''The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare'' is a 1908 novel by G. K. Chesterton. The book has been described as a

metaphysical Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that studies the fundamental nature of reality, the first principles of being, identity and change, space and time, causality, necessity, and possibility. It includes questions about the nature of conscio ...

thriller Thriller may refer to: * Thriller (genre), a broad genre of literature, film and television ** Thriller film, a film genre under the general thriller genre Comics * ''Thriller'' (DC Comics), a comic book series published 1983–84 by DC Comics i ...

Plot summary

Chesterton prefixed the novel with a poem written to

Edmund Clerihew Bentley Edmund Clerihew Bentley (10 July 1875 – 30 March 1956), who generally published under the names E. C. Bentley or E. Clerihew Bentley, was a popular English novelist and humorist, and inventor of the clerihew, an irregular form of humorous verse ...

, revisiting the pair's early history and the challenges presented to their early faith by the times. In Victorian-era London, Gabriel Syme is recruited at

Scotland Yard Scotland Yard (officially New Scotland Yard) is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police, the territorial police force responsible for policing Greater London's 32 boroughs, but not the City of London, the square mile that forms London's ...

to a secret anti-

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessar ...

police corps. Lucian Gregory, an anarchistic poet, lives in the suburb of Saffron Park. Syme meets him at a party and they debate the meaning of poetry. Gregory argues that revolt is the basis of poetry. Syme demurs, insisting the essence of poetry is not revolution but law. He antagonises Gregory by asserting that the most poetical of human creations is the timetable for the

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

. He suggests Gregory is not really serious about anarchism, which so irritates Gregory that he takes Syme to an underground anarchist meeting place, under oath not to disclose its existence to anyone, revealing his public endorsement of anarchy is a ruse to make him seem harmless, when in fact he is an influential member of the local chapter of the European anarchist council. The central council consists of seven men, each using the name of a day of the week as a cover; the position of Thursday is about to be elected by Gregory's local chapter. Gregory expects to win the election but just before, Syme reveals to Gregory after an oath of secrecy that he is a secret policeman. In order to make Syme think that the anarchists are harmless after all, Gregory speaks very unconvincingly to the local chapter, so that they feel that he is not zealous enough for the job. Syme makes a rousing anarchist speech in which he denounces everything that Gregory has said and wins the vote. He is sent immediately as the chapter's delegate to the central council. In his efforts to thwart the council, Syme eventually discovers that five of the other six members are also undercover detectives; each was employed just as mysteriously and assigned to defeat the Council. They soon find out they were fighting each other and not real anarchists; such was the mastermind plan of their president, Sunday. In a surreal conclusion, Sunday is unmasked as only seeming to be an anarchist; in fact, he is a proponent of state power like the detectives. Sunday is unable to give an answer to the question of why he caused so much trouble and pain for the detectives. Gregory, the only real anarchist, seems to challenge the false council. His accusation is that they, as rulers, have never suffered like Gregory and their other subjects and so their power is illegitimate. Syme refutes the accusation immediately, because of the terrors inflicted by Sunday on the rest of the council. The dream ends when Sunday is asked if he has ever suffered. His last words, "can ye drink of the cup that I drink of?", is the question Jesus asks St. James and St. John in the

Gospel of Mark The Gospel of Mark), or simply Mark (which is also its most common form of abbreviation). is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to h ...

, chapter 10, vs 38–39, a rhetorical question intended to demonstrate that the disciples are wrong to covet his glory because they are unable to bear the suffering for the sins of the world for which he is destined.

Annotations and details

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lew ...

edited ''The Annotated Thursday'', which provides a great deal of biographical and contextual information in the form of footnotes, along with the text of the book, original reviews from the time of the book's first publication and comments made by Chesterton on the book. The literary critic Ian Fletcher notes that Chesterton's "Saffron Park", with which the novel begins, is a parody of the garden suburb of Bedford Park in

Chiswick Chiswick ( ) is a district of west London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and F ...

