Like much of G.K Chesterton's work, his first novel, The Napoleon of Notting Hill, reflects his anti-imperialist distaste for centralised power and a mistrust of the modem world of business. He sees these as life-denying forces, and his novel celebrates the oddity of life and the romantic medievalism of an earlier, pre-industrial age. When it was published in 19o4, the originality of this thematic political fantasy immediately attracted the attention and admiration that it still merits today.……

Set in a future of stultifving dullness, the ordinary citizen Auberon Quin is chosen from a list to be King. His whimsical desire to inspire local patriotism in the London boroughs seems an outrageous and hilarious prank as he lectures to an antiquarian society on the significance of London place names, and designs uniforms of medieval style and vast discomfort for the provosts of the boroughs. But Adam Wayne, the provost of Notting Hill who has no sense of humour at all, wears his red robes with pride and his fanaticism soon has the city plunged into savage street warfare.

   BOOK ONE

 ONE Introductory Remarks on the Art of Prophecy

 TWO The Man in Green

 THREE The Hill of Humonr

   BOOK TWO

 ONE The Charter of the Cities

 TWO The Council of the Provosts

 THREE Enter a Lunatic

   BOOK THREE

 ONE The Mental Condition of Adam Wayne

 TWO The Remarkable Mr Turnlrull

 THREE The Experiment of Mr.Buck

   BOOK FOUR

 ONE The Battle of the Lamps

 TWO The Correspondent of the Court Journal

 THREE The Great Army of South Kensington

   BOOK FIVE

 ONE The Empire of Notting Hill

 TWO The Last Battle

 THREE Two Voices