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Editorial Review Product Description
Objection is often raised against realistic biography because it reveals so much that is important and even sacred about a man's life. The real objection to it will rather be found in the fact that it reveals about a man the precise points which are unimportant. It reveals and asserts and insists on exactly those things in a man's life of which the man himself is wholly unconscious; his exact class in society, the circumstances of his ancestry, the place of his present location. ... Read more Customer Reviews (3) 
Fine Collection of Essays but This is Not a Book
This review is focused on the IHS edition of "Twelve Types." While "Twelve Types" is one of Chesterton's earliest works--he was not even 30 when he wrote it--there is much to ponder in his twelve sketches of leading thinkers and figures of the last millennium. While Chesterton was a fine biographer, as his later works on St. Francis--who is one of the figures sketched in an essay in "Twelve Types"--and St. Thomas Aquinas show, the subtitle is not correct. These are not "mini-biographies." These are quick glimpses of one aspect or another of figures ranging from Charles II to Tolstoy. There is much to kick over in these pieces though some of these essays are free-wheeling, even by Chesterton's standards. While this book is not the classic that some of Chesterton's other works are, it is still a profitable and enjoyable read.
So why three stars? This "book" was less than 100 pages--of which less than 75 are from Chesterton. IHS could have easily placed this in another book of Chesterton's. The introduction was fine but the notes seemed a bit too much. We may need notes to tell us Randolph Churchill was. We do not need notes to tell us about the artist Chesterton calls "Michael Angelo" was or that "Punch and Judy" are a puppet show. I have a high opinion of IHS but they could have included this with another work of Chesterton instead of publishing this slip of a book.
We admire ruined monasteries. Why not ruined men as well?
"GKC" was pushing 30 when TWELVE TYPES was pulled together in book form in 1903. It made his literary reputation among the cognoscenti of England.
His little essays touch on one woman and eleven men. All twelve "types" are well known, although for different skills, including writing, thinking, brooding or kinging it.
Charlotte Bronte wrote of plain people with big, sometimes tortured souls. William Morris found the 19th Century ugly and tried to reshape it in stained glass and cloth to evoke better bygone ages.
Lord Byron wore many disguises, including pessimism. Robert Louis Stevenson was even more a man of masks. Alexander Pope knew, generously, that people worth satirizing had to have a core of value. He made his witty, wise couplets look easy. But no one who has copied him has been remotely so good.
What did Francis of Assisi and Edmund Rostand share? They were great poets, first and foremost. Francis loved life and people more happily than anyone before or since. Rostand's soldiers dying in fear of the crows that would soon pluck out their eyes cheered for Napoleon one last "Vive l'empereur!."
That idlest but most despotic of Stuart Kings, Charles II, was a thorough sceptic. He was not just sceptical about this or that. He doubted everything. Even in turning Catholic and taking communion on his deathbed, he might muse, "The wafer might not be God, similarly it might not be a wafer." Charles's restoration in 1660 was a revolt "of the debris of human nature." Men of the Restoration, weak Epicureans all, were masters of killing time. Higher Epicureans "make time live."
Thomas Carlyle believed his message to be true and important but did not think it important to persuade others. Count Tolstoy saw the simplicity of "mere Christianity" but then tried to codify it in rules. Michelangelo was a friend of the austere Dominican Monk of Florence Savonarola and would gladly have tossed his greatest works into the "bonfire of the vanities" if he thought its flames signaled "the dawn of a younger and wiser world."
Finally, Sir Walter Scott. He is the eternal king of romance and romance touches the deepest core of human nature. First impressions are deepest. And boys are therefore right to pay more attention to Bruce's plume than to his hatreds. Sir Walter tells a story lovingly. He invites us to sip it like wine and not gulp it down like bitter medicine.
TWELVE TYPES is a book to pull out of our pocket when the world grows too much with us. It is wise, consoling, provocative. It is over a hundred years old And don't we all wish that we could write something half so timely! -OOO-
A HEAVY READ, BUT NECESSARY
This is one of Chesterton's smallest books, but boy is it packed with knowledge.If you are considering a career in literary criticism you would do well to purchase this book.At times, because Chesterton can be so deep, it is hard to follow.But there are good footnotes in the back of the book.Read it slowly, and savor every moment.
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