Robert Hugh Benson
Robert Hugh Benson | |
---|---|
Photo of Benson by G. Jerrard, 1912
|
|
Born | Robert Hugh Benson 18 November 1871 Wellington College, Berkshire |
Died | Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist. Bishop's house Salford Cathedral, Salford |
Parent(s) | Edward White Benson and Mary Sidgwick Benson |
Church | Roman Catholic |
Ordained | 1904 |
Signature | |
Robert Hugh Benson AFSC KC*SG KGCHS (18 November 1871 – 19 October 1914) was an English Anglican priest who in 1903 was received into the Roman Catholic Church in which he was ordained priest in 1904. He was lauded in his own day as one of the leading figures in English literature, having written the notable novel Lord of the World (1907).
Contents
Biography
Early life
Benson was the youngest son of Edward White Benson, the Archbishop of Canterbury and his wife, Mary; Benson was the younger brother of E. F. Benson, A. C. Benson and Margaret Benson.[1][2]
Benson was educated at Eton College and then studied classics and theology at Trinity College, Cambridge, from 1890 to 1893.[3]
In 1895, Benson was ordained a priest in the Church of England by his father, who was the then Archbishop of Canterbury.
Career overview
After his father died suddenly in 1896, Benson was sent on a trip to the Middle East to recover his own health. While there he began to question the status of the Church of England and to consider the claims of the Roman Catholic Church. His own piety began to tend toward the High Church tradition, and he started exploring religious life in various Anglican communities, eventually obtaining permission to join the Community of the Resurrection.
Benson made his profession as a member of the community in 1901, at which time he had no thoughts of leaving the Church of England. As he continued his studies and began writing, however, he became more and more uneasy with his own doctrinal position and, on 11 September 1903, he was received into the Catholic Church. He was awarded the Dignitary of Honour of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.
Benson was ordained as a Roman Catholic priest in 1904 and sent to Cambridge. He continued his writing career along with his ministry as a priest.
Like both his brothers, Edward Frederic Benson ("Fred") and Arthur Christopher Benson, Robert wrote many ghost and horror stories, collected in The Light Invisible (1903) and A Mirror of Shallott (1907). His novel, Lord of the World (1907), is generally regarded as one of the first modern dystopias (see List of dystopian literature).
As a young man, Benson recalled, he had rejected the idea of marriage as "quite inconceivable".[4] Benson was appointed a supernumerary private chamberlain to the Pope in 1911 and, consequently, styled as Monsignor.
Death and legacy
Benson died of pneumonia in 1914 in Salford, where he had been preaching a mission; he was 42. As he had requested, he was buried in the orchard of Hare Street House, his house in the Hertfordshire village of Hare Street.[5] A chapel, dedicated to St Hugh, was built over the site. Benson bequeathed the house to the Catholic Church as a country retreat for the Archbishop of Westminster. The Catholic church in the nearby town of Buntingford, which he helped finance, is dedicated to St Richard of Chichester, but also known as the Benson Memorial Church.[6]
In 2019, the house was put up for sale. Benson's body was exhumed and moved to the crypt of St Edmund's College in Old Hall Green.
The Benson Club is a Catholic reading group named in his honour at Fisher House, Cambridge.
Gallery
Works
Science fiction
- A Mirror of Shalott, Benziger Brothers, 1907.
- Lord of the World, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1908 [1st Pub. 1907].
- The Dawn of All, B. Herder, 1911.[7]
Historical fiction
- By What Authority?, Isbister, 1904.
- Come Rack! Come Rope!, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1913 [1st Pub. 1912].
- Oddsfish!, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1914.
- The King's Achievement, Burns Oates & Washbourne, Lrd., 1905.
- The Queen's Tragedy, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1907.
- The History of Richard Raynal, Solitary, Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons Ltd., 1912.
- Initiation, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1914.[8]
Contemporary Fiction
- The Light Invisible, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd., 1906.
- The Sentimentalists, Sir Isaac Pitman and Sons Ltd., 1906.
- The Conventionalists, Hutchinson & Co., 1908.
- The Necromancers, Hutchinson & Co., 1909.
- The Winnowing, B. Herder, 1910.
- None other gods, B. Herder, 1911.
- The Coward, B. Herder, 1912.
- An Average Man, Dodd, Mead & Company, 1913.
- Loneliness?, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1915.
Children's Books
- Alphabet of Saints, with Reginald Balfour and Charles Ritchie, illustraded by L. D. Symington, Oates & Washbourne, 1905.
- A Child's Rule of Life, illustrated by Gabriel Pippet, digitized by Richard Mammana.
- Old Testament Rhymes, illustrated by Gabriel Pippet.
Devotional Works
- Vexilla Regis: A Book of Devotions and Intercessions, Longmans, Green & Co., 1915 [1st Pub. 1914].
- A Book of the Love of Jesus: A Collection of Ancient English Devotions in Prose and Verse, Isaac Pitman & Sons, 1915.
