Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) was a prolific English writer, journalist, and poet especially well known for his keen wit and clever turn of phrase. An outspoken Christian apologist, he converted to Roman Catholicism in 1922 and wrote a popular series of detective novels featuring a fictional priest, Father Brown, who thought his way through solving many a murder mystery while serving as voice for Chesterton's own observations of life and the human condition.