A six-foot-four giant in a rumpled cape and crushed hat, puffing a cigar and clutching a sword stick, stands bewildered in an English train station and telegrams his wife: Am in Market Harborough, where ought I to be? Her reply: Home. This deep dive looks past the caricature of G.K. Chesterton, the English author, philosopher, and social critic born in London in 1874, tracing his path from a youth dabbling in the occult and Ouija boards, self-described pagan at 12 and agnostic at 16, through art school at the Slade with no degree, to marriage in 1901 to Frances Blogg, who tethered his chaotic mind and guided him back toward faith, culminating in his 1922 conversion to Catholicism.

The episode surveys his staggering output of roughly 80 books, 200 short stories, thousands of essays, and a 30-year column for the Illustrated London News, and e ...