- The Friendship of Christ, Longmans, Green & Co., 1914 [1st Pub. 1912].
Apologetic Works
- The Religion of the Plain Man, Burns & Oates, 1906.
- Papers of a Pariah, Longmans, Green & Co., 1907.
- Christ in the Church: A Volume of Religious Essays, Longmans, Green & Co., 1911.
- Confessions of a Convert, Longmans, Green & Co., 1913.
- Paradoxes of Catholicism, Longmans, Green & Co., 1913.
- Lourdes, The Manresa Press, 1914.
- Spiritual Letters of Monsignor R. Hugh Benson: to One of his Converts, Longmans, Green & Co., 1915.
- A Book of Essays, Catholic Truth Society, 1916.
- Sermon Notes, First Series: Anglican, Second Series: Catholic, Longmans, Green & Co., 1917.
- Non-Catholic Denominations, Longmans, Green & Co., 1921.
Plays
- The Cost of a Crown, a Story of Douay & Durham; a Sacred Drama in Three Acts, Longmans, Green & Co., 1910.
- A Mystery Play in Honour of the Nativity of Our Lord, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1908.
- The Maid of Orleans, a Drama of the Life of Joan of Arc, Longmans, Green & Co., 1911.
- The Upper Room, a Drama of Christ's Passion, Longmans, Green & Co., 1914.
Selected articles
- "An Historical Meditation," The Dublin Review, Vol. CXXXVIII, 1906.
- "The Conversion of England," The American Ecclesiastical Review, Vol. XXXIV, 1906.
- "The State of Religion in England," The Catholic World, Vol. LXXXIV, October 1906/March 1907.
- "A Modern Theory of Human Personality," The Dublin Review, Vol. CXLI, 1907.
- "The Dissolution of the Religious Houses." In: Renascence and Reformation (From The Cambridge History of English Literature, 15 Vols.), 1908.
- "Letters of Queen Victoria, 1837-1861," The Dublin Review, Vol. CXLII, January/April 1908.
- "Christian Science," The Dublin Review, Vol. CXLIII, No. 286, October 1908.
- "Spiritualism," The Dublin Review, Vol. CXLV, No. 290-291, July/October, 1909.
- "A Catholic Colony," The Dublin Review, Vol. CXLVI, January/April, 1910.
- "Catholicism and the Future," The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. CVI, 1910.
- "Phantasms of the Dead," The Dublin Review, Vol. CL, No. 300-301, January/April, 1912.
- "Cosmopolitanism and Catholicism," The North American Review, September 1912.
- "Cardinal Gasquet," The Dublin Review, Vol. CLV, July/October, 1914.
Other
- The Holy Blissful Martyr Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Benziger Brothers, 1910.
- The Life of Saint Teresa, Herbert & Daniel, 1912.
- Poems, Burns & Oates, 1915.
- Maxims from the Writings of Mgr. Benson, By the compiler of "Thoughts from Augustine Birrell," R. & T. Washbourne Ltd., 1915.
Notes
Footnotes
Citations
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ "The Dawn of All," The Bookman, September 1911.
- ↑ Cooper, Frederick Taber. "The Accustomed Manner and Some Recent Novels," The Bookman, May 1914.
References
-
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found..
Further reading
- Bour'his, Jean Morris le (1980). Robert Hugh Benson, Homme de Foi et Artiste. Atelier Reproduction de Thèses, Université de Lille III.
- Braybrooke, Patrick (1931). "Robert Hugh Benson; Novelist and Philosopher." In: Some Catholic Novelists. London: Burns, Oates & Washbourne.
- Gorce, Agnès de La (1928). Robert Hugh Benson: Prêtre et Romancier, 1871-1914. Paris: Plon.
- Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Hugh Benson. |
- Biographical Portrait of Msgr. Benson
- Works by Robert Hugh Benson at Project Gutenberg
- Lua error in Module:Internet_Archive at line 573: attempt to index field 'wikibase' (a nil value).
- Works by Robert Hugh Benson at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
- R. H. Benson at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Spanish Web Site on Robert Hugh Benson
- R. H. Benson at AuthorWars.com
- Catholic Authors: R. H. Benson
- Biography Hugh: Memoirs of a Brother by Arthur Christopher Benson
- Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the ODNB
- Use dmy dates from May 2015
- Use British English from May 2015
- Biography with signature
- Articles with hCards
- Commons category link is defined as the pagename
- Articles with Internet Archive links
- 1871 births
- 1914 deaths
- 20th-century English novelists
- English science fiction writers
- English religious writers
- English children's writers
- English historical novelists
- English dramatists and playwrights
- English horror writers
- Ghost story writers
- Roman Catholic writers
- Anglican priest converts to Roman Catholicism
- 19th-century English Anglican priests
- Members of Anglican religious orders
- English Roman Catholic priests
- Alumni of Trinity College, Cambridge
- English Roman Catholics
- Knights Commander of the Order of St Gregory the Great
- English male dramatists and playwrights
- English male novelists
- Knights of the Holy Sepulchre