Nicholas Crabbe - Fr. Rolfe (Baron Corvo) (Chatto & Windus, First Edition, 1958)

This Chatto & Windus first edition (1958) is of interest to collectors of Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo), Edwardian literary curiosities, and hitherto unpublished manuscripts of significance.

About: First and only edition of this previously unpublished autobiographical novel by Frederick Rolfe, self-styled Baron Corvo — printed for the first time from the typescript in the Walpole Collection of the Bodleian Library, Oxford. With an introduction by Cecil Woell, author of A Bibliography of Frederick Rolfe, identifying the many personalities in the literary circle of the nineties upon whom Rolfe drew for his principal characters. The dust jacket, though tanned and worn at the extremities, is present — a significant point for a title of this scarcity. Original price 21s net.

Details:

• Title: Nicholas Crabbe
• Author: Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo)
• Publisher: Chatto & Windus, London
• Publication Date: 1958
• Edition: 1st Edition (first publication)
• Binding: Hardcover
• Introduction: Cecil Woell
• Source: Printed from the Walpole Collection typescript, Bodleian Library
• Dust Jacket Condition: Good - tanned, foxed, chipped to spine ends and corners; present

Synopsis: First publication of Rolfe's hitherto unpublished autobiographical novel, printed from the Bodleian Library typescript. With introduction by Cecil Woell. A rare and significant Corvo title, desirable for collectors of Edwardian literary eccentrics and the Chatto & Windus imprint.

Review: Frederick Rolfe, aka Baron Corvo, is one of the most singular and compelling figures in English literary history: a failed priest, fantasist, and prose stylist of extraordinary idiosyncrasy, immortalised by A. J. A. Symons in The Quest for Corvo (1934). Nicholas Crabbe, written c.1905 and unpublished in Rolfe's lifetime, is a thinly disguised autobiographical fiction recounting four dreadful years in London, a mixture of self-analysis, wish-fulfilment, starkest realism, and wildest fantasy. Bizarre, tragic, naïve, and subtle by turn, it is one of the most singular books this strange man ever wrote.