This book differs from standard accounts of Chesterton in that it does not focus on his thinking or his writing style but attempts instead to consider both of these together; specifically, it considers the relationship between the two. There have been a number of subtle and scrupulously researched accounts of his philosophy, his theology and his political views; as there have been ample admirable studies of his fiction, his poetry and his other literary writings. But what there has not been – and what this present book aims to provide – is a sustained examination of how he thinks through language, in ways that confound attempts to read him as a thinker without first appreciating him as a writer.

This book is untypical also in its methodology. There is no linear narrative; Chesterton's diverse writings are taken in separate chapters designed to inform and correct each other, to show how different genres of his writing allow and encourage the expression of different kinds of thinking.

I am most grateful to Robin Kirkpatrick, Robert Macfarlane, Malcolm Guite and Peter Hardwick for the intelligence and sympathetic scepticism with which they read drafts of this book. Geir Hasnes's expertise, bibliographic and biographical, was freely given and extremely valuable. Finally, I would like to thank the Warden and Fellows of Robinson College, Cambridge, for supporting my research. This book is dedicated to my children, but has only been made possible by the loving encouragement of my wife.