“He was a confidence-man, pauper, tutor, blackmailer, paedophile, translator – and author of seven novels and a number of short stories. Rolfe was a trickster whose failed life stank to himself as to the few friends whom he had and betrayed. But he was a fascinating figure: a bore, but also a pseudo-Borgian freak whose vindictiveness and paranoia have deservedly become legendary.”

— Frederick Rolfe

Martin Seymour-Smith Guide to Modern World Literature (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1975) vol. 1, pp. 302-3.
Criticism

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Frederick Rolfe 12

British writer, photographer and historian 1860–1913

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