Hadrian the Seventh (Annotated)

Frederick Rolfe's Hadrian the Seventh (1904) is a singular fantasy of ecclesiastical power, psychological revenge, and spiritual self-fashioning. Its hero, George Arthur Rose, an impoverished Englishman denied the priesthood, is unexpectedly elevated to the papacy and becomes Hadrian VII. Written in a richly mannered, baroque prose, the novel mingles Catholic ceremonial, political speculation, sat...