Maatstaf. Jaargang 26

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Donald Weeks How Biographical History Is Made

The advent of Hadrian the Seventh being translated into Dutch almost three-quarters of a century after its first English publication in 1904 should be welcomed with ceremony. This is the third translation of Frederick Rolfe's celebrated novel. (The play, Hadrian vii, has been printed in England, the U.S.A., France, Italy and Argentina.) It appeared in France and Italy, each in 1952, but, in each case, in a translation inferior to the Dutch one. Hadrian was composed in a welter of words and names uncommon to the general reader of today, or, even in some degree, in 1904. Names used in the book were derived from several sources and times. Words include slang, the archaic, the erudite or the hybrid. In the French and Italian translations, no care was taken to delve into Rolfe's own literary world and solve the meaning of the words found in his work. ‘Unexplained’ words were merely translated with a somewhat literal meaning, done from imagination on the part of the translator rather than from investigation intro true definitions. Just one example will suffice illustration here. On an early page in the book, George Arthur Rose describes the decorated walls of his small attic room, which includes a picture of ‘an unknown Rugger xv,’ translated into Italian as ‘un ignoto Ruggero xv’ - no doubt some obscure Norman king. In fact, it pertains to the English sport of Rugby, a football game made up of 15 players per team, the ‘Rugger xv’ being the fifteenth player: a full-back, the most responsible and individual man on the team. The Dutch translation falls into no such traps of Rolfe's unfamiliar prose. Yet, France and Italy were not alone in producing a ‘faulty translation’. In 1964, the English Penguin paperback of Hadrian can be called (although the book was unheralded as such) the Revised Version of Rolfe's novel. It modernized spellings of Rolfe's words (‘Kelt,’ ‘Kasan,’ ‘Tzar’ become ‘Celt,’ ‘Kazan,’ ‘Tsar’) and even ‘retold’ one story within the book - the story about Edward iii and the Burghers of Calais (1347). In addressing his queen, Edward says, in Rolfe's rendition: ‘Dam, I can deny you nothing, but I wish you had been otherwhere.’ ‘Dam’ is Rolfe's archaic spelling of ‘Dame’ (‘Mistress’ then, ‘Madam’ today). The 1904 Penguin gives the reading: ‘Damn, I can deny you nothing...’

1978 seems to be auspicious for Hadrian. A paperback of the novel was just published in England by Picador. There is no added material; but, as part of the blurb on the back cover, there are these two sentences: ‘He died in poverty in Venice in 1913’ - which is untrue - and ‘It is a story of a shabby outcast, living amidst reduced circumstances in a London slum.’ In 1903, Rolfe could have been called ‘a shabby outcast’. He was ‘living amidst reduced circumstances’. However, Broadhurst Gardens in West Hampstead was never ‘a London slum’. The same blurb adds that ‘Hadrian the Seventh reflects the life and fantasies of its author,’ which is true. Yet, a proper understanding of Rolfe's life has to be developed by any reader (or student) of him

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and his work. His life is as fragile as his stories and has to be looked upon with a proper reverence and balance. This being said, it can be added that a Revised Version of his life was brought out (in England and America) a year ago. It also can be called a Biography of the Absurd, written by a now-retired American schoolmarm in the American academic ‘publish-or-be-damned’ atmosphere. This biography could be prefaced with the verses:

I shot some errors into the air,
And where they fell, I do not care.

Frederick Rolfe: Baron Corvo by Miriam Benkovitz (Hamish Hamilton, London; Putnam, New York; 1977) also could have borrowed the following from Lewis Caroll:

The Bellman: ‘What I tell you three times is true.’

The Hunting of the Snark

The history of Frederick Rolfe's In His Own Image (1901) is related in his Nicholas Crabbe (completed in 1904 but not published until 1958), dealing with his literary life in London mostly during 1899-1901. The book was intended to have Henry Harland and his wife as its co-dedicatees before Harland refused the honour. On 1 April 1901, in a short letter to John Lane, the book's publisher, Rolfe wrote one sentence: ‘After Harland's libellous statements to the Hannays; and his threat about the Newspaper Black List; I think it a pity to neglect any chance of procuring a favourable notice [of In His Own Image].’

