Joseph AntonielloENG 422 – G.K. Chesterton in Context

Dr. Stephen LewisMay 9, 2011

An Outline of SanityA Critique and Defense of the Anti-Semitism of G.K. Chesterton

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a prolific writer in the late Nineteenth and early

Twentieth Centuries. His large body of work – including many books, essays, and

collections of poetry – has discussed topics ranging from literature to philosophy; from

politics to religion. Although Chesterton’s work fills many volumes, he has been

increasingly criticized – often unfairly – for his anti-Semitism. No one could deny a

strand of anti-Semitism running throughout his work – especially in his fiction – but to

discredit him completely because of this misunderstood philosophy would be a mistake.

There are many facets of Chesterton’s anti-Semitism worthy of attention, and many

questions will be raised along the way. These topics will include his personal history

with and toward Jews, his treatment of the Jew in his literature and the philosophy of

Distributism as parallel to his call for nationalism. Each question can be given many

answers, and may bring about more questions in the process. The goal is not to answer

every question, or fill every hole, but rather to outline the truest form of Chesterton’s

argument about the “Jewish problem” and to examine if arguments for his anti-Semitism

are completely unfounded.

To understand the anti-Semitism of G.K. Chesterton, it is best to first investigate

his personal life. In Chesterton’s boyhood, he went to St. Paul’s School in London. It

was an all-boys school, and Chesterton notes in his Autobiography, its reputation of being

“a school of ‘swots,’” which he says was true “partly because there were a great many

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Jews” (Autobiography 69-70). There is no doubt that Chesterton regarded this

studiousness as one of the “much neglected Jewish virtues, which are the complement

and sometimes even the cause of what the world feels to be the Jewish faults”

(Autobiography 70, emphasis my own). It is important to note Chesterton’s wording

here, as he does not say “…what I feel are…” which would defeat his very definition, and

every defense of his anti-Semitism. But it is in his description of the grateful Jewish boy,

Lawrence Solomon – whom he protected “from being bullied, or rather being teased” in

his school-days – that some might claim to be an accurate portrayal of “the archetypal

Jew”: “a strange swarthy little creature with a hooked nose” and even a “little goblin”

(Autobiography 70; Kaufman 14). These words recall the sorts of phrases Hitler used

against the Jews in his oppression, so what is the difference between Chesterton’s use and

that of Hitler? The primary difference is it is used in connection with a friend, and is

secondarily used to enhance the “abnormal” nature of the Jew during Chesterton’s school

days (Autobiography 70). In his literature – which will be discussed in detail later –

Chesterton often employs a grotesque over-exaggeration of features, “that…may…make

us see the (real) world anew, from a fresh perspective which, though it be a strange and

disturbing one, is nevertheless valid and realistic” (Thomson). A “disturbing” description

of a friend is still – in the end – just a description. A widely circulated photo of

Chesterton’s Junior Debating Club, circa 1891, which includes Lawrence Solomon,

reveals that Chesterton’s description was not disturbing, only exaggerating the boy’s true

features.

Chesterton’s personal life had another major Jewish encounter: the Marconi

Scandal. The Marconi Scandal

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was a case of “insider trading” on behalf of some highly placed British government officials, including the Attorney General, Sir Rufus Isaacs. The deal was engineered by Sir Rufus’ brother, Godfrey, who was managing director of the Marconi Wireless Company of London. The Isaacs brothers were Jewish.

The government was about to award a major contract to Marconi Wireless, and before the public knew about the contract, Sir Rufus agreed with his brother to purchase 10,000 shares at two pounds per share. Rufus thought it would have been improper to have bought from Godfrey, who was in direct negotiation with the government for a lucrative contract on behalf of his company, so he bought from another brother, Harry, who had bought from Godfrey. Of his ten thousand shares, Rufus immediately sold one thousand to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, David Lloyd George, and another thousand to the Chief Whip of the Liberal Party then in office. When the government contract was awarded to Marconi Wireless, the stock of course dramatically increased in value. (Collected Works: Vol. VII, Introduction 28)

The case involved G.K.’s younger brother, Cecil, who exposed the entire occurrence in

his paper, The New Witness. The motivation is likely to have been a mere exposition of

the two brothers’ dirty deeds, but perhaps it was also due anti-Semitism on his own part.

