An Earthly Story with a Heavenly Meaning

By Father Ian Boyd, C.S.B. | Edited and Introduced by Dermot Quinn

For G.K. Chesterton, each human life was a story with a secret significance—“an earthly story with a heavenly meaning.” Like Chesterton, Father Ian Boyd dedicated his life and his work to the knowledge and love of that meaning. This volume presents twenty-two of Father Boyd’s essays on Chesterton—the man himself and his vast array of writings. In the words of Dermot Quinn, Father Boyd “would talk about Chesterton to anyone, and with the enthusiasm of one talking about him for the first time. Chesterton never grew stale for him. Constantly refreshed by his triumphant common sense, he wanted others to enjoy the same experience. If such discipleship brought burdens, he shouldered them cheerfully. The world needed to hear from Chesterton and for half a century Ian Boyd made sure that it did.”

An Earthly Story with a Heavenly Meaning enshrines that legacy and ensures its continued happy effects.

The function of imagination is not to make strange things settled, so much as to make settled things strange; not so much to make wonders facts as to make facts wonders. (G.K. Chesterton)

Father Ian Boyd (1935–2024) was a Canadian priest of the Congregation of Saint Basil. For many years he was Professor of English at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan; from 1999–2018 he was a member of the Department of English at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey, lecturing extensively on the subject of “Sacramental Themes in Modern Literature.” An internationally recognized G.K. Chesterton scholar, Father Boyd was the author of The Novels of G.K. Chesterton (1975) as well as the Founder and President of the G.K. Chesterton Institute for Faith & Culture, and the Editor of The Chesterton Review (1974–2020), both based at Seton Hall University.

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Paperback: 234pp.

ISBN: 978-1685954529