The Keys of the Kingdom

AJ Cronin

Apr 2015 · Rosetta Books

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AJ Cronin’s inspiring novel of a controversial Scottish priest on a mission in China, where he learns the true meaning of humanity—and of faith.
 
Francis Chisholm—a kindhearted and straightforward Scottish priest—walks a path of his own, making him unpopular with other members of the clergy. Ostracized by the clerical community and looked down on by his superiors, Chisholm takes a position in China where he supervises a mission beset by poverty, civil war, and plague. He encounters fierce resistance from the local Chinese who distrust his motives, especially as they do not understand or condone his faith. Despite enormous obstacles and temptations, Father Chisholm continues to live in accordance with what he holds as the ultimate truth—serving humanity is the one true religion of the world.
 
The Keys of the Kingdom was adapted into the 1944 film starring Gregory Peck as Fr. Francis Chisholm, a role for which he earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination.
 
Hailed as “a magnificent story of the great adventure of individual goodness” by the New York Times Book Review and “full of life and people and color” by Harper’s Magazine, The Keys of the Kingdom is considered by many to be AJ Cronin’s finest work.
 

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Archibald Joseph (A.J.) Cronin was a Scottish author and physician born in 1896. He is known for such popular works as The Citadel, The Stars Look Down, and The Keys of the Kingdom. The Citadel inspired social change in the United Kingdom by helping to promote conversations about ethics in medicine and paved the way for the eventual formation of the National Health Service. His novels and novellas have been widely adapted for radio, film, and television, including the Oscar-nominated 1938 film The Citadel starring Robert Donat, Rosalind Russell, Ralph Richardson, and Rex Harrison, and the long-running BBC radio drama Country Doctor. Called “uncannily like Dickens” by The New York Times, Cronin received his medical degree from Glasgow University in 1925 and was appointed Medical Inspector of Mines for Great Britain in 1925. During this tenure, Cronin inspected mining outfits across South Wales, an experience that would heavily influence his writing career. Although Cronin went on to practice medicine in both Glasgow and London, his first novel, written in 1931 and titled Hatter’s Castle, became a bestseller in England, after which he devoted his time entirely to writing. He continued to enjoy widespread success as a novelist into the 1940s and 1950s, with many of his novels becoming bestsellers. By the late ’50s, Cronin’s total sales in the U.S. had passed seven million, and his works had been widely translated across the globe. Cronin is still considered one of the English-speaking world’s most successful and appreciated authors. Cronin continued to write into his eighties, and passed away at the age of 84 in Montreux, Switzerland in 1981.