Description:
Praised by three popes, Robert Hugh Benson's Lord of the World is a prophetic dystopian novel about a secular future dominated by global humanism and the Church's final stand, made newly relevant for today through added historical and theological context.
Brief description:
Robert Hugh Benson (1871-1914) was born just outside of London, the youngest son of Mary Sidgwick and Edward White Benson, who became the Archbishop of Canterbury. Benson studied at Eton and Trinity College in Cambridge and was ordained to the Anglican priesthood by his father in 1895. Benson decided to enter an Anglican religious order, the Community of the Resurrection. However, his attraction to Rome grew as he continued his studies and deepened friendships with Roman Catholics. In 1903, he was received into the Catholic Church. After nine months of study in Rome, he was ordained a Catholic priest.
Benson was sent to Cambridge to write and serve as a priest chaplain to the Catholic community. Later, he was allowed to live on his own to devote himself to writing. A prolific author, he traveled extensively, writing and lecturing. Benson wrote many apologetic works, including The Religion of the Plain Man, Paradoxes of Catholicism, and Confessions of a Convert. He was also a bestselling novelist, writing The Holy Blissful Martyr Saint Thomas of Canterbury, Come Rack! Come Rope!, and The Necromancers. Lord of the World is his best-known work.
Review Quotes: "I advise you to read it." --Pope Francis
"A well-crafted and prophetic novel that anticipates and dramatically renders the spiritual and cultural crises of the twentieth-first century." --From the introduction by Rev. Mark Bosco, S.J. "Prophetic wisdom is often best expressed and appreciated through works of art. Lord of the World is just such a prophetic work of art. The book tells certain critical truths: that evil is at work in our time, that lies embed seeds of destruction in the promise of peace, and that Jesus Christ is victorious through the indignation and suffering of the Cross. Lord of the World is the right book for Christians in the modern world--and there may be no message more critical for our time." --Most Rev. James D. Conley, Bishop of Lincoln "Benson's dystopic novel is more sinister than the simple hedonism of Huxley's dystopia and more subtle than the sheer brutality of Orwell's. I welcome Ave Maria Press's new edition of this classic and prophetic work." --Joseph Pearce, Editor of the St. Austin Review "By including both a fresh, context-clarifying introduction to Robert Hugh Benson and his dystopian tale and an invaluable meditation on the theology that drives it, Ave Maria Press gives us a relevant and readable edition of a harrowing 1907 novel that, in places, seems all too familiar and timely." --Elizabeth Scalia, Author of Strange Gods