British writer Patrick C. Cahill researched and wrote on the works of Hilaire Belloc and G.K. Chesterton. Cahill produced the first significant bibliography of Belloc’s works entitled The English First Editions of Hilaire Belloc (1953). Additional biographical information on Cahill is currently unavailable. Users of this collection are encouraged to provide additional biographical information if possible.

The British writer Joseph Hilaire Peter Belloc was born in Celle Saint-Cloud, France, on 27 July 1870. In 1896 he married an American, Elodie Hogan, with whom he had five children -three sons and two daughters. Belloc began his literary career with Verses and Sonnets (1895). He next published The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts (1896), a collection of nonsense verse that was so popular it sold out in four days. Belloc then produced a series of biographies that included Danton (1899) and Robespiere (1901). In 1902 he published Path to Rome, which is perhaps his most representative work for its combination of Belloc’s love for travel and his fierce Roman Catholicism. It recounts Belloc’s journey on foot from Toul, France to Rome, Italy.

In 1906 Belloc was elected to the House of Commons as the representative for South Salford, a seat that he held until 1910. He left his political career to pursue journalism, founding the political journal, New Witness, with G.K. Chesterton. His political broadsides written with Chesterton and his brother, Cecil, were popularly known as the “Chesterbellocs.”

Belloc also served as editor of Land and Water, a journal devoted to the progress of the First World War, from 1914 to 1920. Belloc published prolifically over the course of his life. He authored 153 books of essays, fiction, history, biography, and poetry, as well as numerous articles for periodicals.

He continued to travel extensively until suffering a stroke in 1942. On 12 July 1953, Belloc accidentally fell into his fireplace while sleeping beside it. He was badly burned and died on 16 July 1953.

G.K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874–1936), writer, was born on 29 May 1874 in London. At the age of eighteen, Chesterton enrolled in the Slade School of Fine Art at University College, London. Chesterton toyed with the idea of becoming a professional artist, but financial concerns and his great love of literature inspired him to pursue a career as a writer.

Following World War I Chesterton became the President of the Distributist League, an organization promoting the idea that land should be divided into the smallest possible holdings and then distributed equally throughout society. During this time Chesterton wrote a significant volume of material expressing his dislike of government and modern progress; his views were often considered ruralist, anti-modernist and Victorian. In addition to his work with the Distributist League, Chesterton edited the literary publications The New Witness and his ownG.K.'s Weekly.

In 1922 Chesterton converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism. Shortly after his conversion he wrote several theologically oriented works, including biographies of St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas. In 1934 he received the honor of Knight Commander with Star, Order of St. Gregory the Great.

Chesterton died on 14 June 1936, at his home in Beaconsfield.