Patrick Braybrooke

Who was Patrick Braybrooke?

Patrick Philip William Braybrooke FRSL was an English literary critic who largely concentrated his attention on English writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

He is best remembered for his biographical study, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which assesses the writing of Chesterton and describes his literary relationship to such writers as Dickens, Thackeray and Browning. It also offers a view of Chesterton the man. Braybrooke who was a relative of Chesterton, met the older writer many times from his teens onwards. It is possible that Chesterton's move towards Roman Catholicism culminating in his conversion in 1922, was influential in Braybrooke's shift in interest away from his Anglican roots. Both his father, William Alfred Rossi Braybrooke, and his brother, Arthur Rossi Braybrooke, were priests in the Church of England and he was a great great grandson of the Honourable and Reverend Francis Knollis, Vicar of Burford from 1771 to 1826. Catholic writers were a frequent subject of his writing.

Two of his biographies- The Life and Work of Lord Alfred Douglas and The Amazing Mr Noel Coward - were the first to tackle their subjects.