Clairvoyancy is not yet accepted as an exact science. Nor should a biographer employ it. Yet Cecil Woolf wrote a note to the above letter in Without Prejudice (Allen Lane, 1963): ‘James Hannay, the editor of the Daily Telegraph, and his wife Margaret, were friends of the Harlands. According to Nicholas Crabbe in which the Hannays appear under the name of “Arkush and Alys Annaly”...’

(In Crabbe, the mentioned editor is linked with the expression ‘historical accuracy’!) In Rolfe's letter there was no first name given for either Hannay or his wife.

Columbia Library Columns (Columbia University, New York, February 1976) contains ‘Arthur Stedman and Frederick Rolfe, Baron Corvo’ by Miriam Benkovitz. Writing of the London of 1899 and the guest at the Harlands' flat in Cromwell Road, she Includes ‘James Hannay, editor of the Daily Telegraph, and his wife Margaret’.

Covering the same period in her book, Frederick Rolfe: Baron Corvo, she continues about Rolfe: ‘There were invitations to dinner with the Harlands and with James Hannay, editor of the Daily Telegraph, and his wife Margaret’ (p. 114). About In His Own Image, she adds: ‘The book carried a dedication to Henry and Aline Harland and James and Margaret Hannay “in acknowledgement of hospitality”’ (p. 122). For the reason given below, the clc article states that ‘Rolfe immediately withdrew the dedication of In His Own Image to the Harlands and the James Hannays ...and thus ended Rolfe's relations with Hannay, the Harlands, and their friends’. (In Crabbe, the book was to be dedicated to the Harlands and ‘Arkush and Alys Annaly’). To reinforce her story in her book, Miss Benkovitz says: ‘Rolfe wrote to Hannay, allowing him to refuse the dedication, an opportunity which Hannay welcomed’ (p. 122). She gives as her source a letter written by Rolfe to Stedman, 4 June 1901. The significant paragraph of this letter is: ‘H. Harland proclaimed my book in m.s. to be [pederastic]; minated the closing of his door to me, and my name on the newspaper Black List, unless I altered it. I refused to alter a comma. I have not seen H. Harland during eighteen months: nor has be been urbane enough to render an action of grace for the copy of the said bood which was sent to him on publication.’ There is no mention of Hannay in this letter. Nor did Rolfe ever write

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to or of a James Hannay. (In the confused state of a biographer writing under the ‘publish-or-be-damned’ principle, confidence can be gained with a ‘solid foundation’ of Notes. Miss Benkovitz's book has 1,076 Notes over 35 pages - be they right or wrong.)

In 1899, there was no person named Hannay on the payroll of The Daily Telegraph in London in any capacity (as noted in my Corvo, 1971, pp. 417-8). At the same time, there was a James Hannay who was married to a Margaret and who also was editor of a Daily Telegraph - in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. (See any Who's Who back to 1899 and Who Was Who, 1897-1915.) And his only ‘sea voyage’ away from Canada was to Philadelphia in 1908. How then could this Canadian historian have known the Harlands in London or have been intimate enough with Rolfe to figure in the dedication of In His Own Image?

As if each were a human magnet, Rolfe was drawn to solicitors. In his own hand, the Hannays in his letter to John Lane were meant to be Alexander Arnold and Alice Mary Hannay of North London. Hannay's solicitor's office was at 54-55 Coleman Street in the City, and he continued to send remittances to Rolfe during the latter's stay in Venice.

One name is missing from the aknowledgements tot fr:bc, a person of whom Miss Benkovitz is a pious pupil. This is Cecil Woolf. And with a conjurer's twist of the wrist he has been able to change the Annalys into different people. In his Introduction and notes to Nicholas Crabbe, he claims them to be none other than E. Nesbit and her husband Hubert Bland. In her book, Miss Benkovitz writes of the Annalys-hosted party in Crabbe, first setting it in ‘a garden in Kensington’ (p. 166) and then ‘at the Blands' home in Eltham, Well Hall’ (p. 271). She names as Rolfe's hosts ‘the Arkush Annalys, by whom is meant Edith [“Evelyn” in proof] Nesbit, author of books for children, and her husband Hubert Bland’ (p. 166). She gives no evidence for this identification - in all her 1,076 Notes.

