The Rolfe family had been moderately successful as manufacturers of pianofortes since 1784, but the family business in the hands of John Rolfe had deteriorated from being a manufacturer of pianos to a piano manufacturer's agent by the time of Rolfe's birth. In 1874, at age fourteen, Rolfe left North London Collegiate School in Camden Town as a result of awakening religious zeal and his difficult adolescence, a period he later described as the most awful period in the life of a boy. Little of his life before he began writing is known.
Rolfe's full name was Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe, a name that was never affixed to any of his published books and pamphlets or his many contributions to various periodicals. He preferred to conceal himself behind different names and poses, what he referred to as "trade names," including Frederick Austin, Fr. Rolfe, A. W. Riter, Al Siddik, Franz Wilhelm V. Bracht, Frederick of Venice, Uriele de Ricardi, V. Bonhorst, May Chester, Vincenza Duchess of Deira, Ifor Williams, and the name most frequently associated with Rolfe, Baron Corvo.
Three of Rolfe's early works of short fiction are on the theme of premature burial.
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