SYMONS, A.J.A.
The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography.
London: Cassell & Co., 1934.
$300.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-153045
+$500
First Edition of A.J.A. Symons' The Quest for Corvo
First edition of A.J.A. Symons's celebrated experiment in biography, his ingenious pursuit of the strange and gifted writer Frederick Rolfe, the self-styled Baron Corvo, told as a detective-like quest to reconstruct an elusive life. Octavo, original cloth with gilt titles to the spine, top stain red. Near fine in the original price-clipped dust jacket in very good condition.
The Quest for Corvo (1934) is A.J.A. Symons's classic account of his obsessive search to uncover the life of Frederick Rolfe (1860-1913), the eccentric and quarrelsome English writer who styled himself Baron Corvo and produced the novel Hadrian the Seventh. Rather than a conventional life, Symons cast the book as an experiment in biography, narrating his own investigation, the false trails and chance discoveries, and the gradual emergence of his difficult subject through letters and the recollections of those who had known him. Widely regarded as a masterpiece of the form, it has remained in print and influential ever since, admired for turning the labor of research itself into a compelling story.
The Quest for Corvo: An Experiment in Biography.
$300.00
In Stock