The Fallacy of Success

G. K. Chesterton wrote “The Fallacy of Success” for the Illustrated London News, the world’s first illustrated weekly news magazine, to which such notable writers as Robert Louis Stevenson, Joseph Conrad, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and Agatha Christie made contributions. Chesterton’s audience was diverse and sizable in proportion to the distribution of the newspaper. The topic of “The Fallacy of Success” is a genre of literature that was likewise marketed to the masses and continues to exist under the broad label of “self-help.” Chesterton wrote with the intent of persuading his readers that books about success are worthless and ridiculous; in the essay, he implies that the proliferation of such books has motivated him to take the offensive and write his criticism. Given that Chesterton wrote prolifically for a newspaper that vied for readers’ weekly attention, the essay is intrinsically competitive. Readers attracted to new books about success might choose not to read the Illustrated London News—at least not for the reasons that Chesterton hopes to be read. The essays of All Things Considered are not written merely or even mainly to inform, but to benefit readers—to edify would be the religious term, and Chesterton wrote with a Christian framework in mind—and the books about success promise to benefit readers too, though in a different, materialistic sense.