G.K. Chesteron was born in 1874. He attended the Slade School of Art, where he appears to have suffered a nervous breakdown, before turning his hand to journalism. A prolific writer throughout his life, his best-known books include The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922) and the Father Brown stories. Chesterton converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922 and died in 1938.

Matthew Beaumont is Senior Lecturer in English at University College London. His most recent book is Utopia Ltd.: Ideologies of Social Dreaming in England, 1870-1900 (2009).