![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Frederick William Rolfe, better known as Baron Corvo, and also calling himself 'Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe', (July 22, 1860 - October 25, 1913), was an English writer, artist, photographer and eccentric. His heavily autobiographical fictions are milestones in the history of life-writing, and literary historians have begun to acknowledge these works as among the precursors of modernism.Rolfe was born in Cheapside, London, the son of a piano manufacturer; he left school at the age of fourteen and became a teacher.
He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1886 and was confirmed by Cardinal Manning. With his conversion came a strongly felt vocation to priesthood which persisted throughout his life despite being constantly frustrated and never realised. In 1887 he was sponsored to train at St Mary's College, Oscott near Birmingham and in 1889 was a student at the Scots College in Rome, but was thrown out by both due to his inability to concentrate on priestly studies and his erratic behaviour.
At this stage he entered the circle of the Duchess Sforza Cesarini, who, he claimed, adopted him as a grandson and gave him the use of the title of "Baron Corvo". This became his best-known pseudonym; he also called himself "Frank English", "Frederick Austin", "A. Crab Maid", and several other pseudonyms. More often he abbreviated his own name to "Fr. Rolfe" (an ambiguous usage, suggesting he was the priest he had hoped to become).
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. But he had an argumentative nature and had a tendency to fall out spectacularly with most of the people who tried to help him and offer him food and board. Eventually, out of money and out of luck, he died in Venice from a stroke on October 25, 1913. He was buried on the Isola di San Michele, Venice.
( Read more... )
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Rolfe
( Further Readings )
A shapeshifter grey wolf falling in love for a shapeshifter white lamb? The odd pair was a sure titillating push for me to read this novel as soon as it was out. Of course, due not only to the inter-breed romance, but also to the same-sex relationship, it was due that the reason why wolf Brody is fatally attracted by lamb Carson is the mate bond. From what I understand, Brody was not gay, he is simply answering to the mate calling, and the fact that Carson is a man and a prey it’s not enough to discourage him. On the other side, young Carson is a virgin, and actually he thinks at himself like asexual: at 20 years old he has not yet developed into a ram and he will probably always remain a lamb.
A shapeshifter grey wolf falling in love for a shapeshifter white lamb? The odd pair was a sure titillating push for me to read this novel as soon as it was out. Of course, due not only to the inter-breed romance, but also to the same-sex relationship, it was due that the reason why wolf Brody is fatally attracted by lamb Carson is the mate bond. From what I understand, Brody was not gay, he is simply answering to the mate calling, and the fact that Carson is a man and a prey it’s not enough to discourage him. On the other side, young Carson is a virgin, and actually he thinks at himself like asexual: at 20 years old he has not yet developed into a ram and he will probably always remain a lamb.