Illustrated [Quora Media] (100 Greatest Novels of All Time Book 6)

I have read Father Brown stories before, but never in the proper order. This collection provides back stories, details, developments, that make the stories much more understandable and enjoyable. I now know how he and Flambeau came to be friends, what happened with the intrepid French detective, how Father Brown showed up in the most unexpected places, and how the combination of reasoning and evidence plays out in these stories. Chesterton's writing is spot-on, and occasionally it's dazzling.

It's just that I've never read G.K. Chesterton before, and well, there are better mystery writers. He can be a bit overdramatic, relying too much on the hero's sensitivity and intuition, often with no logical reasons for his conclusions.

The above adjectives predictable, some twists and full of surprises are not adequate to describe this book. I suppose naïvely I expected some semblance of the TV series, but it is not that at all. It is a collection of short story "mysteries". I have read it through, but it is not a book I would recommend for a fan of the Father Brown TV series. As in some of the Sherlock Holmes stories critical clues are withheld so the "detective" looks even more amazing that he really is.

Very enjoyable reading. Liked the short length of each story. Able to read a complete story at one setting. Found myself trying to guess the culprit/killer while reading. Would purchase more of similar books.

Unique. Every mystery is solved by the unassuming priest by using common sense and thinking outside the box. And this almost a century before this term (and idea) was talked about. Brilliant if you like old-fashioned....

It was an interesting and fun read. I occasionally read a deep and serious book, but for relaxation I read easy, light mysteries that I can read in a few hours. This was a book that I throughly enjoyed. Even though the book was $.99, it read like an expensive best seller.

GOOD SHORT STORIES WITH PHILOSOPHICAL INSIGHTS.
CHARACTERS SEEMED VERY ALIVE. I HAD SEEN AND HEARD ABOUT
THIS SERIES, BUT IT WAS THE 1950'S ALEC GUINESS "THE DETECTIVE" FILM
THATGOT ME TO RESEARCH THE SOURCE OF THE MOVIE

Stories are short,quick reads and delightful. They remind me of the Sherlock Holmes mysteries. I could read a story and then put the Kindle down and return to the book for another quick read at my leisure.

It's obvious that crime stories are rarely credible. But they have to be intrinsically credible. Father Brown knows things which he cannot possibly know. His predictions - which always turn out to be true - are mostly just too implausible.

This was a terrible quality of book. The cover is all pixcelated amd looks very cheap. The inside of the book is ok, but overall it feels very flimsy and poorly made for a book. We bought another book from the same publisher which looked much like the Trevor Noah autobiography that was just released. It too was horrible quality, but inside it was just nonsense and not an auto biography at all. Avoid this seller if you can!

I BOUGHT THE WORKS OF FATHER BROWN ON KINDLE AND I THOROUGHLY ENJOY READING THIS CLASSIC CLERICAL DETECTIVE, THERE ARE SO MANY CLEVER LITTLE STORIES IN THIS SERIES YOU CAN READ AND BREAK AND COME BACK AGAIN WHENEVER YOU FANCY A LIGHT READ.

This book, I thought would be interesting judging from the old hit series "Father Dowling". However, I found more interesting books so I turned it back in without reading it. I cannot judge this book.

If you are a fan of the tv show do not read this book. Very tedious, took me months to plow through it. Stories are stretched and the solutions are a little hard to take. Father Brown comes across as not very likeable or believable. Save some time and aggravation and read something else.

I am actually a very well educated fan of British literature, so it pains me to admit that I kept drifting off trying to read these. I regret to say that they are just incredibly boring despite Chesterton's undisputed ability to write. I have to go against me usual preferences here and say for entertainment value you'd do best just to stick to the TV series.

I bought this because we love the Father Brown TV Series show on BBC. The TV show writers are bound and leaps above G.K. Chesterton!
The book was slow and bogged you down with boring details and descriptions, then **POW** murderer found- The End. This Father Brown was a bumbling idiot who just happened to be there. After reading about 4 stories I quit. Hubby read only two. I deleted the book off my Kindle.
My advice- watch the shows forget the book.

I cannot read this on the Kindle app on my iPad. All quotation marks are rendered in something that looks like gobbledegook, and this is so distracting that it is impossible to enjoy reading the text.

Just too slow, and characters not real enough. The PBS tv series is far better as the writers have already removed all the "dead wood" and we are left with an enjoyable story with fun characters and we don't mind they are predictable.

I could not get into the beginning of this series.
It may get better as it goes along, but I only read a few pages and found it plodding at least in the very beginning.
I would love to hear how others found it. If I could get some feedback that the stories get very interesting I might
give it another try.

