The Napoleon of Notting Hill

By G.K. Chesterton

When dystopian futures don't feel so future at all…

Four decades before George Orwell wrote 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill defined the dystopian genre. One of the first dystopian comedies, instead of a dark vision of jackboots and surveillance states, G.K. Chesterton explores the question of what a society would look like if no one could take a joke.

In this future England, each new king is decided by lottery. When Auberon Quin, a man who cares only for a good joke, is chosen to be the next king, he resolves to spend his reign teaching his fellow governors how big a joke can really be.

While most district leaders are content to put up with Auberon's schemes even when he insists upon elaborate costumes and heraldry, one provost takes his games much too seriously. When Adam Wayne, the Provost of Notting Hill, takes a military stand against his fellow leaders and seeks to defend his tiny fiefdom by any means necessary, Auberon's joke has gone too far.

At a time when the dystopian genre is defined by hopelessness, Chesterton's dry wit and tongue-in-cheek humor are a welcome respite. Follow Auberon and Wayne as they ponder the meaning of humor and virtue in a world where the swords are all too real and the defense of one's pride may well result in blood in the streets.

Foreword by Dale Ahlquist, president of the Society of G.K. Chesterton.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WordFire Press
• Release date: Apr 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781680575163

G.K. Chesterton

G.K. Chesterton (1874–1936) was an English writer, philosopher and critic known for his creative wordplay. Born in London, Chesterton attended St. Paul’s School before enrolling in the Slade School of Fine Art at University College. His professional writing career began as a freelance critic where he focused on art and literature. He then ventured into fiction with his novels The Napoleon of Notting Hill and The Man Who Was Thursday as well as a series of stories featuring Father Brown.

Book preview

The Napoleon of Notting HillIN THE DARK ENTRANCE THERE APPEARED A FLAMING FIGURE.

The Napoleon of Notting Hill

Gilbert K. Chesterton

Foreword by

Dale Ahlquist

Edited by

Jennifer Daniels

WordFire Press

THE NAPOLEON of NOTTING HILL, by GILBERT K. CHESTERTON

Originally published in 1904. This work is in the public domain.

This edition edited by Jennifer Daniels

Foreword copyright © 2023 by Dale Ahlquist

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright holder, except where permitted by law. This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.

The ebook edition of this book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. The ebook may not be re-sold or given away. If you would like to share the ebook edition with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

EBook ISBN: 978-1-68057-516-3

Trade Paperback ISBN: 978-1-68057-517-0

Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-68057-518-7

Illustrations by W. Graham Robertson in the public domain and originally published in 1904.

Cover design by Jennifer Daniels and Allyson Longueira

Cover artwork image by Nocturlicious | Shutterstock

Published by WordFire Press, LLC

PO Box 1840

Monument, CO 80132

Kevin J. Anderson & Rebecca Moesta, Publishers

WordFire Press Edition 2023

Printed in the USA

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Contents

Foreword

-Dale Ahlquist-

Book I

Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy

The Man in Green

The Hill of Humour

Book II

The Charter of the Cities

The Council of the Provosts

Enter a Lunatic

Book III

The Mental Condition of Adam Wayne

The Remarkable Mr. Turnbull

The Experiment of Mr. Buck

Book IV

The Battle of the Lamps

The Correspondent of the Court Journal

The Great Army of South Kensington

Book V

The Empire of Notting Hill

The Last Battle

Two Voices

Publisher’s Note

About the Author

About the Foreword Author

About the Editor

WordFire Classics

Foreword

-Dale Ahlquist-

It is difficult to open a new novel these days and not find another version of dystopia. Whether set in the near future or the far, it is always a stinging commentary on the present, with the drama darkly depicting the imagined consequences of following the course we are on today, a course which is off course.

G.K. Chesterton's first novel, written in 1904, is also set in the future: ironically, in 1984. But it is not at all similar to George Orwell's dystopian masterpiece, set in that same year. Chesterton uses the future only for the sake of convenience, not for the purpose of prophecy. He gives us ample warning about prophecy in the opening chapter. And unlike the stereotypical prophet of doom and gloom, Chesterton's message is one of hope and exhortation, certainly not despair.

But it is a picture of conflict, even if it is somewhat comic. In Chesterton's future England, the King is chosen by lottery, and the lot falls to Auberon Quin, who doesn't take the job seriously. He jokingly insists that each borough of London adopt its own heraldry and fly its own flag. Most everyone rather mockingly plays along while conducting business as usual, but one provost takes it all very seriously. Adam Wayne of Notting Hill even takes it to the point of being willing to go to war for his flag, to prevent a huge road being built through his suburb at the cost of the local shops.

