[ROLFE, Frederick William, Baron Corvo.] Tarcissus: The Boy Martyr of Rome in the Diocletian Persecution A.D. CCCIII. [n.p.: n.n. 1970?]
16mo (119 x 90 mm). Original grey card wrappers printed in black, title on front wrapper within double ruled border; pp. [2], 5-9, [1]; a couple of light creases to wrappers, otherwise fine.
Facsimile edition of the first edition, first printing of Rolfe’s first published book.
Frederick William Rolfe (1860-1913), styled Baron Corvo, was an English writer, painter and photographer whose turbulent life was marked by failed religious aspirations, financial instability, and heterodox behaviour. His most famous work, Hadrian the Seventh (1904), earned him the posthumous praise of D.H. Lawrence, W.H. Auden, and Graham Greene.
First published in 1880, the poem recounts the story of the “dear brave boy” Tarcissus who was martyred in the third century, beaten to death by a crowd whilst carrying the Blessed Sacraments. “The fact that [boy martyrs] was a favourite [subject] of poetic pederasts in Rolfe’s time invites speculation, especially in view of the fact that the subject matter of Rolfe’s fiction was usually coloured by homosexuality” (Benkovitz, p. 11).
This facsimile, printed in a time or revived interest in Rolfe’s oeuvre, is not to be confused with the foolscap quarto facsimile edition described by Woolf (A1b).
See Benkovitz, Frederick Rolfe: Baron Corvo, 1977.
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