Hilaire Belloc

French-British writer and Catholic controversialist who attacked secularism and capitalist plutocracy while defending traditional views in prose that were strong, but eloquent. Educated at the Balliol College in Oxford, where he won many honors, he went into service in the French Army and later became a naturalized citizen of England, 1902. Belloc served as a Liberal Member of Parliament, 1906-1910.

His writing tended to be melancholy while showing a zest for the physical life. He published an eclectic variety, everything from nonsense children's verse to historical biographies, travel books, satirical novels and a four-volume "History of England."

Belloc married an American, Elodie Hogan, in 1896, and he died on 16 July 1953 in Guilford, England.