Hilaire Belloc
Personal Information
Description
Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was born in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, France, the son of a French father, who was an attorney, and an English mother, who was an author. In 1872, his father died in 1872, leaving the family destitute, and his mother moved with Belloc to Slindon, West Sussex, where he spent most of his childhood. He was educated at John Henry Newman's Oratory School in Edgbaston, Birmingham, and then volunteered to serve in the French Army. He was posted in an artillery regiment near Toul in 1891. After his release from the military, he studied history at Oxford University, graduating in 1895. In 1896, he married Elodie Hogan, an American, and published his first book, a book of poetry called Verses and Sonnets. In 1906 he and his family moved to Shipley, West Sussex, where he lived until just before he died. He went into politics, and was a Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Salford South from 1906-1910. In 1914, the year his wife Elodie died of influenza, he took a position as edited of the war journal Land and Water, where he stayed until 1920. In 1918, his son Louis was killed while serving in the Royal Flying Corps in France. Belloc suffered a stroke in 1941, from which he never recovered.
Books
The Path to Rome
The Path to Rome is British-French writer and historian Hilaire Belloc’s first travelogue. It describes the pilgrimage he took to Rome as the result of a vow he made while visiting his hometown of Toul, in Lorraine, France. In his own copy of the book, dated May 29, 1904, he notes: “I wrote this book for the glory of God.” Belloc walked “two and a half hundred leagues” to Rome, over twenty-two days, and arrived in time to hear Mass on the Feast of Saints Peter and Paul. As he walks, he quickly discovers the difficulty of keeping every vow he made before starting, as the days are long, the mountains steep, and his finances stressed. But the book is far more than a simple travelogue; alongside the narrative of the journey, Belloc wanders into topics as varied as the art of writing, life in the military, his Catholic faith, the middle class, literary criticism, music, poetry, and more. His unique politics and personality shine in his many digressions and asides. The Path to Rome sold very well, and many critics have viewed it as the book that made Belloc’s name. His great friend G. K. Chesterton said of it in The World: “The Path to Rome is the product of the actual and genuine buoyancy and thoughtlessness of a rich intellect. …”
Cautionary verses / Hilaire Belloc ; with the original pictures by B.T.B. and new illustrations by Quentin Blake
Charles II
Beasts from Belloc
Nonsense verses describe the yak, frog, lion, tiger, vulture, chamois, crocodile, elephant, hippopotamus, and dodo.
Emmanuel Burden, merchantof Thames St. in the City of London, exporter of hardwre
The Yak, the Python, the Frog
Appraises in rhyme various aspects of the yak, the python, and the frog.
The four men; a farrago
A “Farrago” is a “confused mixture,” an apt subtitle for this 1911 semi-fictional travelogue and love song to Hilaire Belloc’s home County of Sussex. It is full to bursting with humor, songs (often including scores), speeches, drawings, fables, digressions, poetry, and legends, often partially or wholly invented, but all in service of Belloc’s deep belief in “the character of enduring things.” During a period of five days in 1902, including All-Halloween, All-Hallows’ Day, and ending on the Day of the Dead, Belloc walks from the east end of the County of Sussex to the west, finally arriving at his boyhood home. “Four Men,” each an aspect of Belloc’s personality, travel together on this walk: Myself, Grizzlebeard, the Sailor, and the Poet. They tell tales, sermonize, versify, feast, and sing as they go, holding forth on subjects such as: St. Dunstan pulling the Devil by the nose; how all animals’ hides are covered in hair (and why Myself is glad that he is not); the Pelagian Heresy (as related in song); all the inns of the world and their ale (and how Alexander fought his way to Indus to seek a certain one); tales of each man’s first love (the Sailor has a bit of trouble with his); and finally ending in a fine piece of verse on “the way in which our land and we mix up together and are part of the same thing.”
Matilda, who told lies, and was burned to death
An incorrigible liar finds that when she needs help the most no one will believe what she has to say.
One thing and another
Essays written between 1911 and 1941. Some appeared earlier in collections with other authors; most previously unpublished.