Review
An ingenious account of the strange life of English writer Frederick Rolfe, or Baron Corvo. Emphasising patterns - or terrible recurrences - in his subject's life, Symons reveals the man, his sufferings and his unspeakable sins. (Independent on Sunday )
Product Description
One day in 1925 a friend asked A. J. A. Symons if he had read Fr. Rolfe's Hadrian the Seventh. He hadn't, but soon did, and found himself entranced by the novel—"a masterpiece"—and no less fascinated by the mysterious person of its all-but-forgotten creator. The Quest for Corvo is a hilarious and heartbreaking portrait of the strange Frederick Rolfe, self-appointed Baron Corvo, an artist, writer, and frustrated aspirant to the priesthood with a bottomless talent for self-destruction. But this singular work, subtitled "an experiment in biography," is also a remarkable self-portrait, a study of the obsession and sympathy that inspires the biographer's art.
About the Author
A.J.A. Symons (1900-1941) pursued a wide variety of projects in his short life, writing and editing works on the verse of the 1890s, the history of the Nonesuch Press, and critical studies of various figures of note. He is remembered for his groundbreaking biography of the bizarre genius Baron Corvo and for his own eccentric hobbies, as chronicled in a biography written by his brother, the mystery novelist Julian Symons.
A. S. Byatt's book of essays On Histories and Stories will be published in the US next year. Her new novel, The Biographer's Tale, will be published here in January. (November 2000)
A. S. Byatt's book of essays On Histories and Stories will be published in the US next year. Her new novel, The Biographer's Tale, will be published here in January. (November 2000)
