Joseph Hilaire Pierre René Belloc was born in 1870 in La Celle-Saint-Cloud, near Paris, of a French father and an English mother. He was called Hilaire after his grandfather, a celebrated painter. His father died when he was a baby. When he was eight years old, his mother suffered financial reverses, and they moved to England. His home in Sussex would become a major influence in his life. He wrote his first poem when he was eight years old. In 1882, he was sent to the Oratory School at Edgbaston, a boarding school. While he did not like school, he nevertheless learned the classics, took parts in Latin plays, and won a prize in his last year. After leaving school, he considered joining the French navy, since he loved sailing, but he studied for only a term at the Collège Stanislas at Paris before finding it too restrictive. He was then apprenticed to a farmer to learn to be a land agent, but that did not work out either. He then turned to journalism and edited a weekly paper called The Lamp, in which some of his early poems appeared. Other early poems appeared in The Irish Monthly and Merrie England.

In 1889, he fell in love with Elodie Hogan, an Irish American visiting Europe with her family and whom he met at his mother’s house. Belloc wanted to marry her, but she returned to California. He followed her to the United States in 1890 and made his way westward laboriously, often on foot, selling sketches to pay his way. Elodie’s mother did not favor the marriage, and Elodie considered becoming a nun. The young woman persuaded Belloc to take the military training required of all French citizens. When he returned east, she sent him a letter refusing his proposal. He did join the Battery of the Eighth Regiment of Artillery at Toul, serving from November, 1891, to August, 1892, and very much enjoyed military life.

Although Catholics were not yet formally permitted to attend Oxford or Cambridge, Belloc became a student at Balliol College, Oxford, helped financially by his sister and her husband-to-be. In October, 1892, he received a history scholarship. During his three years at Oxford, he received the Brackenbury Prize for history, took a brilliant first, became president of the Union, and walked from Oxford to London in record time. He was deeply disappointed, however, that he did not receive a history fellowship, especially since it was awarded to another Catholic for the first time since the Reformation.

Elodie entered a convent but soon left, suffering from physical and nervous disorders. In 1896, Belloc went again to California, where they were married on June 16 despite Elodie’s mother’s objections; Belloc also did some lecturing while he was in the United States. The couple then lived in Oxford, where Belloc published his first collection of poems. He earned money by tutoring, giving University Extension lectures, and writing books, including The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts. He wrote political articles and gave speeches for Liberal candidates. He wanted to apply for the professorship of history at Glasgow University, but that university did not favor a Catholic and prevailed upon Elodie to discourage him from applying.

In 1902, Belloc became an English citizen, and in 1906, he entered Parliament as the Liberal member from South Salford. Although he saw the House of Commons as a place of corruption and hypocrisy, he was reelected as an Independent.

He founded a weekly review, The Eye Witness . He moved from Oxford to Cheyne Walk and then in 1906 to...