Hilaire Belloc - Writing

Writing

See also: Hilaire Belloc bibliography

Belloc wrote on myriad subjects, from warfare to poetry to the many current topics of his day. He has been called one of the Big Four of Edwardian Letters, along with H.G.Wells, George Bernard Shaw, and G. K. Chesterton, all of whom debated with each other into the 1930s. Belloc was closely associated with Chesterton, and Shaw coined the term Chesterbelloc for their partnership.

Asked once why he wrote so much, he responded, "Because my children are howling for pearls and caviar." Belloc observed that "The first job of letters is to get a canon," that is, to identify those works which a writer looks upon as exemplary of the best of prose and verse. For his own prose style, he claimed to aspire to be as clear and concise as "Mary had a little lamb."

Read more about this topic:  Hilaire Belloc

Famous quotes containing the word writing:

    “If you want your writing to be taken seriously, don’t marry and have kids, and above all, don’t die. But if you have to die, commit suicide. They approve of that.”
    —Ursula K. Le Guin (b. 1929)

    “To him Homer was a great writer, though what his writing was about he did not know.”
    —Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    “Success and failure on the public level never mattered much to me, in fact I feel more at home with the latter, having breathed deep of its vivifying air all my writing life up to the last couple of years.”
    —Samuel Beckett (1906–1989)