This review has gotta be dedicated to Stephen_Murray, if for no other reason than it was his comment about Frederick Rolfe aka Baron Corvo that started this whole snowball rolling. Steve remarked in the comment section of my review of Edmund Backhouse, the Baron Corvo of Peking: "You musta read The Search for Corvo and some of the Firbankish subject's writing." Indeed, I had not.

In that piece on Sir Edmund, I wrote We find out that there was also a gay uncle in the family who had a strong taste for homosexual pornography and was the recipient of Baron Corvo's infamous "Venice Letters." I must say that with all my reading and Internet searching I have never found the teensiest scrap of porn for Frederick Rolfe. Maybe unlike the readers of today, the readers of the late 1800s and early 1900s were titillated by the mere mention of lithe limbs and golden-haired youth.

When I finally got the book, I thought it would be a good one for my entry in msmorvay's Second Annual Resurrecting the Oldies Write-Off. The purpose of this Write Off is to write a review about a book that may have been forgotten about but deserves to be read. The book must be written before 2001 to qualify. Preferably one should write about a book that no one else has yet written about or has only been written about by one or two other people. That's it!

The Search for Corvo wasn't in the Epinions' database and I decided to try getting a novel that was described in the first chapter. It's called Hadrian the Seventh by Frederick Baron Corvo, and I not only found the book at my library without a problem, but there it was on the database. This book fits the bill perfectly. It was originally published in 1904 and this edition was produced in 1969. Along with being an author, Rolfe was somewhat of an artist and a photographer. This edition contains a replica of his original black and white ink drawing for the cover design for this book.

Hadrian the Seventh is the story of one George Arthur Rose (Rolfe), a poor, but priestly novitiate who was never taken into the priesthood for a multitude of reasons. He stuck to his vows for twenty years and ended up in Rome where he became Pope through a series of romantic misadventures. He got his revenge on the people who spurned him and comes to a tragic end. That's putting it all rather mildly and the read, while confusing at times it's great fun.

At the opening of the novel, Rose is at home in his rented room suffering through the pains of the tenth day of a vaccination (what kind we never find out). He is described in the third person and we find out about his meager circumstances, his food, his shabbiness and his cat, Flavio. Two visitors, a Cardinal-Archbishop and a Dr. Talacryn, appear. There is a funny contraction made out of the words "Your Eminence" into Yrmnts. It's a bit off-putting to read, but no more than some of the other fantastical words Rolfe has come up with.

The dialogue goes on forever but the gist of the thing is that they are there to tell him that he has been accepted back into the church after being spurned for over twenty years. Naturally he makes them pay dearly, especially for the spurious attacks on him that appeared in the press. Before he agrees to come to Rome with them he makes them pay . . . and dearly. Then he gives half of the princely sum to charity and leaves standing there while he goes off to have a Turkish bath, buy a Roman collar and think himself back into his "new—no my old life."

Finally in Rome it is time for a Conclave of the Roman Catholic Church to choose a new Pope. The whole procedure is given in detail (and, I think, with tongue in cheek). I could type out the wonderful names of the Sacred College, but I think it would be much more fun for you to read and stumble over the pronunciations yourselves. Finally George Arthur Rose is chosen as Pope because no one could agree on the merits of any of the other proposals. There was a deadlock and his name was proposed during The Way of Compromise. A man named Dr. Strong (really Dr. Hardy, vice-principal of Jesus College, Oxford and one of the few people he ever found kindness for in his heart or his writing) proposed his name from twenty years of intimacy.

When Rose is asked what name he intends to take he takes the name Hadrian the Seventh much to the dismay of everyone else because . . . as he says, "The previous English Pontiff is Hadrian the Fourth, the present English Pontiff is Hadrian the Seventh." He proceeds to give the Blessing to the City, open a sealed window to a balcony overlooking St. Peter's Square, redesign and refurbish the third floor of the basilica in a more Spartan manner and send for old friends at the Seminary who he makes into Cardinals. . . .and oh yes, one last thing, he sends for Flavio, his cat. And this is just the second chapter.

What Rolfe enjoyed doing was to use ancient Greek and Latin phrases and words to heighten the fantasy of the Eternal City. He used old English, early Italian, Cockney and Athenian words in a fantasy that delight and amuse the reader. Shane Leslie tells us: "in politics Rolfe was a medieval Tory and Hadrian VII contained a violent parody of English Socialism." In the novel Hadrian gets all the Church's treasures and gives it all to the poor.

After he is crowned Pope, George Rose goes to Castle Gondolfo where he summons Cardinal Courtleigh "directly after breakfast and with some formality." He proceeds to lambaste the English Catholics for charging a pew fee (admission) to church services. The whole conversation is laced with We and My and Your and Ourself, letting the poor Lord Cardinal fall all over himself as he reminds the new Pope that, "Your august predecessor traded as a fisherman," and is rebuked stiffly by: "but—did Our predecessor St. Peter trade as a fisherman after He had entered upon the work of the apostolature? I think not. No, Lord Cardinal, I think the clergy attempt too much." You can just hear some irate Queen talking and I'm not talking about Royalty.

