Chestertonia

THE biographer of Betjeman, Bevis Hillier, has compiled The Wit and Wisdom of G. K. Chesterton (Continuum, £14.99 (£13.50); 978-1-4411-7958-6), a selection of “short quotations, or ‘gobbets’”, as he says in his substantial 22-page introduction. He ar­ranges them in themes such as class, education, religion, and transport, and adds a biograph­ical chapter and index. This makes for a pleas­ingly elegant production, aided by its being printed on decent paper and bound in hard­back. A high-quality dip, hence: “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.”