That cold white candent voice which was more caustic than silver nitrate and more thrilling than a scream. - Frederick Rolfe

He seems to have been a serpent of serpents in the bosom of all the nineties. That in itself endears him to one.

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.

Most people have only half developed their single personalities. That a man should split his into four and more; and should develop each separately and perfectly, was so abnormal that many normals failed to understand it.