Background: When I was the editor of Gilbert Magazine, I was responsible for the "Tremendous Trifles" column. It was occasionally hard to find a sufficient amount of interesting GKC material to fill the page, so John Peterson sent me a file full of Chesterton ancedotes. They were idiosyncratic, historical, and Chestertonian. He gave me permission to use them here. I hope y'all find them as interesting as I have over the years. Most of them have never been published.
Chesterton Short(s)
Those looking for less familiar essays by Chesterton should note that he contributed to The Venture, a highbrow literary annual edited by W. Somerset Maugham and Lawrence Houseman. The Venture was an expensive production, and only two issues appeared–the 1903 and 1904 editions, respectively. [Ted Morgan, Maugham, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1980, pp. 93-94] Incidentally, Chesterton's 1903 contribution, "The Philosophy of Islands," was reprinted in The Spice of Life (1964).
