Novel
Hadrian the Seventh
Frederick Rolfe · 1904
Opening lines
What was causing the special correspondents in Rome to exude the subterfuges, with which (as a pis-aller) they are accustomed to gain their daily bread, was no such recondite matter after all.
Text quoted from gutenberg.org
Synopsis
George Arthur Rose, a poor writer who lives alone with his cat, was turned away from the priesthood: dismissed from his college for his strange conduct, he failed again in Rome and has never accepted it. One morning, a cardinal and a bishop come to offer him the Church's apologies; he demands a written apology and enough to pay his debts, and he is offered ordination. They take him to Rome, where the conclave gathered to elect a pope cannot reach agreement and finally turns to him. He accepts and takes the name of the only English pope in history.
Context
The novel grew out of an article its author had written on the conclave charged with electing Leo XIII's successor, and appeared in 1904 from Chatto & Windus; Britannica describes it as an autobiographical fantasy. The book was forgotten; A. J. A. Symons discovered it in 1925, questioned those who had known its author, who had died twelve years earlier, and in 1934 published an inquiry that launched his fame. A play by Peter Luke, drawn in 1968 from the novel and this inquiry, was staged in London and gave the hero his author's name; it was adapted into French in 1970.
Who it is for
Novel translated into French in 1952 by Jules Castier, reissued in paperback in 1991 with a preface by Jean-Jacques Thierry.
Prizes and reception
Thirty-seventh in the Guardian's list of the hundred best novels in English, drawn up in 2014.
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