G. K. Chesterton 
The Club of Queer Trades 

The Club of Queer Trades G. K. Chesterton – A collection of related short stories by British author G. K. Chesterton. Each story is centered on a person who is making his living by some novel and extraordinary means (a ‘queer trade’). To gain admittance to the Club, one must have a unique queer trade as the principal source of income. ‘Cherub’ Swinburne describes his quest for The Club of Queer Trades with his friend Basil Grant, a retired judge, and Rupert Grant, a private detective who is Basil’s younger brother. Each of the stories describes their encounter with one of the trades. In the final story, Rupert Grant rescues a lady from her kidnappers but cannot understand why she refuses to be rescued. The answer leads to the unveiling of the mystery of The Club of Queer Trades.First published by Harper & Brothers, London, 1905.

About the author

Gilbert Keith Chesterton was an English writer, philosopher, lay theologian, and literary and art critic.He was educated at St. Pauls, 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.