G.K. Chesterton in Sight & Sound

You can now buy all four of the recorded speeches of GK Chesterton on CD or as individual MP3 downloads at CDBaby:

http://cdbaby.com/cd/gkchesterton

In this video you will hear some of all four of the only known sound recordings in existence made by G.K. Chesterton, along with a couple of seconds (literally) from a news reel of him & his wife Francis.

(You can get GKC's recording of "The Spices of Life" on CD now):

http://cdbaby.com/cd/seper2

When C.S. Lewis was asked which books had the biggest impact on his spiritual life, the first one he named was "The Everlasting Man" by Chesterton. Lewis's well known 'Lord, Liar, Lunatic' argument was in actuality a paraphrase (rather poorly perhaps) from Chesterton in this book.

Chesterton is probably best known to the public through his 'Father Brown' mystery stories, many of which were made into television movies. His novel, "The Man Who Was Thursday" is highly regarded amid all of English literature. Chesterton was perhaps the most prolific author of all-time. He left a volume of work that actually filled an attic room from floor to ceiling. Along with authoring nearly a hundred books, he also wrote thousands of newspaper articles, most of them for his own paper—GK's Weekly.

Almost everyone remembers learning about the Scopes Monkey Trial in which the famous lawyer Clarence Darrow pretty much wiped the floor with a southern fundamentalist Christian politician by the name of William Jennings Bryan. As usual, fundies don't have a leg to stand on, and Darrow showed this all too well. But what a lot of people don't know is that six years later Darrow had the opportunity to debate a non-fundamentalist Christian, someone who was a much more worthy opponent—G.K. Chesterton. The exchange took place at New York City's Mecca Temple. The topic was "Will the World Return to Religion?" Of the nearly 3500 people who attended, Chesterton received 2,359 votes, a decisive win. In the February 4, 1931, issue of The Nation, this is what was said about the debate:

In the ballot that followed, the audience voted more than two to one for the defender of the faith, Mr. Chesterton of course, and if the vote was on the relative merits of the two debaters, and not on the question itself, it was surely a very just one. Mr. Chesterton's argument was like Mr. Chesterton, amiable, courteous, jolly; it was always clever, it was full of nice turns of expression, and altogether a very adroit exhibition by one of the world's ablest intellectual fencing masters and one of its most charming gentlemen.

Mr. Darrow's personality, by contrast, seemed rather colorless and certainly very dour. His attitude seemed almost surly; he slurred his words; the rise and fall of his voice was sometimes heavily melodramatic, and his argument was conducted on an amazingly low intellectual level.

Ostensibly the defender of science against Mr. Chesterton, he obviously knew much less about science than Mr. Chesterton did; when he essayed to answer his opponent on the views of Eddington and Jeans, it was patent that he did not have the remotest conception of what the new physics was all about. His victory over Mr. Bryan at Dayton had been too cheap and easy; he remembered it not wisely but too well. His arguments are still the arguments of the village atheist of the Ingersoll period; at Mecca Temple he still seemed to be trying to shock and convince yokels.

Mr. Chesterton's deportment was irreproachable, but I am sure that he was secretly unhappy. He had been on the platform many times against George Bernard Shaw. This opponent could not extend his powers. He was not getting his exercise.

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[Lucaszci]

Do you know where I could find more files in which I could listen to Chesterton's voice as well?

Thank you for your time.

[gmdinformation]

@Lucaszci Look through my videos. There's another one playing portions of all the known sound files he ever recorded. You'll also find a video about the CD I have available through CDBaby of all Chesterton's recorded output. Rather than buy the CD, many people elect to download the files as mp3s for a buck each at CDBaby, Amazon, iTunes etc.

[marciodpsh]

Chesterton debating Hitchens! I'd pay anything to see that!

[savioblanc]

"I'm not much of a Crusader, but atleast i'm not a Muhammadan" G K Chesterton - looks like the clash of civilisations was going on for quite sometime eh?

[NathanBarrow]

@marciodpsh

That would hardly be fair to Hitchens

[godriczimmerman]

@AbdielAbiram Can you give an example of one of his really bad arguments?. I'm interested because having recently read four of his books i personally can't think of one.

[FrederickBaroh]

One of the greatest wits in the English language, and still underappreciated.

[glrcmptn]

i liked his book on St.Francis of Assisi....and love to listen to him talk.

[TheWizzooo]

@Arminevh

Hear Hear

[gmdinformation]

@AbdielAbiram,

My thoughts exactly. When he's "on" he's better than anybody, but when he's "off" he can really set himself up to be knocked down very easily. Reading GKC is like watching a good jazz musician. Some nights he's got it, some nights he doesn't, but he's always fun to watch.

[AbdielAbiram]

@gmdinformation

Thats the thing about Chesterton. When he has a good argument, its a really good argument. But when he doesn't have a good argument, its a really bad argument he replaces it with. So he's really a hit and miss writer. Which I why i recommend him to people, because he does occasionally make some really great points.

[tincoffin]

he was however a great poet - a much rarer thing.