It is not our place to go into detail regarding Cecil’s anti-Semitism, nor of the factors

contributing to it. It is, rather, our duty to examine Gilbert’s anti-Semitism, and if the

Marconi Scandal added to the fire. Maisie Ward notes, in her biography of Chesterton,

that the Marconi Scandal was one of the “most important element[s] in Chesterton’s

mental history” (Ward 331). Some critics have said that the scandal “set off something

horrible in [Chesterton]” and “from then on…Chesterton hammers relentlessly at the idea

that there is ‘a Jewish problem” (Gopnik 56). Ward, in her biography, printed a poem

written by Chesterton after breaking his arm when a doctor

told him at a certain stage to write something – anything – to see if he could use a pen again. After an instant’s thought, Gilbert headed his paper with the name of a prominent Jew and wrote:

I am fond of JewsJews are fond of moneyNever mind of whoseI am fond of Jews

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Oh, but when they loseDamn it all, it’s funny. (Ward 264)

Ward would not reveal the name, even saying that “wild horses would not drag [the

name]” from her (Ward 264). Some have said it was in reference to “Rufus Isaacs, whom

Ward was afraid to name because of the Marconi court case” (Farmer 388, n19). Ward

rushes to Chesterton’s defense saying that “the name at the head…[was] the key to this

impromptu,” and that Chesterton “was fond of very many Jews,” although there “was

another kind of Jew he very heartily disliked” (Ward 264). Chesterton’s Autobiography

says that “another of the legends about the Marconi Case” is that it was “an attack on

Jews” (212). It is ironic that he says this because in an article collected in 1935’s The

Well and the Shallows, Chesterton says that he and “[Hilaire] Belloc…who began in the

days of Jewish omnipotence by attacking the Jews, [would] probably die defending

them” (The Well and the Shallows 127). The admission of “attack” is one of intrigue,

which can only be illuminated by Chesterton’s own philosophy regarding the Jewish

people.

Chesterton’s personal life alongside Jews seems secondary to his philosophy of

Jewish nationalism, but it brings up an issue which seems heartily ignored by some

critics: Chesterton did not hate Jews. Much of the argument comes from a

misunderstanding of his nationalism. For Chesterton, nationalism is does not mean “that

my nation has a claim to all my worship, and no other nations have claims to anything”

(Collected Works: Volume V, 584). This is nothing more than a vulgar use of the word,

contrary to how Chesterton had “used [the word nationalism] all [his] life in defending

Irish Nationalism,” and nationalism as a whole (ibid.). Chesterton defines nationalism in

his book Irish Impressions, saying:

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Nationalism is a nobler thing even than patriotism; for nationalism appeals to a law of nations; it implies that a nation is a normal thing, and therefore one of a number of normal things (Collected Works: Volume XX, 146).

That is to say, nationalism is among the most normal philosophies a person can have.

The nationalist is not merely patriotic: he loves his nation, even when it falls to ruin. It

encompasses race because in the nation, race does not exist. Chesterton does not say that

every culture that exists outside of his nation has no place, but rather, “the more [one] as

an Englishman love England, the more [one] should realize that an Irishman loves

Ireland” (Collected Works: Volume 5, 584). Chesterton also argues in Irish Impressions

for the widespread use of Irish clothing. Chesterton says that while in Ireland, he “came

upon the traces of a quarrel about some silly veto in the schools, against Irish children

wearing green rosettes” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 135). He advised against the

veto, saying that it was comparable to a Jewish government punishing a criminal by

“[crowning] him with thorns, and [killing] him on a hill just outside Jerusalem”

(Collected Works: Volume XX, 136). Chesterton did not mean this in the sense that Jews

were responsible for the death of Christ, but rather to say that the oppression gives the

oppressed – and the hatred it breeds – power. The veto, if it was true, would

bring back all the responsibilities and realities of that reign of terror when [the English] were, quite literally, hanging men and women too for wearing of the green…[The English] were not literally hanging…children. As a matter of mere utility, [the English would] have been more sensible if [they] had been. (Collected Works: Volume XX, 137).

The irony of it all is this: “When [Chesterton] made the exact same arguments on behalf

of the Jews [as he did for the Irish], he was called anti-Semitic” (Lecture XXXII).

