Hadrian the Seventh (Summarized Edition): Enriched edition. An English Pope's spiritual ascent amid conclave drama: divine inspiration, church machinations, and Vatican politics in a religious fantasy
Frederick Rolfe
Jan 2026 · Quickie Classics
Ebook
161
Pages
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About this ebook
First published in 1904, Hadrian the Seventh imagines the thwarted Englishman George Arthur Rose unexpectedly elected pope and, as Hadrian VII, reforming Church and world with dazzling audacity. Rolfe's baroque, liturgy-saturated prose fuses satire, revenge fantasy, and punctilious canon-law detail. The novel stands between fin-de-siècle decadence and early modernism, anticipating autofiction and camp ecclesial comedy. Frederick Rolfe—self-styled Baron Corvo—was a Catholic convert repeatedly thwarted in clerical training, quarrelsome with patrons, and chronically poor. His wounded vocation and ferocious self-mythologizing shape the book: George Arthur Rose is an unmistakable alter ego, endowed with Rolfe's fastidious Latinity, exacting aesthetic tastes, and desire to discipline a world that had humiliated him. Hadrian the Seventh deserves readers of ecclesiastical history, satire, and decadent letters alike. Come for glittering sentences and procedural verisimilitude; stay for an unnervingly intimate study of charisma, ressentiment, and reforming zeal. Few novels clarify so crisply why authority enthralls—and corrodes—the souls that crave it, or make grievance so disturbingly entertaining. Quickie Classics summarizes timeless works with precision, preserving the author's voice and keeping the prose clear, fast, and readable—distilled, never diluted. Enriched Edition extras: Introduction · Synopsis · Historical Context · Brief Analysis · 4 Reflection Q&As · Editorial Footnotes.
First published in 1904, Hadrian the Seventh imagines the thwarted Englishman George Arthur Rose unexpectedly elected pope and, as Hadrian VII, reforming Church and world with dazzling audacity. Rolfe's baroque, liturgy-saturated prose fuses satire, revenge fantasy, and punctilious canon-law deta...
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About the author
Frederick Rolfe (1860-1913), better known as Baron Corvo, was an English writer, artist, photographer and eccentric. Rolfe spent most of his life as a freelance writer, mainly in England but eventually in Venice. He lived in the era before the welfare state, and relied on benefactors for support.
Frederick Rolfe (1860-1913), better known as Baron Corvo, was an English writer, artist, photographer and eccentric. Rolfe spent most of his life as a freelance writer, mainly in England but eventually in Venice. He lived in the era before the welfare state, and relied on benefactors for support.
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