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:

    The naive notion that a mother naturally acquires the complex skills of childrearing simply because she has given birth now seems as absurd to me as enrolling in a nine-month class in composition and imagining that at the end of the course you are now prepared to begin writing War and Peace.
    Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)

    Scott took LITERATURE so solemnly. He never understood that it was just writing as well as you can and finishing what you start.
    Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)

    ‘Tis hard to say, if greater want of skill
    Appear in writing or in judging ill;
    Alexander Pope (1688–1744)