Patrick Braybrooke

Patrick Philip William Braybrooke FRSL (1894–1956) was an English literary critic who largely concentrated his attention on English writers of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.

He is best remembered for his biographical study, Gilbert Keith Chesterton, which assesses the writing of Chesterton and describes his literary relationship to such writers as Dickens, Thackeray and Browning. It also offers a view of Chesterton the man. Braybrooke, who was a second cousin of Chesterton's wife Frances, met the older writer many times from his teens onwards. It is possible that Chesterton's move towards Catholicism culminating in his conversion in 1922, was influential in Braybrooke's shift in interest away from his Anglican roots. Catholic writers were a frequent subject of his writing.

Two of his biographies – The Life and Work of Lord Alfred Douglas (1931) and The Amazing Mr Noel Coward (1933) – were the first to tackle their subjects.

He was a student at King's College, London. During the First World War, he served as a second lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers. He was wounded and gassed, and invalided out of the army in April 1915.