The Woman Who Was Chesterton is a love story. But it is also a detective story. And best of all, it is a true story, told here for the the first time. Gilbert Keith Chesterton was a romantic, a writer of detective tales, and a teller of the truth. His own story and the stories he told are becoming better and better known. But what has remained unknown is the story of the most important person in his life: his wife Frances Chesterton.
Nancy Carpentier Brown has done incredible detective work to uncover the mystery of Frances, tracking a figure who managed to leave very few traces of herself.
It is quite likely that as more is discovered about Frances, more biographies will be written of her, and they will be even more complete. But they will all come back to this one: The Woman Who Was Chesterton.
Kate Taliaferro –
I found Nancy Carpentier Brown’s depiction of Frances Chesterton to be graceful, thorough and insightful. She brings Frances to life in a way that respects her memory while adding many missing pieces to her previously unknown life. As I read this biography, I grew in my fondness for Frances and by coming to know her, I desire to know more about her writings as well as her husband’s. Brown deftly shows us that Frances is a person in her own right, worth noticing and knowing. If anyone is interested in the work of G.K. Chesterton, their study is not complete until they have come to know the woman who made the man possible.