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Symons completed his first biography, Emin, Governor of Equatoria, in 1928. In 1933 he brought out a biography of the explorer H. M. Stanley. Neither created much of a stir. In 1934, however, Symons published his masterpiece, The Quest for Corvo, a biography of the English author and eccentric Frederick Rolfe (the self-styled Baron Corvo). Subtitled “An experiment in biography,” The Quest for Corvo was a groundbreaking work: rather than being a simple narrative of a life, it describes an author’s search for understanding of his subject, revealing aspects of Rolfe’s life and character as they are revealed to the author. Though it appears entirely natural, the work is very skilfully orchestrated. The result is a vivid, prismatic portrait of Rolfe, those who knew him, and of Symons himself.

Frederick William Rolfe, better known as Baron Corvo (Italian for “Crow”), and also calling himself Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe (22 July 1860 – 25 October 1913), was an English writer, artist, photographer and eccentric. Rolfe was born in Cheapside, London, the son of piano maker and tuner James Rolfe (c. 1827-1902) and Ellen Elizabeth, née Pilcher. He left school at the age of fourteen and became a teacher. He taught briefly at The King’s School, Grantham, where the then headmaster, Ernest Hardy, later principal of Jesus College, Oxford, became a lifelong friend.

He converted to Roman Catholicism in 1886 and was confirmed by Cardinal Manning. With his conversion came a strongly-felt vocation to the priesthood, which persisted throughout his life despite being constantly frustrated and never realised. In 1887 he was sponsored to train at St Mary’s College, Oscott, near Birmingham and in 1889 was a student at the Pontifical Scots College in Rome, but was thrown out by both due to his inability to concentrate on priestly studies and his erratic behaviour.

At this stage he entered the circle of the Duchess Sforza Cesarini, who, he claimed, adopted him as a grandson and gave him the use of the title of “Baron Corvo”. This became his best-known pseudonym; he also called himself “Frank English”, “Frederick Austin” and “A. Crab Maid”, among others. More often he abbreviated his own name to “Fr. Rolfe” (an ambiguous usage, suggesting he was the priest he had hoped to become).

Rolfe spent most of his life as a freelance writer, mainly in England but eventually in Venice. He lived in the era before the welfare state and relied on benefactors for support, but he had an argumentative nature and a tendency to fall out spectacularly with most of the people who tried to help him and offer him room and board. Eventually, out of money and out of luck, he died in Venice from a stroke on 25 October 1913. He was buried on the Isola di San Michele, Venice.

Rolfe’s life provided the basis for The Quest for Corvo by A. J. A. Symons, an “experiment in biography” regarded as a minor classic in the field. This same work reveals that Rolfe had an unlikely enthusiast in the person of Maundy Gregory.

Alphonse James Albert Symons 16 August 1900 – 26 August 1941 was an English writer and bibliographer. Symons was the eldest of four sons and a daughter born to auctioneer Morris (or Maurice) Albert Symons (died 1929), of Russian-Polish Jewish immigrant parentage, and Minnie Louise (died 1964), née Bull. Due to the family’s financial difficulties, his education was limited, and he was mainly self-educated. He was obliged to enter a trade at the age of fourteen, and for three years led a “life of drudgery” apprenticed to a furrier. Symons retained a sense of “intense humiliation” over his time in the fur trade, comparing it to “Dickens’s time at Warren’s blacking factory”.

In 1922, he founded the First Edition Club to publish limited editions and to organize exhibitions of rare books and manuscripts. In 1924 he published a bibliography of first editions of the works of Yeats, and in 1930 he founded the Book Collector’s Quarterly. He was an authority on writers and editions of the 1890s, and he published An Anthology of ‘Nineties Verse in 1928.

Symons completed his first biography,  Emin, Governor of Equatoria, in 1928. In 1933 he brought out a biography of the explorer H. M. Stanley. Neither created much of a stir. In 1934, however, Symons published his masterpiece, The Quest for Corvo, a biography of the English author and eccentric Frederick Rolfe (the self-styled Baron Corvo). Subtitled “An experiment in biography,” The Quest for Corvo was a groundbreaking work: rather than being a simple narrative of a life, it describes an author’s search for understanding of his subject, revealing aspects of Rolfe’s life and character as they are revealed to the author. Though it appears entirely natural, the work is very skilfully orchestrated. The result is a vivid, prismatic portrait of Rolfe, those who knew him, and of Symons himself.

Symons wrote with difficulty and sought help in the study of psychoanalysis. He left several unfinished works, including a long-contemplated biography of Oscar Wilde, at his death. His author brother Julian Symons (1912–1994) published his biography in 1950.

A dandy and an epicure, Symons devoted much of his energy to fine living. In 1933, he founded the Wine and Food Society with André Simon. In 1924, he married Gladys Weeks; in 1936, the marriage ended in divorce. In 1939 he fell ill, suffering from partial paralysis. He died in 1941 of a tumour of the brainstem.