The hostess in Crabbe is ‘a lovely Frenchwoman’ and ‘wife of the editor of the Daily Anagraph,’ with ‘voice and accent and broken English bewilderingly pretty’ - hardly a description of E. Nesbit. The host, Rolfe writes, is ‘an emaciated Sims Reeves minus the moustachio and plus a little iron-grey lip-turf’. Bland's face was always adorned with a Kaiser Bill moustache and monocle, remarkably resembling Sir Squire Bancroft, who with Reeves, was a leading actor at the time. Bland was never editor of any newspaper. Rolfe was an indefatigable writer of repetition which was always consistent. In Hadrian, Rose-Rolfe ‘once innocently asked’ the editor of the Daily Anagraph ‘whether historical accuracy came within the scope of a Radical periodical. That was years ago, at the time of the second Dreyfus case.’ In almost the same words, the story is retold in Crabbe, this time with Rolfe naming Arkush Annaly as the editor of the Daily Anagraph. Op 25 September 1903, Rolfe wrote to Henry Newbolt that he had once offended W.J. Fisher, editor of The Daily Chronicle, by offering to correct that paper's account of the ‘case of the Dreyfus Parallel’ in 1899. The Daily Anagraph, then, was not The Daily Telegraph but The Daily Chronicle - which was considered Radical by contemporaries and was read by Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes' partner. At the 1899 party descriped in Crabbe, the John Lanes and the Harlands were present, yet neither knew the Blands socially. Instead of the Blands of a later date in Crabbe he intended Arkush (a crustacean, ‘plentiful in Mediterranean fish markets,’ a probably reference to Fisher's once being the foreign editor for The Chronicle) Annaly (‘to alienate,’ Oxford English Dictionary) and Alys to be William James Fisher and his French wife Adrienne (née Dairolles). In Hadrian, Dr. Courtleigh (Cardinal Vaughan of Westminster) finds his ‘way back to Pimlico’ and ‘the Bishop of

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Lambeth’ was in fact that prelate of Southwark. In each case, Rolfe used one London borough next to the original.

Hadrian was written before mid-1903, and Crabbe by mid-1904 - before Rolfe had yet met the Blands, which was after mid-1905. In so recent a book as Hadrian, Rolfe had already used a Pimlico locale. So Kensington was named in Crabbe for the place of the garden party, although in actuality it took place at the Fishers' home, 88 St. George's Square, Pimlico. In Crabbe, ‘Annaly had been tapping’ Crabbe's-Rolfe's ‘store of knowledge of precious stones’. Fisher collected diamonds, pearls, rubies, etc. Relating Fisher with a crustacean is indeed interesting, especially in light of the fact that, on one page in Hadrian, Rolfe mentions both the Daily Anagraph and ‘Fleet Street fishers’. Another parallel between the Daily Anagraph and The Daily Cronicle occurs in Crabbe and Hadrian. In Crabbe, Crabbe-Rolfe speaks of the editor of the Daily Anagraph damning his Chronicles of the House of Borgia, which took place in The Daily Chronicle on 20 December 1901, with an oblique allusion to its author appearing as a Machiavelli. In Hadrian, Hadrian-Rolfe canonizes ‘Madame Jehane de Lys’ and says that, in so doing, ‘the Daily Anagraph compared Him to Machiavelli’. One coincidence of 1899 which has certainly not been unearthed by either Woolf or Miss Benkovitz is the fact that a James Hannay lived in St. George's Square - at No. 113. He was a magistrate at Marlborough Street Police Court.

That Harland was a friend of Fisher and even occasionally wrote for The Daily Chronicle is knowledge which makes significant understanding in Rolfe's work. In his ‘Machiavelli's Despatches From the South African Campaign’ (a ‘Review of Unwritten Books,’ The Monthly Review, February 1903), Rolfe speaks of Harland in connection with the Clerkenwell News. By itself, the name is meaningless, but the full name of Fisher's newspaper was The Daily Cronicle and Clerkenwell News. In fr:bc, it is categorically said that ‘Rolfe never forgave Harland’ after the above-mentioned incident in 1900. Rolfe did forgive Harland, as is evident by reviews of two of Harland's books (The Outlook, 26 May 1900 and 10 May 1902) and by naming Harland in several of his books, including The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole, written at least four years after Harland's death. In two issues of Notes and Queries of 1903, Rolfe freely advertised Harland's new book, My Friend Prospero, by saying that Harland writes in it: ‘In the spirited phrase of Corvo, “here came my Lord the sun”.’ (Part of the 1978 advertising campaign for Kellog's Corn Flakes in England is the line: ‘Here comes the sun!’) Rolfe also wrote the following in his commonplace book, coupling Harland's name with Trevor Haddon's which could only have been done after 1900:

