The weird of the wanderer

About the book

The weird of the wanderer by Frederick Rolfe and C. H. C. Pirie-Gordon is a novel written in the early 20th century. Framed as “papyrus records” discovered in a rock-tomb, it blends occult fantasy with classical and archaeological intrigue, following Nicholas Crabbe—presented as the reincarnation of Odysseus—whose magical rites propel him back into antiquity to live as King Balthazar. Expect a heady mix of time-slip, reincarnation, and esoteric ritual, all mediated by scholarly notes and letters that heighten the tale’s found-manuscript verisimilitude. The opening of The weird of the wanderer presents a prologue of letters describing an Armenian rock-tomb unearthed with startling anachronisms—a modern revolver and watch beside a perfectly preserved youth—along with papyri for scholarly translation. The translated “papyri” then begin in the first person: Crabbe, also Odysseus and King Balthazar, swears a solemn oath and recounts his occult training, a Nile voyage for ritual tools, and a moonlit ceremony at Korte where he endures a scorching-staff ordeal to summon Amenemhat, a priest of Tanis, as his familiar. Guided to Thebes’s hidden subterranean halls, he crosses an underground river to a radiant white temple, dismisses a ragged ghost-warden, and repeats the ordeal to invoke a greater power. Near death, he experiences a visionary unmooring of his senses and a backward rush through time’s “rolling wheels,” hears a voice granting him multiple lives, and witnesses the gods of Egypt. Recovering, he finds the temple newly draped and realizes he has slipped back many centuries; he conceals his modern effects, emerges into ancient Thebes under Ptolemy Auletes, overawes Macedonian guards, and hires a barge by summoning crocodiles, setting his course downstream despite reports of mutinous mercenaries. This is only the beginning, positioning Crabbe at the threshold of adventures in Ptolemaic Egypt.