He goes on to do many more outrageous things and is finally assassinated in a religious procession and pardons his murderer. The last words are very Firbankian: "Pray for the repose of His soul. He was so tired." Rolfe fastidiously capitalizes every personal pronoun related to the Pope, whether he is referring to himself or others are referring to him in his new Royal incarnation. It's all rather like hearing Queen Victoria continuously say, "WE are not amused." The writing is mildly Firbankian with florid sentences that describe in great detail not only the beauty of the rooms and landscapes that Hadrian the Seventh inhabits, but the demeanor and dress of the characters in the novel.

The language also describes the delight Rose (Rolfe) takes in "naked, lithe-limbed Venetian boys with golden hair like a halo." Like many Englishmen of this period, Rolfe lived a closeted life in the aftermath of the trials of Oscar Wilde. There wasn't a single rosary bead dropped in this story, that's all in the other biographies and for you to find out.

According to www.findagrave.com/pictures/4549.html, Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe "Baron Corvo" was born in London on July 22, 1860. He died if a heart attack in Venice on Oct. 25, 1913 at age 51. He is buried in the Cimitero di San Michele, Venice, Italy.

While he was there, Rolfe acquired the title Baron Corvo, ostensibly from an English gentlewoman with an Italian title, the Duchess of Sforza-Cesarini. Now I know a great deal more about the infamous and mysterious Frederick Rolfe. I will reference two other books on Rolfe/Corvo that were published well before 2001 and the information on them can be found at the end of this review. Here we go:

As I read I wondered if Rolfe ever knew of Ronald Firbank, who was born in 1886 and died in Rome in 1926. These two men were certainly contemporaries but I find no information that Rolfe knew him or visa versa. Rolfe was 26 years Firbank's senior and may well have been aware of him. Now that I know a bit more I wonder if it wasn't Ronald Firbank who was influenced by the writings of Frederick Rolfe.

Where Rolfe was practically destitute for most of his life, Firbank came from money and lived the good life abroad. So did Rolfe, after a fashion in Venice, but he was continually begging for "just 5 Pounds" He died destitute. They both knew Father Hugh Benson of the very queer Benson family.

None of the six Benson children ever married. The four boys shared varying stages of closeted homosexuality and the daughters were demented. One died young and the other tried to kill her mother. Martin, the beloved first son, died at an early age. Arthur grew up to be the Master of Magdalen College. Hugh, became a Roman Catholic Monsignor (and friend of Rolfe's) who was afraid of being buried alive, and Edward F. became the author of the Lucia Stories. The mother was known as Ben and is said to have lived a lesbian life after she left her husband; papa Benson was a monster, it seems.

Father Hugh loved Rolfe's novel and wrote to him to say so. They developed a friendship and although Rolfe was standoffish at first, "admiration such as Benson's was irresistible." Rolfe caricatured Benson as "The Reverend Bobugo Bonsen, a stuttering little Chrysostom of a priest with the Cambridge manners of Vaughn's Dove, the face of the Mad Hatter out of Alice in Wonderland, and the figure of an Etonian who insanely neglects to take any pains at all with his temple of the Holy Ghost, but wears paper collars and a black straw alpine hat." Biatchiness (seems we have some problems with the site accepting special characters) pervades when he wants it to.

Both Rolfe and Firbank were fascinated by the black and white ink drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. They had a way of writing that reminds one of “overheard conversations.” Both wrote phrases down on strips of paper and pieced things together like a puzzle until they were pleased with what they got.. Firbank wrote in purple ink on lavender on strips of paper. Frederick Rolfe wrote in green and heliotrope inks on sheets of paper and tacked them to his walls and then edited from there. A more modern writer who used somewhat the same technique was American surrealist poet, artist and photographer, Charles Henri Ford

Firbank made cult objects out of fragments of the poetry of Sappho, just as he collected Catholic saints, stained glass windows, famous artists, Russian ballet, classical music, and his collection of Wildean relics and friends. He used Greek and Latin phrases in his stories Ronald Firbank, Part
One and Part Two just as Frederick Rolfe did.

An Irish Catholic, Shane Leslie, wrote the very helpful introduction to this book. It helps that he sums up this elusive and mysterious writer as "never more than a tonsured divinity student or a 'spoilt priest' at most. His 'floruit' [flowering?] can be placed somewhere between the Victorian and Georgian eras, which may count for the complete disregard and disdain he received from critics. Likewise he fell between the Catholic and anti-Catholic stools and as none would own and few would befriend him in life, death brought oblivion to his works and pseudonyms. He was master of the ungentle art of raising enemies, none of whom proved more relentless than himself." What an epitaph.

In a way this was Frederick Rolfe's autobiography. It was a lengthy and fabulous read and I'd certainly recommend it for fantasy lovers. I saw nothing in it that would deter any person with religious beliefs from reading it . . . but I suppose there are some who will be offended. (Dover Publications, ISBN 486-22323-X, 1969).

Other references:

The Quest for Corvo by A.J.A Symons (MacMillan & Co., no ISBN, 1934)

Frederick Rolfe: Baron Corvo, A Biography by Miriam J. Benkovitz (G Punam's Sons, ISBN: 399-12009-2, 1977). Benkovitz has also written a bibliography (1963) and a biography (1970) about Ronald Firbank.

For anyone who wants to look further, I found a very amusing and interesting site on something called Corvo's Syndrome and Papal Authority by James Murray. It's listed at http://jloughnan.tripod.com/corvo.htm and I think it's as much of a spoof of Rolfe/Corvo as anything.

Ed Grover – November 2004


Recommended: Yes