The Napoleon of Notting Hill

The Napoleon of Notting Hill, Chesterton's first novel (1904), is set in London at the end of the twentieth century. It is still a city of gaslamps and horse-drawn carriages, but democratic government has withered away. When a government clerk, something of an aesthete and even more of a joker, is simply chosen from a list to be king, he sets the stage for arguments about the nature of human loyalties, glorifying the little man, and attacks on big business and the monolithic state.