Book 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.
Quest for Corvo FROM THE PUBLISHER
One day in 1925 a friend asked A. J. A. Symons if he had read Fr. Rolfeﾽs Hadrian the Seventh. He hadnﾽt, but soon did, and found himself entranced by the novelﾽﾽa masterpieceﾽﾽand 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 ﾽan experiment in biography,ﾽ is also a remarkable self-portrait, a study of the obsession and sympathy that inspires the biographerﾽs art.
FROM THE CRITICS
Booknews
This biography of an earlier biographer was written in 1934 by A.J.A. Symons with the goal that it should be as compelling as a detective story. In it Symons tells of his own unearthing of the documents of his very odd subject, Fr. Rolfe (in her introduction, A.S. Byatt quotes Freud's diagnosis of repetition compulsion as a description of Rolfe), his tracking down of betrayed friends and collaborators, and his collusion with other interested parties before he settles in to exploring the lurid details of Rolfe's life as the self-styled "Baron Corvo". Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Kirkus Reviews
To coincide with its republication of "Hadrian the Seventh "(see above), the press has reissued Symons's near-legendary biography of Frederick Rolfe, a work as innovative and unusual as its subject, the slightly demented, perhaps clinically paranoid, Rolfe, whose strange life proposed many unsolved mysteries-these becoming, in part, the inspiration for Symons's detective-like study. As A.S. Byatt (herself a student of the genre) notes in her new introduction, Symons (1900-41) resembled his subject for sheer self-invention; his novelistic approach to biography, too, inspired her in her own work. The only limit on Symons's artistry was a commitment to the facts, though Symons also teased readers brilliantly with gaps left in the life-record, gaps that we now know to be as bad as implied, since Rolfe indulged in pedophilic pornography. In any case, "Kirkus "in 1934 detected a certain "snob appeal" in the "sheer originality of method and fascination of theme" in this unconventional work. We shared in the adventure of Symons's hunt for the facts and marveled at the figure of Rolfe that emerged. Best of all, we felt inspired to seek out as much of Rolfe's work as possible. What more can a biographer hope for?
Art & Photography
Book Info