Chesterton’s philosophy of Jewish nationalism is explained most perfectly in his

book, The New Jerusalem. The book is a meditative journal, documenting his travels to

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Jerusalem during Christmas of 1919, walking “backwards through history to the place

from which Christmas came” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 193). Throughout this

work, Chesterton refers to the ostracizing of the Jew in Jerusalem. “But the real ‘Jewish

Problem’ as Chesterton calls it, is that the Jews were a people in exile, a people without a

homeland” (Ahlquist, XXXV). Chesterton maintains that the Jew’s natural home is in

Palestine, the true Zion, and until he returns to his home, his “exile is the worst kind of

bondage” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 405). Chesterton notes a truism which states

that “any one whose heart is set on a particular home or shrine, to be locked out is to be

locked in. The narrowest possible prison for him is the whole world” (Collected Works:

Volume XX, 405). This point was driven home for Chesterton on his trip to Jerusalem: it

was here that he realized the exact plight of the Jewish people. He writes:

There is no place for the Temple of Solomon but on the ruins of the Mosque of Omar. There is no place for the nation of the Jews but in the country of the Arabs. And these whispers came to me first not as intellectual conclusions upon the conditions of the case, of which I should have much more to say and to hope, but rather as hints of something immediate and menacing and yet mysterious. It felt almost a momentary impulse to flee from the place, like one who has received an omen. For two voices had met in my ears; and with the same narrow space and in the same dark hour, electric and yet eclipsed with a cloud, I had heard Islam crying from the turret and Israel wailing at the wall. (Collected Works: Volume XX, 289).

This clash of Islamic and Judaic cultures was “like the clash of…two crooked eastern

swords,” standing not in contradiction, but as “two extremes of the two great Semitic

traditions of monotheism” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 288). The critique of

Chesterton’s anti-Semitism as a religious hate is seen here as a theory which has begun

falling apart: if he hated the Jewish religion, he would not want to give it a home to

worship, but rather allow it to fall into obscurity, and continue their weeping at the wall.

But Chesterton defends the Jewish desire for the Temple, saying that there should be “at

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least some great religious headquarters of the scattered race and religion,” although the

Temple should be built “without bothering about the site of the Temple. That [the Jews]

should have the old site, of course, is not to be thought of; it would raise a Holy War

from Morocco to the marches of China” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 416).

The most noted “anti-Semitic” writing of Chesterton’s is the last chapter of The

New Jerusalem, entitled “The Problem of Zionism.” This chapter was not included in the

serialization of Chesterton’s book, because of a “difference of opinion, which divided

[Chesterton] from the politics of the newspaper” in which the book was serialized

(Collected Works: Volume XX, 191). In “The Problem of Zionism,” Chesterton seems to

prattle off many a stereotype, even with the context of the argument itself, which also

stands as a very reasonable defense of his brand of Zionism. Gerald Kaufman writes

that, even though [Chesterton] condemned Hitler’s oppression of the Jews at a time when that oppression was nothing like as monstrous as it later became, he had a final solution for the Jews that, with the fundamental exception of gas chambers and mass slaughter, was very similar to that of Hitler himself. He wanted to get rid of Jews from Britain, and to confine those who remained [there] in ghettos where they would be required to wear distinctive dress much more noticeable than yellow stars. (Kaufman 14)

Kaufman is referring to a more obscure Chesterton quote from The New Jerusalem, and

also one of the most infamous. The latter, in relation to the dress of the Jew, is for

Chesterton a requirement for British “recovery of healthier relations with [any Jew]”

(Collected Works: Volume XX, 398). The mandatory Arab dress of the Jew is not to

make him distinguishable for oppression, like the yellow stars Hitler enforced, but rather

to remind the Jew that he “is in a foreign land” (Ibid). Chesterton does not restrict Jews

to any one trade: in fact, he says to “let a Jew occupy any political or social position

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which he can gain in open competition” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 397). Chesterton

elaborates further saying:

Let a Jew be Lord Chief Justice, if his exceptional veracity and reliability have clearly marked him out for that post. Let a Jew be Archbishop of Canterbury, if our national religion has attained to that receptive breadth that would render such a transition unobjectionable and even unconscious. But[…]every Jew must be dressed like an Arab. Let him sit on the Woolsack, but let him sit there dressed as an Arab. Let him preach in St. Paul’s Cathedral, but let him preach there dressed as an Arab. (Ibid)

The point of Chesterton is to remind the Jew of his culture, that his culture is not the

English, the Irish, the Russian, et cetera: the Jew is Jewish, and Chesterton asks him to

realize this much. “The bright colours that make the Margate Jews hideous are no

brighter than those that make the Moslem crowd picturesque. They are only worn in the

wrong place, in the wrong way” (Ibid). Kaufman’s first reference – that of exiling Jews

to a ghetto – is not easily dismissible, but falls well within the confines of Chesterton’s

argument.

