G. K. Chesterton books in order
English author and Christian apologist
- Lived
- 1874–1936
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Books
- 85
G. K. Chesterton published 22 novels, 6 novellas, 15 short story collections, 20 non-fiction books, 4 poetry collections, 2 plays and 16 other books, beginning with The Wild Knight (1900). The best-known is The Man Who Was Thursday (1908).
Updated September 2026
Where to start with G. K. Chesterton
Standalone novels in order
Charles Dickens (1903)
The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904)
Heretics (1905)
Orthodoxy (1908)
The Man Who Was Thursday (1908)
George Bernard Shaw (1909)
The Ball and the Cross (1909)
What's Wrong with the World (1910)
Manalive (1912)
The Flying Inn (1914)
The Everlasting Man (1925)
The Return of Don Quixote (1927)
The Thing; Why I Am a Catholic (1929)
Four Faultless Felons (1930)
The Floating Admiral (1931), with Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers
The Well and the Shallows (1935)
The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond (1936)
The Common Man (1950)
The Book of Fantasy (1977)
Murder Most Foul (1984)
Novellas in order
Thackeray (1900)
Tremendous Trifles (1909)
The Victorian Age in Literature (1913)
The Crimes of England (1915)
Magic (1919)
Short story collections in order
The Defendant (1901)
The Club of Queer Trades (1905)
Alarms and Discursions (1910)
The Wisdom of Father Brown (1914)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1922)
The Incredulity of Father Brown (Jul 1926)
The Secret of Father Brown (1927)
The Poet and the Lunatics (1929)
The Father Brown Stories (1931)
The Scandal of Father Brown (Mar 1935)
The Penguin Complete Father Brown (Father Brown Mystery) (1981)
Great Short Tales of Mystery and Terror (1982)
Daylight and Nightmare (1986)
Non-fiction in order
Robert Louis Stevenson (1902)
Twelve Types (1902)
The Book Fair (1907)
G.F. Watts (1909)
William Blake (1910)
A Short History of England (1917)
Utopia of Usurers (1917)
Irish Impressions (1919)
The Uses of Diversity (1920)
Eugenics and Other Evils (1922)
What I Saw in America (1922)
Fancies Versus Fads (1923)
William Cobbett (1925)
The Resurrection of Rome (1930)
All Is Grist (1931)
Chaucer (1932)
Sidelights on New London and Newer York (1932)
All I Survey (1933)
St. Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox (1933)
As I Was Saying (1936)
Poetry in order
The Wild Knight (1900)
Poems (1912)
Greybeards at Play (1930)
Stories, Essays, & Poems (Everyman's Library. Essays and Belles-lettres. [no. 913]) (1935)
Plays in order
Magic: A Fantastic Comedy (1913)
The Judgment of Dr. Johnson (1927)
Other books in order
Robert Browning (1903)
Biography for Beginners (1905)
A Defence of Nonsense (1911)
Simplicity and Tolstoy (1912)
Famous Paintings Selected from the World's Great Galleries and Reproduced in Colour (1913)
Wine, Water and Song (1915)
A Shilling for My Thoughts (1916)
The Return of Christiandom (1922)
The End of the Roman Road (1924)
The Catholic Church and Conversion (1926)
The Outline of Sanity (1926)
Generally Speaking (1928)
Come to Think of It (1930)
Christendom in Dublin (1932)
The Surprise (1932)
The Detective Story (1979)
Free to read
All free classics
About G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English Christian apologist writer. Chesterton's wit, paradoxical style, and defence of tradition made him a dominant figure in early 20th-century literature.
Biography from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Photo via Wikimedia Commons.
G. K. Chesterton FAQ
- How many books has G. K. Chesterton written?
- G. K. Chesterton published 22 novels, 6 novellas, 15 short story collections, 20 non-fiction books, 4 poetry collections, 2 plays and 16 other books that we list, as of September 2026.
- What order should I read G. K. Chesterton's books in?
- Publication order is a safe choice; the full list is above. Most readers start with The Man Who Was Thursday.
- What is G. K. Chesterton's last book?
- The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond (1936).
- What is G. K. Chesterton's most famous book?
- The Man Who Was Thursday (1908) is G. K. Chesterton's most widely read book.
- Can I read G. K. Chesterton's books for free?
- Yes. 38 books by G. K. Chesterton are in the public domain in the US and free to read online or download here.
Authors like G. K. Chesterton
Sources: book lists and dates from Wikidata and Open Library, ratings from Open Library readers, free texts from Project Gutenberg. Last updated September 2026.