, with its red brick buildings, "the outburst of a speculative builder" (Jonathan Carr), "faintly tinged with art" (the suburb was considered aesthetic, and was home to many artists), and its

Queen Anne architecture The Queen Anne style of British architecture refers to either the English Baroque architecture of the time of Queen Anne (who reigned from 1702 to 1714) or the British Queen Anne Revival form that became popular during the last quarter of th ...

. Fletcher comments that Chesterton met his future wife in the suburb, and that the description was somewhat inaccurate, as Chesterton liked to dramatise. The costumes the detectives don towards the end of the book represent what was created on their respective day. Sunday, "the

sabbath In Abrahamic religions, the Sabbath () or Shabbat (from Hebrew ) is a day set aside for rest and worship. According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest, as ...

" and "the peace of God," sits upon a throne in front of them. The name of the girl Syme likes, Rosamond, is derived from "Rosa Mundi," meaning "Rose of the World" in Latin.

Influence and critical assessments

Many have noted the influence of ''The Man Who Was Thursday'' on surrealism and spy thrillers. Chesterton's book allegedly inspired the

Irish Republican Irish republicanism ( ga, poblachtánachas Éireannach) is the political movement for the unity and independence of Ireland under a republic. Irish republicans view British rule in any part of Ireland as inherently illegitimate. The developm ...

Michael Collins Michael Collins or Mike Collins most commonly refers to: * Michael Collins (Irish leader) (1890–1922), Irish revolutionary leader, soldier, and politician * Michael Collins (astronaut) (1930–2021), American astronaut, member of Apollo 11 and ...

with the idea "if you didn't seem to be hiding nobody hunted you out". The novelist

Kingsley Amis Sir Kingsley William Amis (16 April 1922 – 22 October 1995) was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, short stories, radio and television scripts, and works of social ...

describes his reading of the novel as "thrilling", comparing Chesterton to "first-rate action-writer like

Ian Fleming Ian Lancaster Fleming (28 May 1908 – 12 August 1964) was a British writer who is best known for his postwar ''James Bond'' series of spy novels. Fleming came from a wealthy family connected to the merchant bank Robert Fleming & Co., an ...

Dick Francis Richard Stanley Francis (31 October 1920 – 14 February 2010) was a British steeplechase jockey and crime writer whose novels centre on horse racing in England. After wartime service in the RAF, Francis became a full-time jump-jockey, winn ...

" for suspense, but also "persuading you that something wonderful is afoot, that the events described have a mysterious and momentous significance you hardly dare guess at". Amis calls it "the most thrilling book I have ever read", admiring the twists and turns of the plot: In his final essay,

Christopher Hitchens Christopher Eric Hitchens (13 April 1949 – 15 December 2011) was a British-American author and journalist who wrote or edited over 30 books (including five essay collections) on culture, politics, and literature. Born and educated in England, ...

wrote: "As to the durability or importance of GKC as a fictionist: the late Sir Kingsley Amis once told me that he reread ''The Man Who Was Thursday'' every year, and on one of his annual visitations wrote a tribute. That novel, with its evocation of eeriness and solitude, and its fascination with anonymity, has been credited by some with a share of influence on

Franz Kafka Franz Kafka (3 July 1883 – 3 June 1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His work fuses elements of realism and the fantastic. It typ ...

." Critic

Adam Gopnik Adam Gopnik (born August 24, 1956) is an American writer and essayist. He is best known as a staff writer for ''The New Yorker,'' to which he has contributed non-fiction, fiction, memoir, and criticism since 1986. He is the author of nine books ...

concurs: "''The Man Who Was Thursday'' is one of the hidden hinges of twentieth-century writing, the place where, before our eyes, the nonsense-fantastical tradition of

Lewis Carroll Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (; 27 January 1832 – 14 January 1898), better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll, was an English author, poet and mathematician. His most notable works are '' Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (1865) and its sequ ...

and

Edward Lear Edward Lear (12 May 1812 – 29 January 1888) was an English artist, illustrator, musician, author and poet, who is known mostly for his literary nonsense in poetry and prose and especially his limericks, a form he popularised. His principal ...

pivots and becomes the nightmare-fantastical tradition of Kafka and

Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

. It is also, along with Chesterton's ''

The Napoleon of Notting Hill ''The Napoleon of Notting Hill'' is a novel written by G. K. Chesterton in 1904, set in a nearly unchanged London in 1984. Although the novel is set in the future, it is, in effect, set in an alternative reality of Chesterton's own period, wit ...

