Article: `First novel' by G.K. Chesterton found in attic An unknown story by the author of the Father Brown stories has been reconstructed more than a century after it was written.

A PREVIOUSLY unknown manuscript by G. K. Chesterton - written when he was 20 and almost certainly his first novel - has been discovered among old clothes in an attic.

The novel, which appears to be semi-autobiographical, was written by Chesterton in 1894 when he was a student in London and features a young man, Basil Howe, who falls in love with a beautiful redhead.

The manuscript was found in a chest full of Chesterton's academic gowns in the attic of Dorothy Collins, the writer's former secretary. Buried in the folds of material were dozens of old notebooks, school exercise books and loose papers dating back to the 1890s, including many unpublished stories, poems, plays and essays.

Over ...

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