Lord of the World - Softcover

Robert Hugh Benson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0972982140 ISBN 13: 9780972982146

Publisher: Once and Future Books, 2005

Synopsis

Lord of the World is a bitingly satiric science fiction novel of a secularized world state. As Rosa Mulholland, Lady Gilbert, declared, "It is a brilliant, beautiful, and terrible book," a judgment in which the public has fully concurred for nearly a century. Lord of the World is the only one of Benson's novels to remain continually in print from its first publication in 1907 down to the present day. Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) enjoyed a career that lasted little over a decade. In addition to a great many non-fiction works, he authored a series of twenty novels and short story collections that combined a specific moral orientation with an astonishing popularity among the general public of the early twentieth century. As an Anglican and later a Catholic priest, Father Benson was in great demand as a speaker in both England and the United States. The most sensational English convert from the Anglican Communion to Catholicism since John Henry Newman, Benson was a son of the Archbishop of Canterbury. He wrote from a Catholic perspective, but with real understanding and sympathy for the Protestant position.

About this title

Book Description

Can a timeless book become timely 100 years after its first appearance?
     In this profound and prescient novel, Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson gives us an imaginative foretelling of the end of the world. All stories, Aristotle said, have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but most ends are relative, the terminus of this chain of acts or that. But what of the end that terminates all human action as we know it, the end of time itself, the Second Coming? Since this novel appeared in 1906, many others have been devoted to nuclear disaster, destructive comets, and other hair-raising possibilities. What sets Benson’s story apart and makes it as readable today as when it was written is the Catholic and biblical context that provides the ultimate meaning.
     Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914) was the son of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and his conversion to Catholicism caused a stir. He became a great apologist for the faith, in spiritual works as well as in works of the imagination. Lord of the World is first of all a tremendous “read,” but it is also spiritual food for thought.
     The late Ralph McInerny contributed a fine preface to the work, and recently Fr. C. John McCloskey III, a specialist on the work of Robert Hugh Benson, added a fascinating introduction.
 

From the Publisher

LORD OF THE WORLD is a bitingly satiric science fiction novel of a secularized world state. As Rosa Mulholland, Lady Gilbert, declared, "It is a brilliant, beautiful, and terrible book," a judgment in which the public has fully concurred for nearly a century. LORD OF THE WORLD is the only one of Benson’s novels to remain continually in print from its first publication in 1907 down to the present day. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen declared, "The three great apocalyptic pieces of literature dealing with the advent of the satanic are Father Hugh Benson’s LORD OF THE WORLD, Dostoyevsky’s THE BROTHERS KARAMOZOV, and Soloviev’s THREE CONVERSATIONS ON WAR."

Edition details

• Publisher: Once and Future Books
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0972982140
• ISBN 13: 9780972982146
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 296