A comic novel by G. K. Chesterton, published in 1904, set in a future London where a king is chosen by lottery. When the new monarch revives the city's old local pageantry as a jest, the mock-heroic game begins to take on a life of its own. Worth listening for its witty paradoxes and playful meditation on patriotism and imagination.
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Text source: gutenberg.org · The work is in the public domain.
Opening of the book
IN THE DARK ENTRANCE THERE APPEARED A FLAMING FIGURE. IN THE
DARK ENTRANCE THERE APPEARED A FLAMING FIGURE.
The Napoleon of
Notting Hill
THE NAPOLEON
of
NOTTING HILL
By
GILBERT K. CHESTERTON
With Seven Full-Page Illustrations by
W. GRAHAM ROBERTSON
and a Map of the Seat of War
REV. WILLIAM J. GORMLEY, C. M.
JOHN LANE: THE BODLEY HEAD
LONDON & NEW YORK. MDCCCCIV
Copyright in U.S.A., 1904 William Clowes & Sons, Limited, London and Beccles. TO HILAIRE BELLOC For every tiny town or place God made the stars especially; Babies look up with owlish face And see them tangled in a tree: You saw a moon from Sussex Downs, A Sussex moon, untravelled still, I saw a moon that was the town's, The largest lamp on Campden Hill. Yea; Heaven is everywhere at home The big blue cap that always fits, And so it is (be calm; they come To goal at last, my wandering wits), So is it with the heroic thing; This shall not end for the world's end, And though the sullen engines swing, Be you not much afraid, my friend. This did not end by Nelson's urn Where an immortal England sits— Nor where your tall young men in turn Drank death like wine at Austerlitz. And when the pedants bade us mark What cold mechanic happenings Must come; our souls said in the dark, "Belike; but there are likelier things." Likelier across these flats afar These sulky levels smooth and free The drums shall crash a waltz of war And Death shall dance with Liberty; Likelier the barricades shall blare
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