	Viro integerrimo
Henrico Harland Scriptori		Trevor Haddon Artifici
	venerabunde cogitabunde ddd

- perhaps an indication for a dedication to another book, which might have been his Don Renato, which was ready for a publisher at the time. (The printed novel of 1909 contained only ‘Divo Amico/Ignoto/Desideratissimo’ as a dedication - at a time when Harland was no longer alive, but the Epist)es Dedicatory are addressed to Trevor Haddon. Miss Benkovitz never saw, or even asked to see, Rolfe's commonplace book. In her biography, she speaks of the unpublished version of Don Tarquino, adding in her Notes: ‘The manuscript is apparendy lost.’ The manuscript is in my collection and, in fact, its cover, designed by Rolfe, is illustrated in my Corvo of 1971.) Ever since The Quest for Corvo (1934), Rolfe has been branded a homosexual However, even A.J.A. Symons listed Rolfe's

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homosexuality to a short period in Venice, 1900-1910. Now Miss Benkovitz comes along and absolutely includes London in Rolfe's scope of that vice. Speaking of 1899, or even of the 1899-1904 period, she writes:

‘Occasionally, Rolfe invaded the Queen's Theatre, a favourite of London homosexuals whose preferred ticket was for standing room only in the balcony’ (p. 114). But what Queen's Theatre of 1899-1904 is meant? The Queen's Theatre, Long Acre (in which street his mother once lived), closed in January 1879. And the next Queen's Theatre in London was in Shaftesbury Avenue, which did not open until October 1907, when Rolfe was living in South Wales, his last stopping-off place before he left for Venice in 1908. Needless to say, this theatre is not identified in the copious Notes to fr:bc.

One question which forcibly comes to mind is: What is the publisher's role in distributing his products to the public? Today there are governmental laws regulating the purity of merchandise for both health and moral reasons. But what screening law does a publisher set for himself? By no means are all non-fiction books to be eyed with suspicion, but one like fr:bc is the bad apple in the bushel. Rather than any serious approach to history, it is a personification of the dictates of the American Academe world. But an effort toward serious history cannot simply be presented with a mass of Notes. Miss Benkovitz has done an admiral job in recording letters by or about Rolfe. She has made a pilgrimage to all the known repositories of such material. Beyond this, she has done no original research. In one case, she says that on 2 April 1899 Rolfe's article ‘When the Pope Dies’ was printed in The (New York) World. Although he had written ‘six or more special articles,’ she goes on, ‘Only the article on the Papal Conclave was published’ (p. iii). This again is based on Woolf. After 15 years of gestation, his revised Bibliography of Frederick Rolfe (Rupert Hart-David, 1972) has only ‘When

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the Pope Dies’ recorded as item C 77.1. As for other pieces in The World, he says: ‘I have been at some pains to identify them, but the only one so far discovered is When the Pope Dies, published on 2 April 1899.’ It would be interesting to know how far those ‘pains’ had been extended, especially as there is no file of The (New York) World in the British Isles. He actually had not far to look, for what was printed in The (New York) Sunday World on 9 April 1899 but ‘A Pope's Coronation’ - ‘by the same author [of] “When the Pope Dies”’! Others followed.

