While some may argue that the detective story is an example of cheap, dispensable popular fiction, G. K. Chesterton begs to differ. He is, after all, the author of the Father Brown mysteries! Where else but in detective novels do we appreciate the romance of the city?

This essay is from a series titled The Defendant, first published as a collection in 1901, after the individual essays were published in The Speaker. Here, a selection of these essays has been reissued by Voices of Today.