'', the nearest thing that this masterly writer wrote to a masterpiece."

Debate on the novel's pessimism

Like most of Chesterton's fiction, the story is full of Christian allegory. Chesterton, a

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

at this time (he joined the

Roman Catholic Church The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

about 15 years later), suffered from a brief bout of depression during his college days. He insisted: "The book ... was not intended to describe the real world as it was, or as I thought it was, even when my thoughts were considerably less settled than they are now. It was intended to describe the world of wild doubt and despair which the pessimists were generally describing at that date; with just a gleam of hope in some double meaning of the doubt, which even the pessimists felt in some fitful fashion". Chesterton later claimed that he had written this book to affirm that goodness and right were at the heart of every aspect of the world. However, the philosopher John Gray argues the story is more pessimistic than Christian:

Adaptations

Mercury Theatre adaptation

On 5 September 1938 ''

The Mercury Theatre on the Air ''The Mercury Theatre on the Air'' is a radio series of live radio dramas created and hosted by Orson Welles. The weekly hour-long show presented classic literary works performed by Welles's celebrated Mercury Theatre repertory company, with mus ...

'' presented an abridged radio-play adaptation, written by

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

, who was a great admirer of Chesterton. He omitted most of ''Chapter 14: The Six Philosophers'', which contains most of the metaphysical speculation. This was almost two months before the infamous ''

War of the Worlds ''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by '' Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and by ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was i ...

'' broadcast.

APJAC Productions musical adaptation

It was reported in January 1967 that Jerome Hellman and

Arthur P. Jacobs Arthur P. Jacobs (March 7, 1922 – June 27, 1973) was a press agent turned film producer responsible for such films in the 1960s and 1970s as the ''Planet of the Apes'' series, ''Doctor Dolittle'', ''Goodbye, Mr. Chips'', '' Play It Again, Sam'' ...

' APJAC Productions were preparing movie projects including a musical adaptation of Chesterton's novel by

Leslie Bricusse Leslie Bricusse OBE (; 29 January 1931 – 19 October 2021) was a British composer, lyricist, and playwright who worked on theatre musicals and wrote theme music for films. He was best known for writing the music and lyrics for the films '' Do ...

. The film was not made.

BBC radio adaptations

There have been at least three adaptations broadcast by BBC radio over the years. On Sunday 13 July 1947, the BBC broadcast a live theatrical adaptation by

Cecil Chesterton Cecil Edward Chesterton (12 November 1879 – 6 December 1918) was an English journalist and political commentator, known particularly for his role as editor of '' The New Witness'' from 1912 to 1916, and in relation to its coverage of the Marco ...

and Ralph Neale, which was produced by Jan Bussell and starred Harold Scott as Thursday,

Peter Bull Peter Cecil Bull, (21 March 1912 – 20 May 1984) was a British character actor who appeared in supporting roles in such films as '' The African Queen'', ''Tom Jones'', and ''Dr. Strangelove''. Biography He was the fourth and youngest son o ...

as Sunday, Stringer Davis as Comrade Witherspoon,

Arnold Diamond Arnold Diamond (18 April 1915 – 18 March 1992) was an English character actor, regularly cast in small parts on television. He graduated from RADA in 1936, and his stage work included the RSC, and three years in Agatha Christie's '' The Mo ...

as Colonel du Croix,

Richard Goolden Richard Percy Herbert Goolden, OBE (23 February 1895 – 18 June 1981) was a British actor, most famous for his portrayal of Mole from Kenneth Grahame's ''Wind in the Willows'' in A A Milne's stage adaptation, ''Toad of Toad Hall''. Goolden t ...

as Friday, and

Campbell Singer Campbell Singer (born Jacob Kobel Singer; 16 March 1909 – 16 February 1976) was a British character actor who featured in a number of stage, film and television roles during his long career. He was also a playwright and dramatist. Life He was ...

as Wednesday. In 1986 the BBC broadcast a four-part series dramatised by Peter Buckman and directed by Glyn Dearman. It featured Michael Hadley as Thursday/Gabriel Syme,