The advantage of the ideal to the Jews is to gain the promised land, the advantage to the Gentiles is to get rid of the Jewish problem, and I do not see why we should obtain all their advantage and none of our own. Therefore I would leave as few Jews as possible in other established nations, and to these I would give a special position best described as privilege; some sort of self-governing enclave with special laws and exemptions; for instance, I would certainly excuse them from conscription, which I think a gross injustice in their case. A Jew might be treated as respectfully as a foreign ambassador, but a foreign ambassador is a foreigner. Finally, I would give the same privileged position to all Jews everywhere, as an alternative policy to Zionism, if Zionism failed by the test I have named; the only true and the only tolerable test; if the Jews had not so much failed as peasants as succeeded as capitalists. (Collected Works: Volume XX, 417)

Here, the “ghetto” implication seems noteworthy, and seems to have more than a little in

common with the ghettos set up in Warsaw at the beginning of World War II, but the

difference is fundamental: the Jews still achieve sovereignty. A rare footnote from

Chesterton after the exclusion from conscription – which he also said should be granted

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to the Irish in Irish Impressions – reads: “Of course, the privileged exile would also lose

the rights of the native” (ibid). Chesterton does not wish to resettle “so large a race on so

small a land” as Israel, but does wish to remove them in certain ways from the English

arena (ibid). This sovereignty is still freedom; the land is still their own. Chesterton does

not fail to acknowledge Zionism’s faults, and sets up this worst-case scenario of

sovereignty in exile.

Chesterton’s nationalist argument is also supported by his Distributist argument. I

will not be going into great depths on the subject of Distributism, only touching on basic

principles of the system. “The key” to Distributism is “the family and private property –

but not too much property” (DeBoer-Langworthy). Chesterton once said, “Too much

capitalism does not mean too many capitalists, but too few capitalists,” or rather, too

many have too much control over the means of production (Collected Works: Volume IV,

246). Here, a most common and notorious of Jewish stereotypes can be easily found: the

Jew as capitalist. Chesterton "did not think a Jewish capitalist was necessarily any worse

or better than a Christian or Muslim one” and he maintains that Jews “are traders rather

than producers” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 24, 405). Recalling the poem quoted

earlier, Chesterton may think – quite honestly – that Jews are only fond of money, but it

is not altogether convincing to say so. Using the example of Shylock from Shakespeare’s

Merchant of Venice, “Chesterton insists that Shylock is not disliked because he is a Jew

but because he is a usurer” (Ahlquist Lecture XXXV). This reading of Merchant of

Venice – in light of “many points of view,” which “filled column after column […] for

weeks” in a paper in London – shows the Jew as oppressor for the first time (Collected

Works: Volume XX, 399). Chesterton says that Shylock is “not only […] a man but a

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perfectly sincere and self-respecting man”: the major point is that Shylock “is a self-

respecting man who does not despise himself for being a usurer” (Collected Works:

Volume XX, 400). This is “what Shakespeare suggested about the Jew in a subtle and

sympathetic way” while “millions of plain men everywhere would suggest” the same

thing “in a rough and ready way” (Ibid). The Distributist belief in family is also brought

forth in The New Jerusalem, in which Chesterton says, “With the Jews the family is

generally divided among the nations” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 404). The thought

of the nomadic family of the Jews does not slow Chesterton down, but rather makes him

quick to point out that

it is in its nature intolerable, from a national standpoint, that a man admittedly powerful in one nation should be bound to a man equally powerful in another nation, by ties more private and personal even than nationality. Even when the purpose is not any sort of treachery, the very position is a sort of treason. Given the passionately patriotic peoples of the west of Europe especially, the state of things cannot conceivably be satisfactory to a patriot. But least of all can it conceivably be satisfactory to a Jewish patriot; by which I do not mean a sham Englishman or a sham Frenchman, but a man who is sincerely patriotic for the historic and highly civilised nation of the Jews. (Ibid.)

Just as Chesterton’s nationalism does not fail to point out the problems of Zionism, his

Distributism does not fail to point out the Jewish inability to have pride for his homeland

as a Jew.

