6 APRIL 1985, Page 17

Chesterton at his worst

Sir: As a lover of G. K. Chesterton at his best, I wish that David Watkins's argument (Letters, 9 March), that his anti-semitism, largely an infection from Belloc (and his own brother Cecil), declined sharply after The Everlasting Man (1925), were correct; unfortunately, it is not. The stories in Four Faultless Felons (written 1929-30, pub- lished in book form 1930) contain the vilest of his fictional Jewish caricatures, besides one or two lesser stabs. I hope Nazism finally drove him back to his senses.

Paul Hopkins

Peterhouse, Cambridge