Friday, March 13, 2009

Benson's Apocalypse

One of my favorite novelists is Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, whose masterpiece, Lord of the World, is the topic of an article by Rev. James V. Schall, SJ.
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6 comments:

Gareth Russell said...

The Penal Laws were an abomination and eventually extended in a milder form to Irish Presbyterians as well, and the non-conformist (i.e. non-Anglican) members of the population. It caused great problems even for members of the Ascendancy Class and the remnants of the Anglo-Irish nobility. A hideous period in our history.

MikeinFL said...

archive.org has Msgr Benson's Lord of the World available as a free download, in various formats. It looks as if there are three versions or instances of the book: search results here.

Stephanie A. Mann said...

On the other hand, Elena, have you ever read his "Dawn of All"? He wrote it because some readers thought "Lord of the World" was depressing and discouraging!
It is set in 1973, and the Catholic Church is triumphant against all who oppose her. England is almost totally Catholic and Catholicism is about to become the established Church in England!--and America is the same as England. Divorce and fornication are illegal, and the Church has courts for heresy which have power to turn convicted criminal heretics over to the secular arm for punishement; the Catholic Church has regained all former Anglican dioceses and property. Monarchy rules and the House of Orleans is on the throne of France! Berlin, however, is the capital of Freemasonry, and the German Emperor is not a Christian--otherwise, practically everyone in the West is a Catholic!
It is available on Project Gutenberg.

elena maria vidal said...

No, Stephanie, I have not read it but now I'll have to~ it sounds really interesting!

Anonymous said...

A collection of Roahl Dahl-like 'Tales of the Unexpected' of Benson's is on Google books, titled A Mirror of Shalott
http://books.google.com/books?id=xWcXAAAAYAAJ&dq=Robert+Hugh+Benson+mirror+of+shallott
as a neophyte to his work it's more my cup of tea than starting with a lengthy apocalyptic novel (I find The Book of Revelation inspiring rather than scary, but that may be presumptuous of me ;-).

elena maria vidal said...

Thank you for the suggestion, Clare! I, too, find The Book of Revelation inspiring and hopeful as well.