The purpose of footnote material is two-fold: first, to assist the writer to assemble a portion of the general story, and then to enlighten the reader as a particular source of information. Instead of all of them adding credence to fr:bc, some depict the writer's full-flung imagination. While Rolfe was at Christchurch in 1891, it is said: ‘Henry Tuke... visited the Gleeson Whites regularly’ (p. 50). How ‘regularly’ were his visits? He lived and painted in Falmouth and would hardly have dropped in on the Whites in any casual manner, especially considering the travelling time and train manoeuvering in 1890-1. Neither would he have gone to Christchurch if White himself were not there, and White was away in New York for most of 1891. The source for this statement is: ‘Maria Tuke Sainsbury, Henry Scott Tuke, London, 1933, pp. 90-1.’ This reference merely reads: ‘In May [1890] a short visit to the Gleeson Whites’ at Christchurch introduced [Tuke] to that curious man, author and artist, Frederick Rolfe (“Baron Corvo”), whose unexpectedly realistic fresco still adorns the little Catholic church there.’ So, Miss Benkovitz stretched Tuke's ‘short visit’ to read ‘regularly,’ even though the ‘short visit’ was in 1890 - while Rolfe was still in Rome! How, then, could Tuke, at Falmouth or Christchurch, have met ‘Baron Corvo’? There is no evidence that they met, although they did correspond. Also, the mural (and not ‘fresco’) at ‘the little Catholic church’ was executed only in 1910 and not by Rolfe, who then was living in Venice. On another page, she says that Tuke's painting, The Bathers, was admired by Kains-Jackson and White. They did admire The Bathers, but the one by Frederick Walker, as attested to in Kains-Jackson's Artist and in an article on Walker by White in The Art Amateur, August 1891. fr:bc is also the only book to date which puts Gleeson White's name under G in the Index, instead of under W, where it belongs.

One edition of The Quest for Corvo includes a photograph of Rolfe ‘sitting to Covelli, Venice 1913’. In his Introduction to Letters to Leonard Moore (Nicholas Vane, 1960), Woolf again adds to what had been previously printed by saying: ‘In February 1913, he sat to the Italian painter, Gaele Covelli’ and gives the painter's dates as ‘1872 - ca 1940’. This sentence is followed by: ‘A photograph of the artist at work on his canvas, which depicts Rolfe in the robes of a Prince of the Catholic Church, is reproduced in a recent edition of The Quest (The Folio Society, 1952).’ This same photograph appears in my Corvo and shows Rolfe being painted in an every-day suit, starched collar and tie. In repeating this, Miss Benkovitz poses a question of time. In mid-1912: ‘He had his portrait painted, going in his best suit to sit for Covelli’ (p. 283). Yet two pages later: ‘In February 1913, he had commenced sitting to Covelli for his portrait; at that time paying for it was uncertain, but, counting on his reputation for “lavish living to get him through,” Rolfe allowed Covelli to complete his portrait.’ For reference, she cites: ‘Covelli had the portrait in England in 1915, when he attempted to sell it. Cf. Robert Cust to A.T. Bartholomew, Hampstead, 12 May 1919.’ In fact, this letter reads: ‘Not long before the War a young Italian friend of mine asked leave to bring a painter friend of his to call on me... This man had painted a portrait of Corvo in a red robe which had never been paid for and was actually in England in pawn

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waiting for a purchaser.’ There is no mention of Covelli's name and a ‘portrait of Corvo in a red robe’ was certainly not Covelli's painting of Rolfe in a business suit. So, how was the last sentence formulated in the text quoted above, in the light of the source to which it refers?

In my Corvo the February 1913 is used. This is one of the extremely few points in which the book took for granted something which had already been printed and made no further research. Later, however, the date was found to be in error. Rolfe sat for Covelli - at Florence and in mid-1912 - at a time he was affluent and when paying for it was most certain. Neither the portrait was painted in 1913 nor was the painter ever in England, and for the very simple reason that Gaele Covelli died at Florence in December 1912.

