It’s the birthday of British author G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874-1936), who wrote everything from poetry to highly regarded literary criticism to works of historical theology but who is best known for his Father Brown mysteries.

Chesterton was born in London, England, and had a happy childhood. Even though he was British. And became a writer. To review: this British author had a happy childhood in which he was not orphaned or sent to boarding school to be bullied. He attended St. Paul’s, did not distinguish himself as a student, but did get involved in a debate club; later in life he would become a famous debater of such luminaries as his best frenemy, George Bernard Shaw, and H.G. Wells. Chesterton studied art at The Slade School at University College, London, took a few lit classes, and then worked for a couple publishers.

As an adult, Chesterton was about six foot four and 300 pounds and wore a cape and a slouchy hat. He was an incredibly prolific writer and considered himself mainly a journalist, writing a great deal about social issues such as the Boer War (see What’s Wrong with the World, 1910). He married Frances Blogg in 1901 and for the rest of their lives, she helped her brilliant, spacey husband navigate the world. He reportedly once wired his wife, “Am at Market Harborough. Where ought I to be?” He missed so many trains that he did a lot of his writing right there in the train station.

At 48, Chesterton, who was raised in a religiously liberal household but moved more toward orthodox Christianity in young adulthood, converted to Catholicism. By then he’d already begun the Father Brown mysteries, featuring a Catholic priest whose bland appearance disguised a keen and insightful mind. Father Brown was known for his great understanding of evil, developed in part through his work in the confessional; he was based on a real priest, John O’Connor, who was instrumental in Chesterton’s conversion. (Chesterton’s writing, in turn, and in particular The Everlasting Man (1925), was significant to the conversion of atheist C.S. Lewis to Christianity.) Chesterton’s influence on the genre of detective stories was so great that some consider him to be the father of the detective tale. (I’m tired and it feels like a Monday so let’s let him duke it out himself with Poe and Conan Doyle.)

Chesterton and his wife never had children but did later have a secretary, Dorothy Collins, who became a daughter to them. Chesterton died of congestive heart failure on June 14 at their home in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire.

Go have that second cup of coffee, desperately needed if not richly deserved, and stay scrupulously honest to the data.