Mystery and Crime Chesterton, G.K.: The Uncollected Stories of Father Brown V1 25 May 2025

[PointingMonkey]

Like Arthur Conan Doyle, G. K. Chesterton wrote stories involving Father Brown which were never collected, and are now not considered part of their respective canons.

Unlike Doyle, Chesterton only wrote 2 uncollected Father Brown stories.

"The Donnington Affair", a story written to solve a crime put forward by Sir. Max Pemberton in the October 1914 issue of The Premier. And "The Mask of Midas" written in 1936.

I wasn't able to find hardcopies of either story, but I did correct the spelling errors on both the sources:

The Donnington Affair: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1301541h.html
The Mask of Midas: https://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks13/1302281h.html

One line I wasn't sure on, but took my best guess was this one:

“What do you mean-reality?”

Chesterton loved a hyphen as much as the next guy. But as I've never seen mean-reality hyphened, I changed it to an em dash. Which seemed more fitting:

“What do you mean—reality?”

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[Quoth]

Or in British & Irish typography: “What do you mean – reality?”
The em dash in UK & Ireland is only used at the end of broken off speech, the parenthetical usage is the spaced en dash, when a dash is more appropriate than ( ) or , ,.

Thanks. Looking forward to these. Though I may have already download them from Gutenberg.

[PointingMonkey]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Or in British & Irish typography: “What do you mean – reality?”
The em dash in UK & Ireland is only used at the end of broken off speech, the parenthetical usage is the spaced en dash, when a dash is more appropriate than ( ) or , ,.

Thanks. Looking forward to these. Though I may have already download them from Gutenberg.

I'm not really sure, whether my edit is correct. I was purely following the format of the scanned copies of the Father Brown collections, which suggests my edit to be correct. Unfortunately there are no scanned copies to proofread against. So I'm not entirely sure, which is why I made the note. If at sometime in the future I can find a scanned copy, I would definitely give the whole story a full proofread.

also. I hope you enjoy them. I didn't note in the original post, but this collection contains Max Pemberton's part of 'The Donnington Affair'. Where as the Gutenberg version is only Chesterton's part.

[SomeSteve]

Originally Posted by PointingMonkey

One line I wasn't sure on, but took my best guess was this one:

“What do you mean-reality?”

Chesterton loved a hyphen as much as the next guy. But as I've never seen mean-reality hyphened, I changed it to an em dash. Which seemed more fitting:

“What do you mean—reality?”

This preview from the Penguin Classics ebook edition of The Complete Father Brown Stories, which I hope you can see, shows a dash.

https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover

[rjwse@aol.com]

"What's that up in the road ahead?"
"What's that up in the road — a head?"
In Texas there is a legal requirement (punishable by scorn) if there is not a space on both sides of the em dash.
You cannot usually use U+2E3B (the 3M dash) because some physical ebook readers and some ebook reading programs cannot display it.

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

This preview from the Penguin Classics ebook edition of The Complete Father Brown Stories, which I hope you can see, shows a dash.

https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover

I can't see that. Google claims I have reached a limit. but Penguin are terrible at ebook formatting. I do have over 3,000 paper books, mostly British.

Also which "dash"?

- hyphen
– en-dash
— em-dash

There are also longer dashes that often don't work in ereaders. I can't type them.

There is also the mathematical minus sign which looks similar to a hyphen. I can't type it. This is one copied from Wikipedia −, but it looks like it's between and en – and em — in size. The minus sign should only be used in mathematics.

The length of en and em should vary with font face used.

Typography does vary with company, place and time. Also anything other than print is more limited and more erratic. The ‘and’ are mostly used for dialogue in Great Britain, but sometimes “and” is used. Irish publishers sometimes use ‘and’ but more often “and”.

I think USA publishing (and Gutenberg) is less flexible. It's important that a book or series is consistent in style.

I have to edit CSS of Random Penguins more often than indy books.

Also US Publishers selling in UK & Ireland rarely ever make any changes. You get USA spelling and punctuation, probably no changes. Traditionally the UK publishers Americanise the spelling and other aspects as if it's a US publication. It's thus very grating to end up with a USA edition of a British or Irish writer, especially if its a series or you have other books by the author. US imports of paper print editions of UK works are almost non-existent in UK, but happens in Ireland, where the book retailers are less controlled by UK distribution.

EDIT
Also Google likely scanned or copied a USA edition. Google is useless as a reliable source of British or Irish produced material. Wikipedia is almost as bad.

[rjwse@aol.com]

There are also longer dashes that often don't work in ereaders. I can't type them.

Ah, but you can, using either snippets or Compose key. The Compose key sequence is Ctrl_R, -, -, - and that gets you — (em dash). It shows up okay on Amazon ebooks and, of course, their printed books from PDFs.
The 2m and 3m dash are not in Compose key, so you have to make your own using .XCompose:
You type in Ctrl_r, 2, m and the 2m dash just appears.
You type in Ctrl_r, 3, m and the 3m dash just appears.
<Multi_key> <2> <m> : "⸺" (2 em dash)
<Multi_key> <3> <m> : "⸻" (3 em dash)
The Multi_key has to be set as right Ctrl key and .XCompose is just an editable text file of ideas of your own making.
The much longer dash is useful for page numbering.
If you do not have a linux machine you can do the same stuff via the snippets built into calibre.

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[PointingMonkey]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

This preview from the Penguin Classics ebook edition of The Complete Father Brown Stories, which I hope you can see, shows a dash.

https://www.google.com/books/edition...sec=frontcover

Is there any chance you could upload a screenshot? Because I also can't see the preview.

[SomeSteve]

Originally Posted by PointingMonkey

Is there any chance you could upload a screenshot? Because I also can't see the preview.

Here are some screenshots from the book.









How to I upload images without getting that copyright disclaimer at the bottom?

This work is assumed to be in the Life+70 public domain OR the copyright holder has given specific permission for distribution. Copyright laws differ throughout the world, and it may still be under copyright in some countries. Before downloading, please check your country's copyright laws. If the book is under copyright in your country, do not download or redistribute this work.

To report a copyright violation you can contact us here.

[PointingMonkey]

Originally Posted by SomeSteve

Here are some screenshots from the book.

Attachment 215858

Attachment 215859

Attachment 215860

Attachment 215861

How to I upload images without getting that copyright disclaimer at the bottom?

Awesome, thanks a lot.

I'm still in two minds about how to format it. On the one hand, this does seem to align with British formatting. On the other hand, I kind of want to keep the formatting already in place, because it aligns with Harry T's Father Brown Omnibus formatting.

I think for now I'll let it stand as is, with the disclaimer of my alteration still in place. That way, people can change it if they so wish.

Again thank you for your help.

Also thank you again to Quoth for your help.