The King is amused, if a little shocked at the stance of the Provost. Thus we have the clash of the idealist and the cynic.

Don't you really think the sacred Notting Hill at all absurd?

Absurd? asked Wayne, blankly. Why should I?

The King stared back equally blankly.

I beg your pardon? he said.

Notting Hill, said the Provost, simply, is a rise or high ground of the common earth, on which men have built houses to live, in which they are born, fall in love, pray, marry, and die. Why should I think it absurd?

The King smiled.

Because, my Leonidas— he began, then suddenly, he knew not how, found his mind was a total blank. After all, why was it absurd? Why was it absurd? He felt as if the floor of his mind had given way. He felt as all men feel when their first principles are hit hard with a question…

The King's thoughts were in a kind of rout; he could not collect them.

It is generally felt to be a little funny, he said, vaguely.

I suppose, said Adam, turning on him with a fierce suddenness, I suppose you fancy crucifixion was a serious affair?

Well, I— began Auberon, I admit I have generally thought it had its graver side.

Leonides is a reference to the Spartan king who led a small army and fought to the death against the invading Persians. Auberon Quin stops in mid-sentence because he realizes he is looking at another Spartan in front of him, and he's not going to be able to wish him away. And religion, well, one would rather not talk about that. And so a war follows. It is exciting and symbolic, with scenes beyond belief that retain both a serious air and a comic appeal. But if it all seems a fantasy, we should note that the Irish revolutionary Michael Collins was inspired by this novel to start a war with England for the independence of his nation.

It takes most of the novel for Adam Wayne to laugh. It also takes most of the novel for Auberon Quin to care. Both of these events are major turning points. For Adam Wayne finally laughs at the spectacle of one of the Pump Street shopkeepers who is fighting not just to protect his property, but because he enjoys the crusade and regards the modern world as a joke. He wants to break up the vast machinery of modern life and use the fragments as engines of war. And Auberon becomes the most unlikely of converts. The King decides to take up arms against his own kingdom, to fight on behalf of the breakaway suburb against those who would thoughtlessly destroy it.

The cynic and idealist, it turns out, are each incomplete without the other. They represent the two lobes of the brain, and they need each other to achieve sanity. We need equal parts passion and detachment to keep our balance.

Chesterton is a defender of tradition, but not of convention. He is like Innocent Smith, the main character in his novel Manalive, who is described by another character as one who dares to break the conventions and keep the commandments. Again, it takes Wayne and Quin together to accomplish both.

Democracy, Chesterton's ideal, is hard work. On the other hand, Capitalist excess and Socialist bureaucracy are easy to slip into, and they are fodder for Chesterton's satire. Democracy depends on Localism, and if Chesterton is prophetic about anything, it is that Localism has been under regular assault in the modern world.

One of the centerpieces of the story is the water tower, a famous and familiar landmark on the high ground of the Notting Hill neighborhood. Chesterton himself was baptized in its shadow, across the street at St. George's Church, and grew up looking up at it. Sadly, the water tower (which was actually a pump station, hence Pump Street) was demolished in 1970. A real pity. Apart from its literary role, it was an attractive structure of some architectural significance. It could not survive the Decade of Ugly, but neither could it survive modern commercial interests. A boring block of flats now stand in its place, the shape of things to come, not quite dystopian, but not a source of inspiration to the local masses.

But if the water tower is gone, the novel remains, and still casts a shadow. In 2019, I had the privilege of visiting Croatia to speak at a Chesterton conference that was held at the University of Zagreb. I was surprised that most of those in attendance were not students or professors, but men and women in their 20s and 30s. They exhibited a great love for Chesterton, and I was curious about their enthusiasm for a writer who was a century removed from them and had no particular connection to their country. They explained that they had been born around the time that Croatia achieved its independence from Yugoslavia. One said to me, We are Notting Hill. Another added, We will not let the street be taken again.

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

Slaughter below and smoke above,

And death and hate and hell declare

That men have found a thing to love.

Far from your sunny uplands set

I saw the dream; the streets I trod

The lit straight streets shot out and met

The starry streets that point to God.

This legend of an epic hour

A child I dreamed, and dream it still,

Under the great grey water-tower

That strikes the stars on Campden Hill.

