The boards' edges are lightly chipped and there are three closed tears: one on pp47/48, one on page 363/364 and one on the back end paper. This last one which was slightly larger than the others I have repaired with acid free tape. All are at the edge of the page and all are very small. Page 49/50 has a triangular piece missing from the edge. It looks as though the pages were uncut, which is how the damage occured. There is minor intermittent foxing thoughout the book. Apart from these faults it remains a clean, unmarked and solid copy. Second impression. "Chesterton is well known for his fictional priest-detective Father Brown, and for his reasoned apologetics. Even some of those who disagree with him have recognised the wide appeal of such works as Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton routinely referred to himself as an "orthodox" Christian, and came to identify this position more and more with Catholicism, eventually converting to Catholicism from High Church Anglicanism. George Bernard Shaw, his "friendly enemy", said of him, "He was a man of colossal genius." Biographers have identified him as a successor to such Victorian authors as Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, Cardinal John Henry Newman, and John Ruskin." (Wikipedia)