The Quest For Corvo

(Paperback, Main)

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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 be priesthood with a bottomless talent for self-destruction. But this singular work, sutitled 'an experiment in biography', is also a remarkable self-portrait, a study of the obsession and sympathy that inspires the biographer's art.

Reviews

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

Author Bio

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.