Books

First edition, first impression, first issue, with the decoration on the front cover in white and 32 pages of publisher's advertisements bound-in at rear. "Rolfe's most successful work, Hadrian the Seventh, was published in 1904. A combination of thinly veiled autobiography and wish-fulfilment fantasy, it charts the rise to pope of a forlorn seminary drop-out. It is a bizarre if masterful document of exotic descriptions, erudite vocabulary, and obscure scholarship, which situates Rolfe firmly in traditions of fin de siècle decadence. Translated into French and Italian, and ultimately adapted for the stage, it earned Rolfe the posthumous praise of D. H. Lawrence, W. H. Auden, and Graham Greene" (ODNB). Octavo. Original purple boards, spine lettered in gilt, front cover lettered and decorated in white. Bookseller's label to front pastedown. Extremities very lightly bumped and rubbed, a near-fine copy. Woolf A6a.

A novel detailing the fantastical account of an Englishman who is unexpectedly elected as Pope.