The Man Who Was Thursday

First published in 1908, 'The Man Who Was Thursday' is a metaphysical thriller novel by G.K. Chesterton. It is the story of Gabriel Syme, who is recruited by Scotland Yard as part of an anti-anarchist task force. When he meets Lucian Gregory, a poet, and member of a secret society of anarchists, he gains access to the underground movement.

The group is led by a central council of seven men, each named for a day of the week. Gabriel convinces the local chapter to elect him to the vacant position of “Thursday” and he soon discovers that he is not the only one pretending to be something that he is not.

"G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday is a wacky, nightmarish, deliriously well-written adventure story for grownups in which nothing is what it seems and everyone wears a mask, whether figurative or literal. It's hard to think of a more thrilling book."—Kate Christensen, TIME Magazine

He was educated at St. Paul’s, and went to art school at University College London. In 1900, he was asked to contribute a few magazine articles on art criticism, and went on to become one of the most prolific writers of all time. He wrote a hundred books, contributions to 200 more, hundreds of poems, including the epic Ballad of the White Horse, five plays, five novels, and some two hundred short stories, including a popular series featuring the priest-detective, Father Brown. In spite of his literary accomplishments, he considered himself primarily a journalist. He wrote over 4000 newspaper essays, including 30 years worth of weekly columns for the Illustrated London News, and 13 years of weekly columns for the Daily News. He also edited his own newspaper, G.K.’s Weekly.

Chesterton was equally at ease with literary and social criticism, history, politics, economics, philosophy, and theology.