Saint Thomas à Becket: The Holy Blissful Martyr

Unique among the works of Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914), this short biographical sketch of St. Thomas à Becket, "the holy blissful martyr," began as research for a historical novel, a co-project with the notorious Frederick Rolfe, that came to nothing when Rolfe revealed his true colors to Benson.

As the son of the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Benson seemed fascinated by the story of Becket, whose murder at the instigation of Henry II launched the famed pilgrimage to Canterbury and inspired countless works of literature.

After the break with Rolfe, Benson reworked the material into a compelling non-fictional portrait of one of England's most popular and significant historical figures.

132 pages
ISBN 978-1602100015
$18.00 (U.S.)
£12.00 (U.K.)

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The Dawn of All (1911)

The second of Benson’s two science fiction satires, The Dawn of All is a “counter-blast” to the terrifying Lord of the World.

Contradicting the notion that this novel presents a blueprint for an ideal society, C.C. Martindale, S.J. commented that “Benson wrote often and emphatically that he did not for a moment expect the pictured solution to realize itself, and that he even hoped it would not.  Neither Science, nor the State, nor Religion would ever, he was convinced, find themselves in such mutual relations as he had invented.”

While Benson may have been inspired by Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward and other socialist utopian visions (including Louis-Sebastien Mercier’s Memoir of the Year 2440 from 1770), he gave a unique twist to the device of a man “unstuck” in time.  This novel probably inspired Evelyn Waugh’s short story, “Out of Depth,” which in turn seems to have had significant influence on Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.’s Slaughterhouse Five.

268 pages

ISBN # 9780972982159

$20.00 USD
£14.00 UK

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*Barnes & Noble no longer lists this edition on their website.

The Necromancers (1909)

Some few of Benson’s novels have remained in print sporadically.  This is one of them — and, apparently, for all the wrong reasons.  Ostensibly a warning against the dangers of “spiritism,” The Necromancers is actually an insightful psychological study of the effects of grief — and the problems that result from not dealing with it in a human manner. This novel should be considered a “horror classic,” but not in the usual vein.  It has a more than unusually ambiguous, yet typically Benson, ending.

248 pages

ISBN # 9780972982191

$20.00 USD
£14.00 UK

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*Barnes & Noble no longer lists this edition on their website.

Lord of the World (1907)

One of two science fiction titles Benson wrote, this is his most popular — and least understood — novel.  Today’s fans of this novel, unfamiliar with late Victorian science fiction, often mistake it for prophetic literature and completely miss its crushing satire of Edwardian society.  Lord of the World seems to have inspired Evelyn Waugh’s darkly humorous novella, Love Among the Ruins.

Benson took a popular sub-genre of science fiction at the time, the “future war novel,” and incorporated all the usual gimmicks: the coming war of 1914, flying machines, super-powerful explosives, the growth of totalitarianism — all of which happened to come true in one form or another.

Lord of the World is a bitingly satiric science fiction novel of a secularized world state.  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 Sheen characterized Lord of the World as one of “three great apocalyptic pieces of literature dealing with the advent of the satanic.”  Benedict XVI, as Cardinal Ratzinger before his election to the papacy, made positive references to the novel in some of his talks.  Pope Francis has recommended this novel as something that will help people understand the current world situation.

296 pages

ISBN # 9780972982140

$20.00 USD
£14.00 UK

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The Queen’s Tragedy (1907)

The story of Queen Mary, elder daughter of Henry VIII Tudor, is related here with much sympathy for the woman (as opposed to the excoriated ruler), but without whitewash.

Next to the much-reworked Oddsfish!, this may have been Benson’s most difficult book to write, faced as he was with centuries of prejudice and stereotypes.  Benson’s biographer, the Rev. C. C. Martindale, hints that Benson’s hardest task was in presenting the unattractive human being behind the unpleasant myth.

In common with many of Benson’s works, the reader has to decide for himself the meaning of the title.  Of what does the “tragedy” of the title consist?  Was it misplaced religious zeal?  The failure to restore Catholicism to England permanently?  The inability to provide an heir for the stillborn Anglo-Spanish Empire?

A difficult question — and a complex book.

296 pages

ISBN # 9780972982132

$20.00 USD
£14.00 UK

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*Barnes & Noble no longer lists this edition on their website.

A Mirror of Shalott (1907)

Benson’s second of his two collections of mystical short stories, this is probably better classified as “horror,” though not the splatter-and-thrill variety to which Hollywood has accustomed us.

We suspect that Taylor Caldwell’s underrated collection of interrelated short stories, Grandmother and the Priests, may have been inspired by this book.

Once-and-Future Books is particularly pleased to present this extremely rare volume, until now thought by some authorities to be apocryphal.  Beware, however — this book is truly creepy!

164 pages

ISBN # 9780972982183

$18.00 (U.S.)
£12.00 (U.K.)

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The Sentimentalists (1906)

What?  A Benson novel about ordinary people in ordinary situations?  Of course not.  This extraordinarily well-written novel examines the case of an egomaniac badly in need of a “reality check.”  Benson even titled an early draft of this work The Egomaniac, but chose instead a much more interesting and inviting title.

The Sentimentalists is Benson’s only novel to have an “official” sequel, The Conventionalists, which was, incidentally, another early title for The Sentimentalists.

Based on an actual person and events, The Sentimentalists provoked a great deal of controversy — from everyone except the individual on whom it was based, who loved the book!  Despite Benson’s own misgivings about the “sensational” nature of this novel, it deserves to be ranked among modern classics of English literature.

252 pages

ISBN # 9780972982175

$20.00 (U.S.)
£14.00 (U.K.)

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*Barnes & Noble no longer lists this edition on their website.

The King’s Achievement (1905)

This novel portrays the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII early in the Sixteenth Century from the point of view of an ordinary English middle class family.

Chronologically, this novel takes place before the events in By What Authority?, although The King's Achievement was written later.  While a stand-alone work, this novel fills in the histories of many of the characters appearing in the earlier novel.

Benson’s own achievement was thus the invention of the “family saga” quite a few decades before this genre became popular with the general public.

416 pages

ISBN # 9780972982124

$22.00 (U.S.)

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*Barnes & Noble no longer lists this edition on their website.

By What Authority? (1904)

This is Benson’s first published historical novel, covering the long years of the reign of Elizabeth I. He conceived this project to present in fictional form the story of the English Reformation from an alternate point of view.

This Benson achieved without the use of the stereotypes that characterized virtually all such productions in his day to the detriment of both sides (Catholic and Protestant) of the question.  Unlike other editions of this work that are often abridged, ours contains the full text of the 1904 first edition.

556 pages

ISBN # 9780972982116

$24.00 (U.S.)

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The Light Invisible (1903)

Benson’s first published work is a collection of interconnected short stories often characterized as “supernatural fiction”.  Out of print for nearly a century, many authorities rate this as “recommended reading.”

The author’s brother, A. C. Benson (an author in his own right), remarked of the present volume, “The Light Invisible always seemed to me a beautiful book. It was the first book in which he spread his wings, and there is, I think, a fresh and ingenuous beauty about it, as of a delighted adventure among new faculties and powers.”

The Light Invisible is “specially recommended” in Rev. John Hardon’s Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan, one of the few works of fiction featured in that guide.

112 pages.
ISBN # 9780972982167
$18.00 (U.S.)



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