The Club of Queer Trades
by G. K. Chesterton 1874–1936
The book, and the century it came out of.
Basil Grant, a retired judge, and his brother investigate a series of impossible situations — a man paid to be a professional detainer, an agency that supplies real adventures to bored gentlemen — and the solution is always that someone has invented a trade nobody had thought of. Chesterton was six foot four and twenty stone and created Father Brown; this 1905 book is his first detective work and his most purely delighted. Illustrated with 60 full-page plates — paintings by Butler, Abbey and Shaw among them.
Rabelais, or his wild illustrator Gustave Dore, must have had something to do with the designing of the things called flats in England and America.
The Club of Queer Trades, by G. K. Chesterton, complete and unabridged. Spelling and punctuation follow present-day American usage; the sentences, the paragraphs and the voice are the author’s, word for word.
It was written in another era and may carry attitudes a reader today will find dated. They are kept for the sake of the work and do not reflect the views of this house.
- Series
- Mystery & Crime
- Format
- Ebook
- Extent
- about 136 pages
- Reading time
- about 3 hours
- Illustrations
- Full-page plates, credited
- Text
- Complete, unabridged
- Language
- en
- This edition
- 2026
- ISBN
- 9785501099142
60 paintings are bound into this edition
Six of them are shown here, taken from the volume itself. Each is reproduced full page and named with its painter and year.
A page from this edition
Not a mock-up: this page is taken from the finished volume. The ornament above the chapter belongs to its shelf and to no other, the opening letter is set as a drop capital, and the plate below carries the name of the painter and the year.
Both photographed from the finished volume.
The Club of Queer Trades, first published 1905, issued in this edition by Aeneas Press in 2026 on the Mystery & Crime shelf. Newly set, with the ornament of its series above each chapter and a drop capital on the opening page. Illustrated with full-page plates, each named with its painter.
Published as an ebook and not issued in print by this house; it carries one ISBN, 9785501099142, and is supplied worldwide. This edition — its setting, its ornament, its cover art, and the selection and attribution of its plates — © 2026 Aeneas Press.
Questions readers ask
- Is this the whole of The Club of Queer Trades?
- Yes — complete and unabridged. Nothing is cut, condensed or paraphrased. This is the book, not a summary of it.
- What exactly did you change?
- The spelling and the punctuation follow present-day American usage. G. K. Chesterton's sentences are untouched — same words, same order, same rhythm.
- Are the pictures really in the book?
- Yes. The edition carries full-page plates bound into the text, each one named with its painter and the year it was made. Six of them are shown on this page.
- How long is it?
- About 136 pages, which is roughly about 3 hours of reading.
- What do I actually get?
- An illustrated ebook with its own ISBN, sold worldwide. One file, yours to keep, readable on any device.
