First published in 1907, Robert Hugh Benson’s 'Lord of the World' is an early Dystopian novel about the reign of the Anti-Christ and end of the World.Īfter its publication, Priest Benson received hate mail and traitorous accusations by his former Anglican colleagues (he left the Church of England and converted to the Roman Catholic Church a decade earlier.) This religious controversy heightened interest in the novel and speculation about the future of spiritual doctrine. On Black Friday, he purchased five books, lengthening an already long list of “Need to Reads.” If you would like to recommend a new entry for that list, please message him at.

In response, the audience is presented with the necessity for hope, through a myriad of positive and negative examples, culminating in a conclusion which can only be described as hope fulfilled.Įvan Holguin is a senior in the Program of Liberal Studies. Throughout the novel, we are faced with notions of despair, either at the hands of persecution or purposelessness. The first is the premise of the plot: Can world peace be achieved through secular means? The response to this quandary is neither parochial nor overly dogmatic, enabling the audience to complete a fascinating thought experiment.Įven more substantial than this satisfaction of the mind’s desire to ruminate on quandaries, Lord of the World is a spectacle of hope. Of the many merits which this novel has to offer (not the least of which is that it is thoroughly enjoyable), two stand out above the rest. Additionally, the audience follows the life of the wife of an English bureaucrat in the new government, demonstrating the average existence in the socialist regime even more fascinating, it is through her story that we become aware with the intricacies of the new humanist religion. The first is a Roman Catholic priest from England, whom the audience follows as he navigates the rising persecutions facing Christians at the hand of the new global government (curiously, this priest also bears a striking resemblance to the aforementioned U.S. Under this setting, the reader follows the lives of two characters.

The result is striking-war is virtually eradicated. Christianity has been replaced by a Religion of Man, euthanasia is freely available, and all nations have willingly placed themselves under the leadership of a relatively unknown, but highly successful, U.S. Written in 1907, Lord of the World chronicles a futuristic and technologically advanced world, one in which the rise of Socialism has pushed the Catholic Church largely underground. It is not only the love from Rome which causes me to recommend Lord of the World it is a wholly remarkable book. Lord of the World, therefore, is doubly intriguing, having been recommended by both Pope Francis and Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. There is something intriguing about a book recommended by a Pope.

Hugh benson lord of the world