I first read some of the Father Brown mysteries around 50 years ago when I was a dedicated Catholic. I came across them again and decided to read them to see if they were as I remembered. What a surprise! Dark superstition pours out of each line. I didn't realise how racist and bigoted the stories were. How times have changed! After struggling through around one third of the book I have given up because the whole conceit was depressing me so.

After several nice tv shows we looked forward to the original Well after only a few short stories there were several awful awful stories full of prejudice and hurtful words
Please remove this book from the store and send it for severe editing
It is not 1939 Alabama

This 99 cent Kindle book is filled with many truly delightful Father Brown stories. One should not be misled by the TV series; whose Father Brown is totally unlike the man invented by Chesterton.
G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown is a "small dusty-looking Roman Catholic priest," also called "little priest." He is rumpled, self-deprecating, courteous, quiet, and has no parish work visible. He solves cases intellectually, almost like Sherlock Holmes, but without any boasting or fanfare. I dislike the TV versions of the man, for he seems so silly to me, and his large size and overweight nature and facial features do not resemble the G. K. Chesterton character at all. Indeed, in the TV Brown series, each case is filled with silly events, including that in each case a silly looking police chief with a crumpled hat tells Brown that he does not want his help. This makes no sense to me since Brown has solved so many cases for the chief on the TV programs.
In contrast, the Chesterton stories have some humor, but it is subtle and intelligent. His tales are told in an intelligent manner, the character developments are interesting, the plots sensible and engaging, and Father Brown acts in a soft manner, not in the heavy-handed manner on TV.

This might be a good book, I thought so when I bought it.
The problem is that it won't open. I downloaded it 5 times and it won't open.
This is one of over 1,000 books in my library and only the second one that wouldn't open.

I will not bore you with how great the Father Brown books are. Many people have done that for well over a century. I thoroughly enjoy the stories and that is enough for me. The format is crisp and clean though it could use a fully interactive ToC. This ToC can only be accessed by going back to the front of the book at Location 21.

But I purchased this edition specifically because it advertised annotations. As I own a physical copy of the Complete Father Brown, I was looking for something that would fill in the gap that my physical copy was missing: Annotations and explanations for subjects, places, historical movements and events and terms that I would not have to Google or use Wikipedia (for example) to understand. No such annotations can be found.

You cannot beat the price but please be warned: This edition is not annotated and its introduction is a mere four paragraphs. It has a few stories not available in other "completes" but that is the extent of its difference. The ToC is limited compared to an interactive ToC in another .99 cent edition (but that one is missing the rare stories included in this one) so you can't go wrong either way. But when a company advertises annotations I expect them to be there or it is "shame on them." Enjoy the great Father Brown stories but don't expect a singular annotation or you will be greatly disappointed.

The Complete Father Brown

G. K. Chesterton had sympathy of the people and against the rich rulers (p.viii). His `Father Brown' stories were popular on both sides of the Atlantic (p.x). Chesterton was known for his love of paradoxes, "truth standing on its head to get attention". The `Foreword' by R.T. Bond tells how Chesterton invented the character of Father Brown after a discussion with a curate, who told him about practices unimaginable to Chesterton. Later he heard college students wonder what a curate could know about real life. Chesterton's detective would be ordinary appearing, even dull, individual. Yet he would figure out a mystery that seemingly wiser men could not fathom. Instead of analyzing clues, Father Brown tried to get inside the mind of the murderer to determine his motive and identity. [Today we would call that profiling.] This book contains all fifty-one stories. They are always entertaining and amusing even if some details are now as extinct as a horse and buggy or may seem improbable.

"The Innocence of Father Brown" (1911) has twelve stories.
The Blue Cross; The Secret Garden; The Queer Feet; The Flying Stars;
The Invisible Man; The Honor of Israel Gow; The Wrong Shape;
The Sins of Prince Saradine; The Hammer of God; The Eye of Apollo;
The Sign of the Broken Sword; The Three Tools of Death.

"The Wisdom of Father Brown" (1913) has twelve stories.
The Absence of Mr. Glass; The Paradise of Thieves; The Duel of Dr. Hirsch;
The Man in the Passage; The Mistake of the Machine; The Head of Caesar;
The Purple Wig; The Punishing of Pendragon; The God of the Gong;
The Salad of Colonel Cray; The Strange Crime of John Boulnois;
The Fiery Tale of Father Brown.

"The Incredulity of Father Brown" (1923) has eight stories.
The Resurrection of Father Brown; The Arrow of Heaven; The Oracle of the Dog;
The Miracle of Moon Crescent; The Curse of the Golden Cross; The Dagger with Wings;
The Doom of the Darnaways; The Ghost of Gideon Wise.

"The Secret of Father Brown" (1927) has ten stories.
The Secret of Father Brown; The Mirror of the Magistrate; The Man with Two Beards;
The Song of the Flying Fish; The Actor and the Alibi; The Vanishing of Vaudrey;
The Worst Crime in the World; The Red Moon of Meru; The Chief Mourner of Marne;
The Secret of Flambeau.

