Arthur Bryant - Legacy

Legacy

Bryant's total output was remarkable. He wrote over forty books overall, which collectively sold over two million copies. Most were published by William Collins, Sons and Co. Ltd. Also, in collaboration with W. P. Lipscomb, he wrote a play dramatizing Pepys' life which ran for one hundred and fifty performances in London. He was a frequent lecturer, speaking at many of the leading cities and schools in Great Britain, as well as in the United States and fourteen European countries. His public speeches included the 1935 Alfred Watson lectures sponsored by the Sulgrave Manor Trust. These lectures, on American history, literature, and biography, were later collected into the book The American Ideal.

In 1936, Bryant took over G. K. Chesterton's "Our Note Book" column for the Illustrated London News. (Bryant paid tribute to Chesterton in his introduction to Chesterton's posthumously-published essay collection The Glass Walking-Stick.) He continued writing this column until his death, which occurred almost half a century after Chesterton's. Overall, Bryant produced about 2.7 million words for that magazine.