Frederick Rolfe

Born in London on July 22, 1860, Frederick William Rolfe was an English writer, artist, and photographer. He converted to Roman Catholicism and twice pursued the priesthood, but neither attempt lasted; that sense of rejection and wounded ambition would echo through much of his writing.

Rolfe is most famous for Hadrian the Seventh (1904), the novel in which a humiliated outsider unexpectedly becomes pope and remakes the world around him. Writing under the name Baron Corvo, he also produced stories, historical works, and travel writing, building a reputation for brilliance, eccentricity, and a style that could be both playful and barbed.

He spent part of his later life in Venice, where he died on October 25, 1913. For years he remained a literary curiosity, but readers kept returning to his unusual voice, and he is now remembered as one of the most distinctive outsiders in English literature.