Our readings are:

Chesterton’s Autobiography, Chapter XIII, Some Literary Celebrities. and

Chesterton’s essay on The Pickwick Papers from his Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens.

There you are! Something to read when it’s too hot outside to do anything.

It has been many years since I have read them, but Chesterton’s writings on Dickens have always been, to quote T. S. Eliot, a delight to me. I read them probably thirty years ago and have always meant to read them again sometime. I love the stories of Dickens and I love the writings of Chesterton, and, Behold! Here’s a great volume of writings of Chesterton on Dickens! The goodness and cheer and love of humanity of the one builds upon the goodness and cheer and love of humanity of the other. The reading of Chesterton on Dickens is a treat you don’t want to deprive yourself of, especially if you appreciate Dickens. Chesterton and Dickens were indeed kindred spirits, and Chesterton’s writings on Dickens stand with some of the best of his early writings like Orthodoxy and Heretics and his novels. Even though considered literary criticism, Chesterton on Dickens are some of his best writings. T. S. Eliot, in a letter to Chesterton written twenty five years after his book on Dickens was published, tells him, “your study of Dickens was always a delight to me.”