English novelist and eccentric. Rolfe, whose pen name was Baron Corvo, authored numerous books and stories. Amongst the most famous are the Toto stories, HADRIAN THE SEVENTH, called by some the greatest eccliastical novel ever to be written, and the masterpiece THE DESIRE AND PURSUIT OF THE WHOLE. To say that Rolfe was at times eccentric, acerbic and petulant is understatement, but he was also an excellent story teller, conversationalist and amateur athlete. His life of trials and tribulations ended in 1913, when he died at the age of 44.

Primarily correspondence between Frederick William Rolfe and John Lane, whose Bodley Head published many of the leading writers of the 1890s. Most of the correspondence has been published in WITHOUT PREJUDICE: ONE HUNDRED LETTERS FROM FREDERICK WILLIAM ROLFE <BARON CORVO> TO JOHN LANE. There are also letters written by Rolfe to Grant Richards; H. J. Jenkins; Frederic Chapman; C.B. Darcy; and Edward Slaughter. The majority of the letters pertain to the publishing of Rolf's translation of the RUBAIYAT