The strange world of Chesterton’s anti-Semitism finds an even stranger world

within Chesterton’s fiction. As stated previously, Chesterton’s literature often makes use

of grotesque exaggeration of features, both physical and within the characters’ personal

qualities. Jews – or in the least, references to the Jews – crop up in most of Chesterton’s

fictional work, the most stereotypical of which show up in The Ball and the Cross and

Manalive. Moses Gould, one of the main antagonists in Manalive, is among the most

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hated characters in all of literature; at least in Chesterton’s literature. This “small

resilient Jew” is compared to a “negro,” a “performing monkey,” “a dog” ever so often in

the book, that it becomes harder and harder to experience the novel in a profound way

(Collected Works: Volume VII, 269, 276). The fact of Gould’s Jewry is exaggerated to

the point of humor, yet it is a dark humor; it is a humor one shouldn’t be laughing at. No

less than four times is Gould called “Nosey Gould”; a nickname which is both a reference

to his character and to the nose on his face. He is exceedingly ignorant, and most

contemptible. He is sidekick to Michael Moon – another of the antagonists in the story –

and at Moon’s side, Gould is “the gayest of godless little dogs; but like a dog also in this,

that however he danced and wagged with delight, the two dark eyes on each side of his

protuberant nose glistened gloomily like black buttons” (Collected Works: Volume VII,

276). There seems to be no chance of salvation for Gould, and his character is not

explained with any sort of highlight of Chesterton’s philosophy, save the following:

The instant he had spoken all the rest knew they had been in an almost religious state of submission and assent. Something had bound them together; something in the sacred tradition of the last two words of the letter; something also in the touching and boyish embarrassment with which Inglewood had read them— for he had all the thin-skinned reverence of the agnostic. Moses Gould was as good a fellow in his way as ever lived; far kinder to his family than more refined men of pleasure, simple and steadfast in his admiration, a thoroughly wholesome animal and a thoroughly genuine character. But wherever there is conflict, crises come in which any soul, personal or racial, unconsciously turns on the world the most hateful of its hundred faces. English reverence, Irish mysticism, American idealism, looked up and saw on the face of Moses a certain smile. It was that smile of the Cynic Triumphant, which has been the tocsin for many a cruel riot in Russian villages or mediaeval towns. (Collected Works: Volume VII, 380-381)

Here, both Chesterton’s anti-Semitism, pro-Semitism and his entire philosophy come

shining forth. Here, Chesterton implies the inability of Gould to be reconciled to English,

Irish or American traditions and customs. This hearkens back to the nomadic nature of

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the Jew, the man without a home. The “many a cruel riot in Russian villages” is an

obvious reference to the Bolshevik revolution, which was to start a few years later and

had already some violent tendencies. The “Cynic Triumphant” over the mediaeval towns

is likely a reference to the “usury in the Middle Ages” by the Jew, which is “the reason

why Jews were historically unpopular in Europe” (Ahlquist Lecture XXXV). Moses

Gould is not a very three-dimensional character, and perhaps it is this genuine lack of

character that makes it so hard to defend Chesterton’s remarks. It takes a hard look to see

Chesterton’s philosophy regarding the Jew, and even then, Moses Gould is just as

contemptible as he was before.

The Ball and the Cross is not littered with references to Judaism, or with a

character who continually mocks the protagonists. There is rather one Jew, who seems of

little consequence, but reveals the depths of Chesterton’s Jewish philosophy. The

entirety of this philosophy is seen in the one paragraph description of the keeper of the

shop which the protagonists buy their swords. The description reads:

[The shopkeeper] was a Jew of another and much less admirable type; a Jew with a very well-sounding name. For though there are no hard tests for separating the tares and the wheat of any people, one rude but efficient guide is that the nice Jew is called Moses Solomon, and the nasty Jew is called Thornton Percy. The keeper of the curiosity shop was of the Thornton Percy branch of the chosen people; he belonged to those Lost Ten Tribes whose industrious object is to lose themselves. He was a man still young, but already corpulent, with sleek dark hair, heavy handsome clothes, and a full, fat, permanent smile, which looked at the first glance kindly, and at the second cowardly. The name over his shop was Henry Gordon, but two Scotchmen who were in his shop that evening could come upon no trace of a Scotch accent. (Collected Works: Volume VII, 64)

The “Jew with a very well-sounding name” seems to be at first a mockery, but the

philosophy of the Jew needing his Arab dress is enlightening here. Chesterton shows two

different names here, not to stigmatize the Jews, but to show that the Anglicizing of the

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Jewish name should not be a celebrated practice. The name he gives – Moses Solomon –

is possibly a reference to his childhood friends, Lawrence and Maurice Solomon, whom

he truly loved throughout his life. “Henry Gordon” had “no trace of a Scotch accent,”

because Chesterton could not call the Jew a Scot. In The New Jerusalem, Chesterton says

that no one “should regard [the Jew] as an Englishman, since they have already

recognized him as a Jew” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 394). Mr. Gordon also owns

three shops – the antique dealer, a “pawnbroker’s” and a “pornographic bookseller” –

which reflects Chesterton’s maxim about there being too few capitalists (Collected