A publisher is only human and, therefore, not omnipotent. Yet he should employ proofreaders to assure textual reliability and continuity. fr:bc shows the lack of such a practice. The name Vaughan appears three times in the book. ‘Herbert Alford Vaughan,’ instead of Alfred, appears on p. 58. On p. 71, he is ‘Hubert [“Henry” in the proof - Henry Vaughan being an English metaphysical poet, 1622-95] Vaughan, Archbishop of Canterbury [Anglican],’ instead of Herbert Vaughan, Archbishop of Westminster (Catholic). And, instead of Cardinal, he is ‘Archbishop Vaughan’ on p. 193, relating to the year 1906 - when he had died in 1903. To use an Americanism, ‘Three strikes and you're out of the old ball game!’ Perhaps the author of fr:bc was thinking in her native environment when she wrote another name. Instead of Rushforth, it comes out Rushmore (pp. 156, 247) - as in Mount Rushmore? Percival O'Sullivan, the younger and not older brother of Vincent on p. 22 and the Index becomes Percy (his correct name) on p. 158. (Rolfe had met Percy at Oscott, his first Catholic seminary, and elevated him above all other prelates in Hadrian. At the same time he was composing Hadrian, Rolfe told a correspondent that he was ‘desparately in fear of Catholicks; never (with one exception), in a long & varied experience, having met one who was not a Slander..., or an Oppressor of the Poor..., or a Liar... The exception was an American who passed out of my life in 1888. He was the most exquisitely beautiful boy, body & soul, (with the most exquisitely horrible voice,) I ever met... His name was Percy O'Sullivan.’ And, in Hadrian, he becomes Cardinal Percy Van Kristen. Employing his use of archaic spelling (which he learned from Vincent), Rolfe used k instead of ch, so that ‘Kristen’ becomes ‘Christian’. Adding the ‘Van’ meant that Rolfe endowed him with a note of nobility as well.) There is also the freudian slip - on p. 166: ‘The portrait of Edward Savage as Neddy Carnage [in Crabbe] is caricature.’ But Neddy Carnage was Edward Slaughter. Rolfe was inspired into this play on names by a Wordsworth ‘Ode’ of 18 January 1816:

But thy most dreaded instrument,
In working out a pure intent,
Is Man - arrayed for mutual slaughter, -
Yea, Carnage is thy daughter!

(‘Savage’ appears on pp. 121 and 166 in the English edition. A correction was made for the Americain edition to read ‘Slaughter’ - on p. 121 only! But none of the other errors named were corrected, although Miss Benkovitz knew of them before the American edition was printed.)

Throughout fr:bc, ages, dates and relationships are wrongly given. Gleeson White's wife's name through the book is given as Nancy, when she actually was named Annie Matilda.

In 1891, when Rolfe knew her (in Hadrian she is both a woman Rose-Rolfe knew ‘About fourteen years ago... whose husband was a great friend of mine’ and Mrs. Crowe), he also met a Nancy - Nancy D'Anvers who also

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wrote under the name of Nancy Bell, her married name. Miss Benkovitz has this to say about her: ‘In 1891, Mrs. Bell was at work on a book having to do with Rome. What was more natural than that Rolfe should spend long nostalgic hours helping her?’ This is one instance where the biographer's mind engenders a fervent imagination. In 1891, Nancy D'Anvers was solely and completely employed on the translation of Nadaillac's lengthy tome, Manners and Monuments of Prehistoric People, to be published in 1892. The only books in which she had to do ‘whith Rome’ was her translation of Schoener's Rome, published in 1898. What Miss Benkovitz had in mind here, no doubt, was Nancy Bell's Tourist's Art Guide to Europe, which appeared in 1893, long after Rolfe had left Christchurch and which bears not one sentence, not one phrase, not one word which can be attributed to him. Another lack of scholarship or original between Christchurch of 1891 and Hadrian. As one of Rolfe's ‘pseudonyms or techniknyms’ (which is spelled ‘technikryms’ in fr:bc) in Hadrian, Hadrian-Rolfe gives Austin White (Austin being the surname Rolfe used for four years in Holywell) and Whyte, a pseudonym he used at least once while in Holywell. If Rolfe used White (or Whyte), it is also interesting to note that Annie Matilda's maiden name was Rose - Hadrian's surname before his elevation to pope. In Hadrian, Mrs. Crowe ‘really must have a new transformation’ (wig) before departing for Rome. In Don Renato, the character based on Mrs. White has ‘a total defect of hair’. In her teens, Annie Matilda had a bout of scarlet fever, which unfortunately left her permanently bald. In one letter to Grant Richards, Rolfe wrote that the young publisher should not believe ‘All the tales of the “Gleeson White” order,’ especially the ones concerning his wife. In another leter, Rolfe referred to Mrs. White as ‘Hairless Nancy’. And in Victorian slang ‘Nancy tales’ meant ‘humbug’.

A biographer certainly should endeavour to know the thoughts and works of her subject. In the second last sentence of the suppressed Appendix iii to his Borgia history, Rolfe writes: ‘It is time that the Twentieth Century should devise some test, some standard, whereby some approximation to historical truth may be achieved.’