11 h 15 minAudiobook7 minSummaryRead it, hear it, the 15-minute summary, and print and large print at costPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the price of world peace is giving up the idea of God?
In Robert Hugh Benson’s Lord of the World, nations draw together and religion fades from public life. Father Percy Franklin, a quiet English Catholic priest, tries to remain faithful as his church shrinks. Around him, a humane new creed promises comfort and unity, leaving less room for belief in God.
Oliver Brand, an English politician, and his wife Mabel embrace the new order. Meanwhile, Julian Felsenburgh rises to worldwide fame as a man of peace. Their hopes stand against Percy’s faith in a novel that asks whether a society devoted to human unity can remain gentle toward those who believe differently.
What you’ll discover
- Peace with a price Explore a future where comfort and unity come with a demand to abandon God.
- A quiet, steadfast priest Follow Percy Franklin as he tries to stay faithful in a world moving away from belief.
- Hope in one man Meet Julian Felsenburgh, the American politician who draws the hopes of a weary age.
- Belief behind closed doors See how the creed Oliver and Mabel Brand embrace shapes both politics and private life.
- An argument worth facing Encounter Benson’s warning that unity placed above God may become a force of intolerance.
Who will love it
For readers who love early science fiction, questions of faith and politics, and novels of ideas that argue openly about belief, power and world unity.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A world that has set religion aside
- A priest in a shrinking church
- A politician and his wife at the heart of the new order
- A man of peace rises to world fame
- What the novel argues about faith and power
- How the story is told and how to read it
Who’s who
- Percy FranklinAn English Catholic priest, thoughtful and patient, who tries to stay faithful while the world around him moves away from belief.
- Julian FelsenburghAn American politician who rises to world prominence as a man of peace and draws the hopes of a weary age.
- Oliver BrandAn English member of Parliament who believes in the new humanitarian order and takes part in its politics.
- Mabel BrandOliver's wife, who lives by the creed of the new age and shows how it shapes private life.
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- Audiobook
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- 15-minute summary
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- Large print paperback
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- Large print hardcover
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Lord of the World
by Robert Hugh Benson · 1907
Percy Franklin tries to stay faithful as a world promising peace and unity turns away from God.
Medium level10–20 hours to read25 languages
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In short
Lord of the World is a novel by Robert Hugh Benson, published in 1907. Benson was an English priest, the son of an Archbishop of Canterbury, who had become a Roman Catholic a few years earlier.
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A world that has set religion aside
The story is set in a future Europe and a wider world that have changed deeply from Benson's own. The great powers have regrouped, and the old quarrels of nations have lost much of their force. In the West, a spirit of humanitarian progress governs public life. Its followers care about comfort, order and the good of people in this life, and they speak of the old religions as relics of fear.
In this world, Christianity has not vanished, but it has shrunk. The Catholic Church is a small body, watched with suspicion or with pity by the educated. Benson shows its members as a minority who hold to old teachings while the culture around them moves on. This sets up the central contrast of the novel, two ways of understanding what human beings are for.
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What is Lord of the World about?
It is a novel about a future world that has turned away from religion toward humanitarian peace and unity. A Catholic priest, a politician and a rising world leader stand at the centre of its clash between faith and secular power.
Who is Julian Felsenburgh in Lord of the World?
He is an American politician who rises to great fame as a man of peace. Many in the novel trust him to unite the world, and the title points toward his growing influence.
When was Lord of the World written?
Robert Hugh Benson published it in 1907. It is a work of fiction set in an imagined future, and it was written as a warning from a Catholic priest about where a world without religion might lead.
The author
Robert Hugh Benson
1871–1914 · English novelist and Catholic priest
Robert Hugh Benson (1871–1914) was a British writer and Catholic priest. He was born in Wellington, Somerset, England. Initially an Anglican priest, he became a Catholic in 1903 and was ordained in 1904. He wrote novels, including Lord of the World (1907) and The Necromancers (1909). He died in Salford, England.
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