How I Was Buried Alive
by Frederick Rolfe
Originally published in 1898, this story is a piece is set in the Italian hills around Rome where Rolfe had spent time with the Duchess Sforza and with the local boys who would eventually inspire the Toto stories, fanciful renditions of local Italian folk-tales. This story about how Rolfe was once buted alive and how he escaped is almost certainly a fantasy, based perhaps on some kernel of truth or on some story that Rolfe had heard in Italy about someone else. However, it was published in The Wide World Magazine which, unfortunately, was gaining a reputation for publishing material as 'true life stories' which was, in fact, anything but. Rolfe's story was seized upon by his enemies and a series of vitriolic articles about him were published in Scotland and then reprinted in the national catholic press. It was a very low point in Rolfe's life.
However, the story remains a brilliant piece of Corvine prose and it is reproduced here with the original illustrations by Alan Wright.
20pp., saddle-stitched into printed brown card covers, with an acetate wrap (not shown), published in a limited edition of only 50 copies.
£9.99 + £1p+p to anywhere in the world.
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