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The Man Who Was Thursday

Gilbert Keith Chesterton

The Man Who Was Thursday

Paper book: €26.99

Digital: €12.99

Original publication
1908
Bilingual edition
June 12, 2026
Pages
442
Difficulty
Medium
Genres
Crime and Thriller, Philosophy
Moods
Solve a mystery, Think it through
Translated from
English

Book summary

In London, Gabriel Syme, a poet who has secretly become a policeman, manages to get himself elected to the supreme council of Europe's anarchists. Its seven members are each named after a day of the week, and Syme becomes Thursday. There he uncovers a plot, and a huge, terrifying leader whom everyone calls Sunday.

Chases, masks falling, reversals: nothing is ever what it seems. It is a spy novel full of humour, which Chesterton himself subtitled “A Nightmare”.

Fast-paced from start to finish, the novel is easy to read in the language you are learning.

The plot

A policeman among anarchists. In an artists’ quarter of London, the poet Lucian Gregory champions rebellion. Gabriel Syme, also a poet, champions order.

The world of the book

London in the age of anarchists. The novel begins in an artists’ quarter in west London. Its houses are of red brick, and in the evenings people debate in gardens lit by lanterns. Around 1900, the newspapers are full…

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