In
the far off future of eighty-years-from-now, the King of England is an
absolute monarch, but one selected randomly by lottery. When the newest
occupant of the throne begins whimsically issuing decrees establishing
special sumptuary rules for local officials and heraldic totems for
London neighborhoods, the last thing he expects is for someone to take
him seriously. Yet that is exactly what happens, when the mayor of
Notting Hill refuses to accept a plan by the surrounding municipalities
to build a highway through his town, instead choosing to defy all the
rules of business and common sense and rally his loyal halberdiers
around the standard of the Red Lion. Will tender Romance be trampled
underfoot by brutal Fact, or will imaginative Sanity triumph over blinkered
Madness?
This was Chesterton's first novel, and already his gifts are in full evidence, not least his evocation of the poetry that surrounds us every day, demonstrating how even a humble grocer, seen rightly, is a fabulous merchant trading in exotic goods from distant lands, and every community a sacred fellowship.
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