Natasha Pyne Natasha Pyne (born 9 July 1946) is an English actress who starred in ''The Taming of the Shrew'' (1967 film), ''The Breaking of Bumbo'' (1970) and ''Father, Dear Father'' (1973). Early life Pyne was born in Crawley, Sussex on 9 July 1946. She i ...

as Rosamond and

Edward de Souza Edward James de Souza (born 4 September 1932) is a British character actor and graduate of RADA, who is of Portuguese-Indian and English descent. Early life De Souza was the only child of Annie Adeline Swift (née Calvert) and Edward Valentine De ...

as Wednesday/The Marquis de St. Eustache. In 2005 the BBC broadcast the novel as read by Geoffrey Palmer, as thirteen half-hour parts. It has been re-broadcast several times since then, including in 2008 (one hundred years after first publication) 2016 and 2020.

2016 film

Hungarian Balázs Juszt wrote and directed a film inspired by Chesterton's book, starring François Arnaud,

Ana Ularu Ana Ularu (born 26 June 1985) is a Romanian actress. Biography She is known for playing the role of Matilda in '' Outbound'' and West in ''Emerald City The Emerald City (sometimes called the City of Emeralds) is the capital city of the fict ...

and Jordi Mollà, which was premiered on 21 June 2016 at the Edinburgh Film Festival. Juszt's inspiration was his mentor,

István Szabó István Szabó (; born 18 February 1938) is a Hungarian film director, screenwriter, and opera director. Szabó is one of the most notable Hungarian filmmakers and one who has been best known outside the Hungarian-speaking world since the ...

Popular culture

The 2000 video game ''

Deus Ex ''Deus Ex'' is a series of role-playing video games, set during the mid 21st century. Focusing on the conflict between secretive factions who wish to control the world by proxy, and the effects of transhumanistic attitudes and technologies in a ...

'' features several excerpts from the book and lists Gabriel Syme as a current resident of the "Ton Hotel". In

Kim Newman Kim James Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's ''Dracula'' at ...

's '' Anno Dracula: 1895'', the Council of Days, led by Sunday, exists and is plotting to overthrow

Dracula ''Dracula'' is a novel by Bram Stoker, published in 1897. As an epistolary novel, the narrative is related through letters, diary entries, and newspaper articles. It has no single protagonist, but opens with solicitor Jonathan Harker taki ...

during the tenth anniversary of his rule over Britain. The Council includes Gabriel Syme,

Peter the Painter Peter the Painter ( lv, Pēteris Krāsotājs), also known as Peter Piaktow (or Piatkov, Pjatkov, Piaktoff; lv, Pēteris Pjatkovs), was a member of a gang of immigrant Latvian anarchists in London in the early 20th century. After supposedly fight ...

(Friday), and Newman's recurring character Kate Reed. In Neil Gaiman's '' The Sandman'', ''The Man Who Was October''—an unwritten sequel to ''The Man Who Was Thursday''—appears in the Library of Dreams. ''

Season of Mists ''Season of Mists'' is a 1990-1991 American eight-part comic and the fourth collection of issues in the DC Comics' '' The Sandman'' series. It collects issues #21–28. It was written by Neil Gaiman; illustrated by Kelley Jones, Mike Dringenb ...

'' ends with a quote from the fictional novel. In '' The Doll's House'', the character Gilbert physically resembles G. K. Chesterton.

References

External links

*
The Man Who Was Thursday: a nightmare
1908 First Edition at Open Library
A radio play based on the book by the Mercury Theatre on AirSonja West's C.S. Lewis Institute lecture on ''Thursday''Mercury Theatre dramatisation
of ''The Man Who Was Thursday'' (MP3, 26.3 MB, 1 hour) * {{DEFAULTSORT:Man Who Was Thursday, The 1907 British novels 1907 fantasy novels 1907 science fiction novels British fantasy novels British science fiction novels British speculative fiction novels British novels adapted into films British thriller novels Novels by G. K. Chesterton Novels set in London J. W. Arrowsmith books Novels about religion Metaphysical fiction novels Novels about terrorism