Like many an English lad “of a certain age” I read and loved Belloc’s books, supposedly written for children and very bad ones at that. Certainly the humor is wicked and proved to be very appealing for many generations, particularly with the illustrations and ideas of Lord Basil Temple Blackwood. (http://www.librarything.com/work/4103676) In fact it was re-published as late as 2008 and is offered for sale still today.

Later in life I fell in love with his riotous writing again in his cruising and sailing book – that freely wanders into politics and history - The cruise of the 'Nona'. However my enthusiasm for his authorship came to grief when I tried to read some of his historical and biographical works and I quickly tired of his extreme evangelical preaching and his then fashionable (before the Holocaust), anti-Semitism.

Having enjoyed the works of Wilson before – and being only a little wary of his evangelical periods, interspersed with bouts of agnostic fervor – I was not prepared at all for this sad story of a wonderful, fiery politician with strong views tempered by a compassion for others who wasted his career and dissipated his talents in the cause of his religion. To this reader it was as if a philatelist allowed his hobby to override his judgment and to totally swamp all other skills, talents and interests.

Wilson covers his subject’s life from a mildly pampered, dual citizenship childhood spent partly in France and partly in various English estates and private schools, through the sad and very lonely end of Belloc’s career, marriage and life. When his wife of 17 years, at just forty-two, died Belloc turned the key to her bedroom. For forty more years each time he passed that door he kissed it and made the sign of the cross. Love.

A very good Biography – but still, what a wasted life of great potential for true good.