St. Francis of Assisi

Description

St. Francis of Assisi is perhaps the most important of the non-apostle saints. He was born to wealth and privilege in Assisi, Italy in 1181. As a youth he dreamed of military glory and lived the decadent lifestyle one would expect from of a wealthy, young Italian man. In 1202 Francis went off to war and was subsequently captured and spent a year of hardship in Collestrada as a prisoner of war. In 1205 he set off to war again, but this time God sent him a vision and he returned home and took up a religion.What followed was a most remarkable life. St. Francis founded an order in the Catholic Church devoted to helping those in poverty. No other saint embodied the teaching of Christ in quite such an emblematic way. Here G. K. Chesterton gives us the definitive biography of this most amazing man. Review: Full of Typographical Errors - The text is riddled with typographical errors. Words are either missing or extra words inserted. Most are trivial but there are enough for it to be irritating; one every other page approximately. Example, page 25: “He was born kind; he was brave in the normal boyish fashion; but he drew the line in both in kindness and bravery pretty well where most boys would have drawn it;” Here for example the word “in” has been added before “both.” At first I thought it some archaic oddity of GK Chesterton’s era. But I have what appears to be an accurate electronic version from the Gutenberg Project to compare. The book itself is excellent, of course, but two stars goes to such shoddy production from the publisher. Review: Chesterton was way ahead of his time in terms of ... - Chesterton was way ahead of his time in terms of biographical writing. He positions himself not only through the eyes of the reader but also into the mediaeval mind and context. As a convert to Catholicism he is not driven by sentimentality and so this book offers the C21st reader with an alternative vantage point by which to question our own global culture.