The Napoleon of Notting Hill by G.K. Chesterton

(The MIT Press, 2023)

Reviewed by Duncan Lawie

This fresh publication as part of the Radium Age series posits The Napoleon of Notting Hill as worthy of fresh examination. It is a fun read, but a strange avatar of science fiction. Madeline Ashby’s new introduction shows where ideas in the book are reflected in subsequent history, as well as situating the novel in a literary context. Insightfully, she tells us that this tale “suggests that the best outcome is something that must be strived for, and that succumbing to the seemingly harmless aesthetic whims of a tyrant is still [none the less] succumbing to a tyrant.”

For a twenty-first century science fiction reader, the most interesting part of this book, it seems to me, is Chesterton’s own introduction. He uses these few pages to talk about the nature of science fiction, including an accurate, if rather dismissive, description of the ‘if this goes on’ style of SF. Chesterton chooses to be dismissive as a way of making clear that the work that follows is not of that style at all. Indeed, the introduction concludes with “eighty years after the present date, London is almost exactly like what it is now.”

This is necessary to set up the story Chesterton wants to tell, as the only real change is that the King of England is chosen by lot. And that, in turn, is required to put Auberon Quin into a position where he can decree that each of the many parts of London must have heraldry, provosts and coats of arms (invented by him). He feels he is playing a delicious game, a joke on all the people of London. Or, if he is more generous, a joke with London. Skipping forward a decade, he finds that he has created a genuine patriot of Notting Hill. The provost, at age nineteen, has known no other system. So when the neighbouring areas wish to drive a throughway across his territory he creates an army of Notting Hill which defends it, defeating the far larger numbers of the rest of London.

Chesterton is endlessly quotable and writes beautifully, whether describing hand to hand combat in the dark or the colours of the beloved Notting Hill. He also turns his hand to pastiche and parody, including a delightfully sharp commentary on the literary establishment, which concludes “[h]ere, somewhat abruptly, the review concluded, probably because the King had to send off his copy at that moment, as he was in want of money.”

And, of course, despite the mask put up by the introduction, there is an ‘if this goes on’ at the heart of this novel. It is the suggestion that the complacency of colonialism and empire will continue. Wars will end as all the small nations are swallowed up by the great empires. News will end as there are no more great events in the world. Government will decay as there is no need of change; even the need for police will decline as the populus, satisfied with their lot, can be managed easily. Quin’s creation of faux medievalism is intended as a form of entertainment, at least for himself. Chesterton is also making an argument about the nature of patriotism; that a true romantic (or a genuine fool) extends love of place into a powerful argument that their own place is better than any other whilst the more sophisticated individual (and, perhaps, greater fool) sees all places as interchangeable—at least for a price.

And so, by the end of the book, all the nations of London are infected with patriotism and history, and war begins again.

Review from BSFA Review 23 - Download your copy here.