Cracks in the Cloister

An inside look at the lighter side of the cloistered life.

"Brother Choleric" was the pen name Dom Hubert van Zeller used when cartooning about the characters he got to know during his sixty years as a Benedictine monk. With droll insight, he highlights the very human foibles that find their way into the lives of monks and nuns in the rarified environments in which they live. Choleric received the praise ofeveryone from his fellow monks to literati like Evelyn Waugh.

Contributor Bio:Choleric, Brother
Dom Hubert van Zeller (d.1984), a far-from-boring monk of Downside Abbey, had prodigious talents which have given joy to many a monk, though perhaps some heartburn to an abbot or two. He was very gifted sculptor, with a clean and distinctive style that breathes the air of Ditchling. He was a popular spiritual writer whose works are still in print. Yet for those who were not his immediate brethren at Downside, he is most memorable for his books of caricatures published under the pseudonym Brother Choleric.

Contributor Bio:Van Zeller, Hubert
Fr Hugh Somerville Knapman, Order of Saint Benedict, Douai Abbey.