"The Scandal of Father Brown" (1935) has nine stories.
The Scandal of Father Brown; The Quick One; The Blast of the Book;
The Green Man; The Pursuit of Mr. Blue; The Crime of the Communist;
The Point of a Pin; The Insoluble Problem; The Vampire of the Village.

Great stuff. Interesting characters (although too many have yellow faces) and wonderful plots. Clever interpretations of facts that seem to point to an obvious conclusion but don't or which seem to have no connection but do. Especially so given the time in which it was written. Absolutely nothing like the pablum BBC series, although in at least one show the plot was borrowed from a short story. Truly a Classic "Detective" character that I overlooked despite avidly reading Detective novels over my many years.

This relates to the character, not to this Kindle edition.

The mystery stories are quite enjoyable, as the author employs slightly cheeky and often ironically humorous narration. The tone is much warmer than the tv version.

While it is true that the author uses phrases and stereotypes from his time period that are now known to be insulting when used (same as Mark Twain' s diction), the thought-provoking observations about human behavior and the opportunity for spiritual reflection for the reader outweigh this potential drawback.

The Complete Father Brown

This is the complete collection of Gilbert Keith Chesterton's "Father Brown" detective stories. Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" specialized in the collection and analysis of evidence, the new science of trace evidence in the late 19th century. "Holmes" used deductive reasoning from minute clues to solve a crime. "Brown" used the method of observation of people and inductive reasoning to solve a crime. "Brown" tries to think as the criminal would and solves crimes that way. If you can discover the motive then you can discover the perpetrator. It works very good in fiction. This technique can be misused today to create false confessions by psychological manipulation.

Most of these stories are quite short as if written for a magazine. You get a description of events as seen by other people, then a solution follows, with an explanation. The clues are subtle and based on people's actions, the ending surprising. Most written stories don't reveal the ending until the last pages or chapters. In films you often know who did it, the suspense arises as to how they will get caught. But there are variations on these plots. These stories are always entertaining and amusing, even if some details are now as extinct as a horse and buggy, or may seem improbable. There are fifty-one stories.

"The Innocence of Father Brown" (1911) has twelve stories.
The Blue Cross; The Secret Garden; The Queer Feet; The Flying Stars;
The Invisible Man; The Honor of Israel Gow; The Wrong Shape; The Sins of Prince Saradine;
The Hammer of God; The Eye of Apollo; The Sign of the Broken Sword; The Three Tools of Death.

"The Wisdom of Father Brown" (1913) has twelve stories.
The Absence of Mr. Glass; The Paradise of Thieves; The Duel of Dr. Hirsch; The Man in the Passage;
The Mistake of the Machine; The Head of Caesar; The Purple Wig; The Punishing of Pendragon;
The God of the Gong; The Salad of Colonel Cray; The Strange Crime of John Boulnois; The Fiery Tale of Father Brown.

"The Incredulity of Father Brown" (1923) has eight stories.
The Resurrection of Father Brown; The Arrow of Heaven; The Oracle of the Dog;
The Miracle of Moon Crescent; The Curse of the Golden Cross; The Dagger with Wings;
The Doom of the Darnaways; The Ghost of Gideon Wise.

"The Secret of Father Brown" (1927) has ten stories.
The Secret of Father Brown; The Mirror of the Magistrate; The Man with Two Beards;
The Song of the Flying Fish; The Actor and the Alibi; The Vanishing of Vaudrey;
The Worst Crime in the World; The Red Moon of Meru; The Chief Mourner of Marne;
The Secret of Flambeau.

"The Scandal of Father Brown" (1935) has nine stories.
The Scandal of Father Brown; The Quick One; The Blast of the Book;
The Green Man; The Pursuit of Mr. Blue; The Crime of the Communist;
The Point of a Pin; The Insoluble Problem; The Vampire of the Village.

In my humble, atheistic opinion, G.K. Chesterton is the single greatest writer of mystery stories. At first I was skeptical. Did I really want fancy-schmacy writing in a mystery? It took me awhile to get used to his poetic, incredibly atmospheric and nearly surreal style. But certainly, the grace and moodiness of his writing makes these stories highly re-readable. He's also an amazingly witty writer. There are enough jokes in Chesterton to qualify him as a comic novelist. Although Gore Vidal dismissed him as a "Christian writer", Chesterton echoed Vidal's wisdom when he wrote something to the effect of, "The opposite of funny isn't serious. The opposite of funny is not funny."

Yes, many of the stories are improbable -- they are intentionally dream-like. And yes, they are preachy -- but in the most wonderful way imaginable -- wise and insightful. And even when he is wrong, Chesterton is fun to read.

