The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Papal Sin captures the many dimensions of one of the twentieth century's most influential writers.

Part of a literary circle that included H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Hillaire Belloc, and Max Beerbohm, G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) wrote essays of social criticism for contemporary journals, literary criticism (including notable books on Browning, Dickens, and Shaw), and works of theology and religious argument, but may have been best known for his Father Brown mysteries. Chesterton's interest in Catholic Christianity, first expressed in Orthodoxy , led to his conversion from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1922. His classic Saint Francis of Assisi and the equally acclaimed Saint Thomas Aquinas confirmed his reputation as a writer with the rare ability to simultaneously entertain, inform, and enlighten readers. This revised edition of Garry Wills's finely crafted biography includes updates to the text and a new Introduction by the author.