Come Rack! Come Rope! is a historical novel published in 1912 by the English priest and writer Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914), a convert to Catholicism from Anglicanism. Set in Derbyshire at the time of the Elizabethan persecution of Catholics, when being or harbouring a priest was considered treason and was punishable with death, it tells the story of two young lovers who give up their chance of happiness together, choosing instead to face imprisonment and martyrdom, so that God's will may be done.
Cover of the first edition (1912)
Title page of the first edition
Saint Edmund Campion appears and is mentioned frequently in the novel.
Tyburn, where Edmund Campion was martyred.
Robert Hugh Monsignor Benson AFSC KC*SG KGCHS was an English Catholic priest and writer. First an Anglican priest, he was received into the Catholic Church in 1903 and ordained therein the next year. He was also a prolific writer of fiction, writing the notable dystopian novel Lord of the World, as well as Come Rack! Come Rope!.
Photo of Monsignor Benson by G. Jerrard, 1912
Robert Hugh Benson in 1907
Portrait of Benson
Benson's birthplace. From the book Hugh, Memoirs of a Brother