Works: Volume VII, 65). It is strange to see so much written into a character who shows

up for only a few pages, but it is also enlightening to see that Chesterton would not allow

himself to fall into a trap of anti-Semitism here. There is no explanation as to why he

made Mr. Henry Gordon so well-rounded and Mr. Moses Gould so flat, but in these two

characters, the multi-faceted anti-Semitism of G.K. Chesterton is revealed, and it is just

as wonderfully thought out as it is depressing.

Chesterton’s many layers of anti-Semitism can be argued for and against, as they

have been throughout the last seventy years. Some, like Dale Ahlquist, will defend

Chesterton through and through, always denying the charge. Others, like Adam Gopnik

and Gerald Kaufman, will consistently charge and overcharge Chesterton with anti-

Semitism. Chesterton says he will be called an anti-Semite if it is anti-Semitic to believe

“Jews should be represented by Jews, should live in a society of Jews, should be judged

by Jews and ruled by Jews” (Collected Works: Volume XX, 392). Chesterton never

pulled a punch when speaking about any culture, always eager to highlight both the faults

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and the beautiful qualities; the Jews were no different. He consistently denied the charge

of anti-Semitism, so perhaps it is best to let Chesterton speak for himself:

I am not going to persecute any Jews. But I am going to go on talking about them. I shall talk about them as freely as I should about Germany or Japan; saying what, in my opinion, are their dangers, defects, or neglected merits. I shall say that a group of financial Jews urged on the African war, because they did: I heard them doing it. But I shall also say that I heard many of the equally unmistakable artistic and Bohemian Jews denounce the war fiercely. One is not supposed to insult America by discussing Trusts or France by discussing dueling; why should the Jews be the only people who refuse to be talked about intelligently? (Gilbert Magazine 10)

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WORKS CITED

Ahlquist, Dale. “Lecture XXXII: Irish Impressions.” Lecture, Unknown Location. http://www.chesterton.org/wordpress/?page_id=1429 (accessed May 8, 2011).

Ahlquist, Dale. “Lecture XXXV: The New Jerusalem.” Lecture, Unknown Location. http://www.chesterton.org/wordpress/?page_id=1437 (accessed May 8, 2011).

Chesterton, G. K. The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton: Volume IV - What's Wrong with the World, The Superstition of Divorce, Eugenics and Other Evils, and others. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1987.

Chesterton, G. K. The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton: Volume V - The Outline of Sanity, The End of the Armistice, Utopia of Usurers--and Others - Family, Society, Politics. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 1987.

Chesterton, G. K. The Collected Works of G.K. Chesterton: Volume VII – The Ball and the Cross, Manalive, The Flying Inn. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2005.

Chesterton, G.K. The Collected Works of G. K. Chesterton Volume XX: Christendom in Dublin, Irish Impressions, The New Jerusalem, A Short History of England. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2001.

Chesterton, G. K. “Straws in the Wind: A Report on My Anti-Semitism.” Gilbert Magazine, November/December 2008.

DeBoer-Langworthy, Carol. “Distributism.” Modernist Journals Project. http://dl.lib.brown.edu/mjp/render.php?view=mjp_object&id=mjp.2005.00.081 (accessed May 9, 2011).

Farmer, Ann. “G.K. Chesterton: Race, Eugenics and the Jews.” The Chesterton Review, Fall/Winter 2006.

Goldman, Aaron. “The Resurgence of Antisemitism in Britain during World War II.” Jewish Social Studies, Vol. 46, No. 1 (Winter, 1984). Indiana University Press. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4467242

Gopnik, Adam. “The Back of the World: The Troubling Genius of Gk Chesterton.” The New Yorker, July 7 & 14, 2008.

Kaufman, Gerald. “Chesterton’s Final Solution.” Times Higher Education Supplement, no. 1313 (January, 1998). London. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=163826&sectioncode=26 (accessed April 29, 2011)

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Thomson, Philip. The Grotesque. London: Methuen Young Books, 1972.http://davidlavery.net/grotesque/major_artists_theorists/theorists/thomson/thomson2.html(accessed May 7, 2011).

Ward, Maisie. Gilbert Keith Chesterton. Fourth Printing ed. New York, NY: Sheed & Ward, 1943.