Frederick Rolfe

Biography

Frederick Rolfe (1860–1913), who styled himself Baron Corvo, was an English writer, artist, and eccentric whose novel Hadrian the Seventh (1904) is one of the most extraordinary works of fantasy autobiography in English. Rolfe was a failed candidate for the Catholic priesthood who spent much of his life in poverty, feuding with patrons and publishers. In Hadrian the Seventh, he imagined himself elected Pope—a wish-fulfillment fantasy that is simultaneously absurd and deeply moving. Rolfe's ornate prose, paranoid personality, and bizarre life have made him a cult figure celebrated by writers including A.J.A. Symons, whose Quest for Corvo is a classic literary biography.