Three trees, known as the Peacock trees, are blamed by the peasants for the fever that has killed many. Squire Vane scoffs at this legend as superstition. To prove them wrong, once and for all, he takes a bet to spend the night in the trees. In the morning he has vanished. Is he dead, and if so who has killed him? The poet? The lawyer? The woodsman? The trees?
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Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) was one of the most prolific English writers of all time. He wrote poems, plays, essays, newspaper columns, and is especially known for his fictional priest detective Father Brown. His 'frenemy', the author of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw, famously called him 'a man of colossal genius' and the two of them would often engage in friendly public discussions with people like H.G. Wells and Clarence Darrow. Chesterton died in his home, and his last known words were a greeting to his wife, author Frances Blogg.