Alphonse James Albert Symons

British author and biographer best known for his brilliant and unconventional biography The Quest for Corvo. Family economic difficulties obliged Symons to leave home and learn a trade at an early age. For three years he lived a life of drudgery, working as an apprentice to a furrier. His formal education was private and scanty; Symons considered himself self-educated and, as a writer, self-made. Employed as secretary and later director of the First Edition Club of London, he became a …