The Quest for Corvo

Author: A. J. A. Symons
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 0241313007
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 290

Book Description
'What had happened to the lost manuscripts, what train of chances took Rolfe to his death in Venice? The Quest continued' One summer afternoon A.J.A. Symons is handed a peculiar, eccentric novel that he cannot forget and, captivated by this unknown masterpiece, determines to learn everything he can about its mysterious author. The object of his search is Frederick Rolfe, self-titled Baron Corvo - artist, rejected candidate for priesthood and author of serially autobiographical fictions - and its story is told in this 'experiment in biography': a beguiling portrait of an insoluble tangle of talents, frustrated ambitions and self-destruction.

The Quest for Corvo

Author: Alphonse James Albert Symons
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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.

Stories Toto Told Me

Author: Frederick Rolfe
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Boys
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Book Description

Ragnarok

Author: A.S. Byatt
Publisher: Canongate Books
ISBN: 184767965X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 124

Book Description
As the bombs rain down in the Second World War, one young girl is evacuated to the English countryside. Struggling to make sense of her new wartime life, she is given a copy of a book of ancient Norse myths and her inner and outer worlds are transformed. Linguistically stunning and imaginatively abundant, Byatt’s mesmerising tale - inspired by the myth of Ragnarok - is a landmark piece of storytelling from one of the world's truly great writers.

Victorians Undone

Author: Kathryn Hughes
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 142142570X
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 441

Book Description
In lively, accessible prose, Victorians Undone fills the space where the body ought to be, proposing new ways of thinking and writing about flesh in the nineteenth century.

Hindoo Holiday

Author: J. R. Ackerley
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590175247
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Book Description
In the 1920s, the young J. R. Ackerley spent several months in India as the personal secretary to the maharajah of a small Indian principality. In his journals, Ackerley recorded the Maharajah’s fantastically eccentric habits and riddling conversations, and the odd shambling day-to-day life of his court. Hindoo Holiday is an intimate and very funny account of an exceedingly strange place, and one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century travel literature.

Destination Saigon

Author: Walter Mason
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
ISBN: 1741768098
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 255

Book Description
Get a taste of the real Vietnam and its people on a sometimes funny, always fascinating journey from the bustling cities to the out of the way villages, into Buddhist monasteries and along the Mekong - a real delight for armchair travellers and those contemplating their own adventure.

Desire and Pursuit of the Whole

Author: Frederick Rolfe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781903933145
Category : Authors, English
Languages : en
Pages : 288

Book Description
This is a description of Venice at the time when it served as an asylum for undesirables from all over Europe, as well as erotic vacation destinations for some, in much the same way Thailand and similar countries are today. It stands as a scurrilous sensual testament to his fervent affection for the physical beauty of the city of Venice. It was first published posthumously in 1934 in a heavily edited version and finally, in an unexpurgated edition by Quartet in 1993. This is the first annotated edition with details of the people libelled in the book.

The Last of the Duchess

Author: Caroline Blackwood
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0345802632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Book Description
In 1980, Lady Caroline Blackwood was commissioned by The Sunday Times to write an article on the aging Duchess of Windsor, who was said to be convalescing in her French mansion in the Bois de Boulogne. Yet what began as a curiosity was to become for Blackwood one of the most challenging experiences of her writing career, launching her into a battle of wits with the Duchess's formidable lawyer, Maître Suzanne Blum. Maître Blum refused to let Blackwood near the Duchess, spinning elaborate excuses as to why she was unavailable and threatening anyone who dared suggest that she was in anything other than the best of health. Still, while Blum's machinations restricted Blackwood's ability to publish a frank interview, it only served to pique her interest in the bizarre relationship between the infamous Duchess—a woman who once inspired a king to abdicate his crown—and her eccentric, domineering gatekeeper. Sixteen years later, Blackwood turned her experiences into this riveting and excoriating modern classic about the frailties of old age, the foibles of society, and the dual-edged nature of celebrity.

Celibacies

Author: Benjamin Kahan
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822377187
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Book Description
In this innovative study, Benjamin Kahan traces the elusive history of modern celibacy. Arguing that celibacy is a distinct sexuality with its own practices and pleasures, Kahan shows it to be much more than the renunciation of sex or a cover for homosexuality. Celibacies focuses on a diverse group of authors, social activists, and artists, spanning from the suffragettes to Henry James, and from the Harlem Renaissance's Father Divine to Andy Warhol. This array of figures reveals the many varieties of celibacy that have until now escaped scholars of literary modernism and sexuality. Ultimately, this book wrests the discussion of celibacy and sexual restraint away from social and religious conservatism, resituating celibacy within a history of political protest and artistic experimentation. Celibacies offers an entirely new perspective on this little-understood sexual identity and initiates a profound reconsideration of the nature and constitution of sexuality.