Chesterton, G. K. The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond. New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1937. First American Edition. [5222]
Blue publisher's cloth with dark blue titles, spine faded, thin stain in the bottom half of the front joint, light soil to binding, 8 x 6 inches, end papers with the Red Badge Detective series logos. 231 clean pp., end paper hinge at front partly open. Small contemporary bookseller's ticket on rear end paper (Emily Mundy's Book Shop, Syracuse New York). No dj. Printed by the Vail-Ballou Press, Binghamton, NY. Good. Hardcover.
"A philosopher said
that the great events of the world take place in the human mind; and
whether or not that is accepted in this day of violence, it is certain
that G. K. Chesterton's stories of detection take place in the realm of
abstract theory. No real blood is spilled in any of his crimes; only one
fallacy or another is spitted. Father Brown, his first and most famous
detective, defeated malefactors in the strength of his scholastic logic,
and Mr. Pond, the hero of this posthumous collection, solves mysteries
by the power of paradox. He is a mild and retiring Government official
with a flavour of secret service about him, and conformably with his
profession he is more than once called upon to deal with the underside
of international affairs; even if the crime be private he may illuminate
it by comparison with those complications of distant European
nationality and party that so fly to the head of many modern
Englishmen....As for Mr. Pond's 'paradoxes,' they issue from a capacity
to notice what is lying under everybody's nose but everybody fails to
observe, which is really the quintessence of the Chestertonian paradox."
- Unsigned review, The Times Literary Supplement, 6 April 1937.
Gilbert Keith
Chesterton (1874-1936), English journalist whose works include nearly
all forms of written expression, including essays, novels, short
stories, poems, plays, biography, and literary criticism. A Christian
thinker, he sounded some of the earliest warnings against the tyranny of
the modern state, and lamented the loss of wonder & beauty in
modern life.