If you read enough of him you will find he was bigoted against black, Jews and gays. Really disturbing -- but perhaps Christian forgiveness is called for as we remember Chesterton for the genius he was, warts and all.

Chesterton is brilliant, and his work in the public domain deserves better. This edition is poorly formatted. Every line starts on the far left without indents, breaks or separate paragraphs. The illustrations are poorly-reproduced, public domain images unrelated to the story. While it declares itself to be the complete Father Brown, it is not. Buy an edition from a recognized publisher. This edition is a ripoff.

Boy, is it a pleasure to look back on my college days and know that I don't have to wade through works by Plato and Thomas Aquinas and Kant anymore. You could sweat over that stuff for hours and then find you'd only covered about eight pages. And understood about half of it.

Even at their deepest, the Father Brown stories aren't nearly that bad. But neither do they always lend themselves to rocketing through 150 pages in an evening either, as with the typical mystery. Chesterton biographies tell us that he was into philosophy, theology, metaphysics, and mysticism. And as he frequently cuts loose with his mouthpiece Father Brown on these topics, the going can get pretty rugged at times.

So. May I make a suggestion? If you're new to the Father Brown series and really deep academic subjects don't greatly appeal, why not get acquainted with a compilation drawn largely from the first two (out of five) Father Brown story collections? Those would be "The Innocence of Father Brown" and "The Wisdom of Father Brown", originally published in 1911 and 1914 respectively.

Both collections prominently feature the little priest's best known sidekick, the reformed archcriminal Hercule Flambeau. M. Flambeau seems to have had as little use for classical thought as most of the rest of us, and while he's in attendance (roughly one third of the stories altogether), Chesterton plays it pretty straight exposition-wise. And especially when he does, he's a joy to read. It's a common knock against mystery novelists that they lack pure lyrical skills, but I bet that criticism has never been leveled against old G.K.

Father Brown is G. K. Chesterton at his best. Although the stories are formulaic (crime discovered, people make assumptions and come to the wrong conclusion, Father Brown is Catholic and therefore above making those assumptions, and solves the mystery) they are delightful. Read them for the toothsome little plots, the vocabulary used as no one does anymore, the charming English atmosphere, or for any reason- but do read them. Don't miss out on Father Brown!

I stories were entertaining, but I didn't like the book as much as some of the other reviewers did. I like mysteries where I have all the clues and have to decide which are relevant and which are red herrings. In several of the stories the outcome couldn't be determined by the reader. The characters sometimes behaved in a confusing manner. After seeing that a murder had been committed, Father Brown sometimes just walked away. Don't you think he might have called in the police?

Maybe part of the problem is that I'm reading it with modern eyes. Perhaps using the 'N' word for a black person wasn't considered derogatory when the books were written, but it grated on me. There were negative stereotypes of Jews which I found offensive. There was also the assumption that anyone who had a lot of money was evil or at least an unpleasant character. Father Brown's appearance belied his intelligent and perceptive nature, but the character of many other people could be discerned by his/her physical characteristics. Unrealistic, but perhaps indicative of the style of the day.

In any event, the book fit my needs. The timer on my exercise machine had broken, but since I knew that the stories each took me about 20-30 minutes to read I could time my exercise sessions.

These classic stories have brilliant plots. The writing is fantastic. Father Brown is a charming, intuitive, well-read and very bright character. Our mystery group is reading these. They will be fun to discuss.

These aren't classics for nothing but be warned if you have a low tolerance for bees in authors' bonnets - Chesterton has an agressive one about his dedicated Catholicism and it can wear a little thin due to sheer repetition. Most of these stories have at least one pointed exchange about it and his biting satires of groups with different ideas don't exactly come off as even-handed. That said, i just read these stories two or three at a time so i don't miss out on these ingenious mysteries.

This book is awsome!!!!!! Great read!!!!! Almost as good as my favorite book,"The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes!!!!!!! This book deserves 200 stars at least!!!!! I was astounded when I saw that the bookwas only 99 cents!!!!!! I would have paid over $3000 for it!!!!!!!

...perhaps a little lost in time. But anyone who likes the magic of the written word and a bit of mystery, will find something to like here. But know your history to figure out where Father Brown would be in Chesterton's time.

These books are full of casual racism. Every person of color is at best an idiot, but more commonly a villain. The physical descriptions are full of hair-raising racist cliches.

There is no defense that these are period pieces. Plenty of authors of Chesterton's time and milieu wrote sympathetic portrayals of Asians and Africans, or simply left them out of the picture. Chesterton, time and again, goes out of his way to put take people from outside of his little white world and warp them into the representatives of evil.

Oh, and by the way, he took cheap shots at Jews in passing.

I've seen a review recommending Father Brown stories as 'good for kids' due to their lack of blood and gore; I wouldn't give them to any very young person.