[1] Rolfe's best-known work, this novel of wish-fulfilment developed out of an article he wrote on the Papal Conclave to elect the successor to Pope Leo XIII.

The prologue introduces us to George Arthur Rose (a transparent double for Rolfe himself): a failed candidate for the priesthood denied his vocation by the machinations and bungling of the Roman Catholic ecclesiastical machinery, and now living alone with his little yellow cat.

The novel develops with this unconventional, chain-smoking Englishman peremptorily reforming the Church and the early 20th-century world, against inevitable opposition from the established Roman Catholic hierarchy, rewarding his friends and trouncing his enemies; generally he gets his way by charm or doggedness.

The novel was made into a successful stage-play by Peter Luke, opening at the Mermaid Theatre, London in April 1968 and starring Alec McCowen as Fr.

The Translation of Father Torturo (2005), a novel by Brendan Connell about a priest's ruthless ascent to the papacy, is dedicated to "Frederick William Serafino Austin Lewis Mary Rolfe, Baron Corvo", "for the design which I so meanly twisted".