Raven Three: The Lost Borgiada
by Robert Scoble

The first two volumes of the Raven Series on the life and work of Frederick Rolfe, 'Baron Corvo', have met with an enthusiastic response from readers and collectors of his extraordinary books. Both The Quest for Cockerton and Alfred James Rolfe are now out of print.

The third volume, The Lost Borgiada, turns the spotlight directly upon Rolfe himself, describing how a simple workaday commission to write a book on the Borgia family was turned by him into an obsession. As he researched and wrote, he began to identify with the Borgia Pope Alexander VI and with his wayward children. Rolfe became convinced that, like himself, the Borgias had been execrated and condemned unfairly. When his book was published it attracted little interest, but Rolfe's obsession continued to absorb him. He spent the following few years creating a massive genealogical wall chart, documenting the history and vicissitudes of the Borgia family from its twelfth century origins to the modern day. This multi-coloured chart, which Rolfe called the 'Borgiada', contained almost three hundred names, each meticulously numbered and many sporting tiny hand-painted coats of arms. The story of the chart's creation, of Rolfe's deluded attempts to sell it, and of its mysterious disappearance, is vividly told in this fast-paced narrative.

The Raven Series has been planned as a set of scholarly essays which will add substantially to our knowledge of the life and work of Frederick Rolfe. Each essay is being published in a strictly limited edition, and there is little doubt that complete sets will be sought after by collectors in the years to come.

Of a full edition of 70 the first twelve copies of The Lost Borgiada are case bound in dark red paper-covered boards with gilt titles, signed by the author, and include fascimiles of documents in which Rolfe discusses the Borgiada. Numbers 13-70 form the ordinary state of the edition and are sewn into red card covers with a paper label and acetate covers and contain less supplementary material.

Sorry - this title is now out of print