hard covers. I believe something of the sort is being attempted in America, but I would like to see a good university press doing it here, in facsimile, as has been done with Mark Twain, and sold cheaply. Failing that, I would like some republications. St Francis and Thomas Aquinas, for instance, both short, should be made into one volume. So should his best literary biographies, Dickens and Browning, possibly with Stevenson added to make a trilogy. Heretics and Orthodoxy ought to be published together. And, say, half a dozen volumes of essays, and two of poetry. That would do for a start. 

Although GKC aroused, and continues to arouse, hostility in academia and certain official establishments, I don't think anyone who actually knew him well ever disliked him. Most loved him. He has attracted few biographies because there was no dark side or hidden side. He attracts legends and anecdotes, though. Some are true. It is true, for instance, that, incessantly travelling to and from speaking engagements, he got muddled and once sent a telegram to his wife: "Am in Market Harborough where ought I to be Gilbert." The telegram has been preserved and Hillier has tracked it down: British Library Add. Mss. 73276A.

There should be a book of photographs, drawings and cartoons of GKC. It is fascinating, for instance, that his shape changed fundamentally. He was once a tall rake, becoming a tall balloon. His dress was invented for him by his wife, as the only solution to an insoluble problem — wide, soft, dark hat, enveloping cloak, nondescript things underneath, and a cane. It is interesting, as Hillier reveals, that his maternal grandfather invented a garment known as "Grosjean's Celebrated Trowsers". GKC was unique in his time, and such characters come along very rarely in our history. The only one akin to him, in my time — without his genius — was Malcolm Muggeridge. I was fortunate to know Malcolm well, and treasure my memories of him, and remember the wise advice he gave me. But I wish I had known GKC. Now that we have started off with Newman, ought we not to make Chesterton a saint? Much better material.