Ralph McInerny on Baron Corvo, the “Spoiled Priest”

baron corvo

Lovely talk by the late Ralph McInerny that opens with the vexed question of what one might mean by the “Catholic novel”, an idea deeply complicated by one of my favourite authors, the one and only Frederick Rolfe aka Baron Corvo, “the most anti-Catholic Catholic” (a la Buñuel). If you appreciate transgressive caustic humour (i.e. you are someone that hasn’t been lobotomized by PC fuckwittery) and perhaps you are already a fan of A Confederacy of Dunces, then Hadrian the Seventh will have much resonance. A classic work in its own right is A. J. A. Symons’s subtle biography of Rolfe The Quest for Corvo. It is also thanks to Donald Weeks who meticulously pieced together, insofar as he could, Rolfe’s life.