Hilaire Belloc
born July 27, 1870, La Celle-Saint-Cloud,
Fr.
died July 16, 1953, Guildford, Surrey, Eng.
French-born poet, historian, and essayist
who was among the most versatile English
writers of the first quarter of the 20th
century. He is most remembered for his light
verse, particularly for children, and for
the lucidity and easy grace of his essays,
which could be delightfully about nothing or
decisively about some of the key
controversies of the Edwardian era.
Belloc was educated at the Oratory School,
Birmingham, and then worked as a journalist.
After military service, as a French citizen,
he entered Balliol College, Oxford, in 1894.
He graduated with first-class honours in
history, was president of the Union
(debating society), and in 1896 married
Elodie Hogan (1870–1914) of Napa, Calif. He
became a naturalized British subject in 1902
and sat as a member of Parliament for
Salford (1906–10), first as a Liberal and
then as an Independent.
Verses and Sonnets (1895) and The Bad
Child’s Book of Beasts (1896) launched
Belloc on his literary career. Cautionary
Tales, another book of humorous verse for
children, which parodied some Victorian
pomposities, appeared in 1907. His Danton
(1899) and Robespierre (1901) proved his
lively historical sense and powerful prose
style. Lambkin’s Remains (1900) and Mr.
Burden (1904) showed his mastery of satire
and irony. In The Path to Rome (1902) he
interspersed his account of a pilgrimage on
foot from Toul to Rome with comments on the
nature and history of Europe. Born and
brought up a Roman Catholic, he showed in
almost everything he wrote an ardent
profession of his faith. This coloured with
occasional inaccuracy and overemphasis most
of his historical writing, which includes
Europe and the Faith (1920), History of
England, 4 vol. (1925–31), and a series of
biographies ranging in period from James II
(1928) to Wolsey (1930). But he had the
power of bringing history to life.
The Four Men (1912) described a walk
through Sussex, the county where he made his
home, and his love of sailing was vividly
illustrated in The Cruise of the “Nona”
(1925). In political and economic matters
Belloc was a follower of William Cobbett,
English author, journalist, and radical
influential in the early 19th century. Among
Belloc’s volumes of lighter verse are The
Modern Traveller (1898) and the Heroic Poem
in Praise of Wine (1932). He also wrote a
number of satiric novels, which were
illustrated by his close friend, the
novelist G.K. Chesterton.
Belloc engaged in much heated
controversy, particularly with H.G. Wells,
whose Outline of History he vigorously
attacked, and with the Protestant scholar
and historian G.C. Coulton. Belloc is one of
the masters of modern English prose, a good
poet, and a deeply interesting literary
personality.
