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'If there be one place in all this orb of earth where a secret is a Secret, that place is a Roman Conclave'

Part novel, part daydream, part diatribe, this strange masterpiece tells the story of George Arthur Rose, a poor, frustrated writer who lives in a shabby bedsit, saving his cigarette ends and eating soup - until one day he is made Pope. As the first English pontiff in five centuries, he is a mass of contradictions: infallible and petulant, humble and despotic. Yet Hadrian the Seventh is really a knowing self-portrait of its flamboyant author Baron Corvo, a would-be priest with aristocratic pretensions, and one of the greatest eccentrics of English literature. Extraordinarily alive ... a first-rate book -- D.H. Lawrence One of the most extraordinary achievements in English literature -- A.J.A. Symons A brilliant fantasy self-portrait * London Review of Books * A novel like no other * Weekly Standard *

Hadrian the Seventh