Literary Distractions

By Ronald Knox “The written word was but the score of a musical composition; there must be no sentence which was not worthy of being read aloud.” Monsignor Ronald Knox wrote these words in homage to Robert Louis Stevenson. Well might he have written them of himself, for the principles he proposes were invariably brought to life in his own writing: his sermons, retreat conferences, detective stories, Scripture translations—and the seventeen essays in Literary Distractions. Focused on figures and matters of literary interest, the volume includes the famous “Detective Stories,” enshrining the “Ten Commandments of Detective Fiction,” and the essential “On English Translation”; tributes to Chesterton, Pascal, and Stevenson; studies of Crashaw and Johnson  and as well as Trollope’s novels and Belloc’s verse; tangents on “A Neglected Poet,” “The Man Who Tried to Convert the Pope,” and “The Ingoldsby Legends”; and equally witty and insightful reflections on “Going On Pilgrimage,” “Birmingham Revisited,” and “French with Tears.” Compiled by Evelyn Waugh and first published in 1958, just months after Knox’s death at the age of sixty-nine, the essays in Literary Distractions are of unremitting quality, each one as marvelously amusing as it is exquisitely written. Nobody wrote the scholarly but relaxed literary essay more gracefully, or with happier wit and humor, when his subject inspired him, than Ronald Knox. (Vincent Starrett)   Ronald Knox (1888–1957) was an English Catholic priest, theologian, and author, and one of the most prominent twentieth-century converts from Anglicanism to Catholicism. Best known for his contemporary English translation of the Scriptures (the “Knox Bible”), he wrote numerous works of apologetics and collections of ser­mons, retreat conferences, and lectures, as well as six detective novels.  * * * Paperback: 270pp. ISBN: 978-1685954468