Лучшие книги Барона Корво

Избранные сочинения славившегося своими эксцентричными выходками Фредерика Роуфа (1860-1913), в том числе знаменитые «Венецианские письма», посвященные красоте каналов, гондол и юных гондольеров.

Никто из английских художников не пишет молодых венецианцев, балансирующих на высокой корме гондолы, скользящей по бескрайним просторам лагуны в молочной белизне рассвета в тот час, когда все что ни есть на свете озарено лучистым сиянием матери всех жемчужин, высвечивающей своими яркими вспышками крепкую молодую плоть и зажигающей в их глазах блеск цвета морской лазури, красящей перламутром волосы их в переливистом, словно песня, белом свечении, отражение которого белой патиной стелется по глади вод; никто не пишет молодых венецианцев, балансирующих на высокой корме гондолы, скользящей по бескрайним просторам лагуны в тот час, когда солнце достигло зенита и все, что не охвачено его слепящей лавиной, сверкает голубизной; никто не пишет ни стройный стан юношей, ни их развитую грудь, балансирующую в воздухе как в россыпи аквамаринов яхонтовое с лазуритом море под исполинским бирюзовым куполом небес; никто не пишет молодых венецианцев, балансирующих на высокой корме гондолы, скользящей по бескрайним просторам лагуны в закатном солнце, высвечивающем их богатырскую силу, как бы парящую в воздухе, напоенном ароматом лаванды и гелиотропа, вдоль ускользающей линии горизонта между небом и морем, то сверкающих россыпью ограненных камней – бесчисленных аметистов и бирюзы небесной, то как будто отлитых из горящей меди с крапинами изумрудов и прожилками той настойчивой, броской голубизны, какой отличается незабудка. Никто всего этого не пишет, никто, кроме меня, не замечает.

Frederick Rolfe, who early in his career also published under the name "Baron Corvo," became famous for his Hadrian the Seventh (1904), in which an Englishman is unexpectedly elected Pope, and later became infamous for his writings on his love for Venetian boys. But it was with the "Toto" stories, first published in John Lane's fin de siecle literary journal The Yellow Book, that Corvo achieved his first and most widespread authorial success. In these tales, an Italian peasant youth ingenuously recounts to his English master six poignant and often funny stories dealing with Heaven, saints, morality, and religion. First published in volume form in 1898 and long out of print, Stories Toto Told Me remains one of the most remarkable achievements of one of the strangest and most talented of English writers. This edition includes a new introduction and extensive annotations by Edmund Miller.

One day George Arthur Rose, hack writer and minor priest, discovers that he has been picked to be Pope. He is hardly surprised and not in the least daunted. "The previous English pontiff was Hadrian the Fourth," he declares. "The present English pontiff is Hadrian the Seventh. It pleases Us; and so, by Our own impulse, We command."Hadrian is conceived in the image of his creator, Fr. Rolfe, whose aristocratic pretensions (he called himself Baron Corvo), religious obsession, and anarchic and self-aggrandizing sensibility have made him known as one of the great English eccentrics. Fr. Rolfe endured a lifetime of indignities and disappointments. However, in the hilarious and touching pages of this, his finest novel, he triumphs.

One of the strangest novels ever written - part daydream, part diatribe and part autobiography - by one of the great eccentrics of English literature
The titlular character of Hadrian the Seventh is inextricably intertwined with his creator, Frederick Rolfe, the self-titled Baron Corvo. Both were Catholic converts and unsuccessful candidates for priesthood, who led bitter, misunderstood lives, betrayed (they thought) by friends, bishops and prelates. Both were at times struggling writers and failed inventors, their brilliance (they believed) insufficiently recognized, who lived alternately extravagantly and in squalor. Rolfe put all his obsessions, all his hate and suffering, his dreams and fantasies into George Arthur Rose, the outcast who through a bizarre sequence of events is elected Pope. Hadrian VII, the first English pontiff in five centuries, is a mass of contradictions: infallible and petulant, ascetic and corrupt, humble and despotic, he empties the Vatican's coffers to feed the poor and reshapes nations in a bid for world peace. With this blend of satire and self-knowledge which runs through the pages of this, his finest novel, Rolfe both vindicates and condemns himself.