¿The Napoleon of Notting Hill

When dystopian futures don't feel so future at all...
Four decades before George Orwell wrote 1984, The Napoleon of Notting Hill defined the dystopian genre. One of the first dystopian comedies, instead of a dark vision of jackboots and surveillance states, G.K. Chesterton explores the question of what a society would look like if no one could take a joke.
In this future England, each new king is decided by lottery. When Auberon Quin, a man who cares only for a good joke, is chosen to be the next king, he resolves to spend his reign teaching his fellow governors how big a joke can really be.
While most district leaders are content to put up with Auberon's schemes even when he insists upon elaborate costumes and heraldry, one provost takes his games much too seriously. When Adam Wayne, the Provost of Notting Hill, takes a military stand against his fellow leaders and seeks to defend his tiny fiefdom by any means necessary, Auberon's joke has gone too far.
At a time when the dystopian genre is defined by hopelessness, Chesterton's dry wit and tongue-in-cheek humor are a welcome respite. Follow Auberon and Wayne as they ponder the meaning of humor and virtue in a world where the swords are all too real and the defense of one's pride may well result in blood in the streets.
Foreword by Dale Ahlquist, president of the Society of G.K. Chesterton.

G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936) was an English writer, philosopher and literary and art critic. Chesterton created the fictional priest-detective Father Brown. He decided to follow art as a career, and studied at the Slade School, where, while attending or not attending to his studies, he met Ernest Hodder-Williams, who encouraged Chesterton in his writing. At his request he reviewed a number of books for the Bookman and found himself launched on a profession he was to follow all his life. Probably his most famous stories are those of Father Brown, but he wrote much about every conceivable subject under or beyond the sun. His fiction works would sell well, with titles such as "The Man Who Was Thursday", a thriller combining espionage and metaphysics, and "The Everlasting Man", which chronicles mankind's spiritual journey.