G. K. C.

Book I

Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy

The human race, to which so many of my readers belong, has been playing at children’s games from the beginning, and will probably do it till the end, which is a nuisance for the few people who grow up. And one of the games to which it is most attached is called Keep to-morrow dark, and which is also named (by the rustics in Shropshire, I have no doubt) Cheat the Prophet. The players listen very carefully and respectfully to all that the clever men have to say about what is to happen in the next generation. The players then wait until all the clever men are dead, and bury them nicely. They then go and do something else. That is all. For a race of simple tastes, however, it is great fun.

For human beings, being children, have the childish wilfulness and the childish secrecy. And they never have from the beginning of the world done what the wise men have seen to be inevitable. They stoned the false prophets, it is said; but they could have stoned true prophets with a greater and juster enjoyment. Individually, men may present a more or less rational appearance, eating, sleeping, and scheming. But humanity as a whole is changeful, mystical, fickle, delightful. Men are men, but Man is a woman.

But in the beginning of the twentieth century the game of Cheat the Prophet was made far more difficult than it had ever been before. The reason was, that there were so many prophets and so many prophecies, that it was difficult to elude all their ingenuities. When a man did something free and frantic and entirely his own, a horrible thought struck him afterwards; it might have been predicted. Whenever a duke climbed a lamp-post, when a dean got drunk, he could not be really happy, he could not be certain that he was not fulfilling some prophecy. In the beginning of the twentieth century you could not see the ground for clever men. They were so common that a stupid man was quite exceptional, and when they found him, they followed him in crowds down the street and treasured him up and gave him some high post in the State. And all these clever men were at work giving accounts of what would happen in the next age, all quite clear, all quite keen-sighted and ruthless, and all quite different. And it seemed that the good old game of hoodwinking your ancestors could not really be managed this time, because the ancestors neglected meat and sleep and practical politics, so that they might meditate day and night on what their descendants would be likely to do.

But the way the prophets of the twentieth century went to work was this. They took something or other that was certainly going on in their time, and then said that it would go on more and more until something extraordinary happened. And very often they added that in some odd place that extraordinary thing had happened, and that it showed the signs of the times.

Thus, for instance, there were Mr. H. G. Wells and others, who thought that science would take charge of the future; and just as the motor-car was quicker than the coach, so some lovely thing would be quicker than the motor-car; and so on for ever. And there arose from their ashes Dr. Quilp, who said that a man could be sent on his machine so fast round the world that he could keep up a long, chatty conversation in some old-world village by saying a word of a sentence each time he came round. And it was said that the experiment had been tried on an apoplectic old major, who was sent round the world so fast that there seemed to be (to the inhabitants of some other star) a continuous band round the earth of white whiskers, red complexion and tweeds—a thing like the ring of Saturn.

Then there was the opposite school. There was Mr. Edward Carpenter, who thought we should in a very short time return to Nature, and live simply and slowly as the animals do. And Edward Carpenter was followed by James Pickie, D.D. (of Pocohontas College), who said that men were immensely improved by grazing, or taking their food slowly and continuously, after the manner of cows. And he said that he had, with the most encouraging results, turned city men out on all fours in a field covered with veal cutlets. Then Tolstoy and the Humanitarians said that the world was growing more merciful, and therefore no one would ever desire to kill. And Mr. Mick not only became a vegetarian, but at length declared vegetarianism doomed (shedding, as he called it finely, the green blood of the silent animals), and predicted that men in a better age would live on nothing but salt. And then came the pamphlet from Oregon (where the thing was tried), the pamphlet called Why should Salt suffer? and there was more trouble.

CITY MEN OUT ON ALL FOURS IN A FIELD COVERED WITH VEAL CUTLETS.

And on the other hand, some people were predicting that the lines of kinship would become narrower and sterner. There was Mr. Cecil Rhodes, who thought that the one thing of the future was the British Empire, and that there would be a gulf between those who were of the Empire and those who were not, between the Chinaman in Hong Kong and the Chinaman outside, between the Spaniard on the Rock of Gibraltar and the Spaniard off it, similar to the gulf between man and the lower animals. And in the same way his impetuous friend, Dr. Zoppi (the Paul of Anglo-Saxonism), carried it yet further, and held that, as a result of this view, cannibalism should be held to mean eating a member of the Empire, not eating one of the subject peoples, who should, he said, be killed without needless pain. His horror at the idea of eating a man in British Guiana showed how they misunderstood his stoicism who thought him devoid of feeling. He was, however, in a hard position; as it was said that he had attempted the experiment, and, living in London, had to subsist entirely on Italian organ-grinders. And his end was terrible, for just when he had begun, Sir Paul Swiller read his great paper at