10 Facts About Ronald Firbank

Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank was an innovative English novelist.

Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank was born on 17 January 1886, in Clarges Street, Westminster, the son of a Member of Parliament, Sir Thomas Firbank, and Lady Firbank, nee Harriet Jane Garrett.

At the age of ten Firbank went briefly to Uppingham School and then on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

Ronald Firbank died of lung disease in Rome, aged 40, and is buried in the Campo Verano cemetery.

Ronald Firbank published his first story, "Odette d'Antrevernes", in 1905, before going up to Cambridge.

Ronald Firbank then produced a series of novels, from The Artificial Princess and Vainglory to Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli.

Ronald Firbank left among his manuscripts the first few chapters of a novel set in New York, The New Rythum.

However, in 1951, Brown wrote that he grows weary of the claimed influence of Ronald Firbank's writing on his own.

Angela Carter created a radio play inspired by the life of Ronald Firbank called A Self-Made Man which was first broadcast on Radio 3 in 1984.

Steven Moore records Firbank's critical reception up to 1995 in his Ronald Firbank: An Annotated Bibliography of Secondary Materials.