Review: 'Inferno' by Augustine Virgil – 'A Journey through Modern Hell in search of Eternal Truth'
Read this hilarious and edifying new work published by Stabat Mater Press.
Read this hilarious and edifying new work published by Stabat Mater Press.
It is rare to find a book that makes you want to be good.
It is even rare to a funny book that makes you want to be good.
Such is the wonderful and unusual book published by Augustine Virgil, titled Inferno: A Journey through Modern Hell in Search of Eternal Truth, and published by Stabat Mater Press.
I was recently given a copy of this book by the publishers, and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.
Drawing on Dante’s Divine Comedy, “The Pilgrim” makes a journey through “The Inferno,” guided by the Roman Poet Virgil. The full-length work (406 pages) came out of a shorter piece published on Substack in 2025, but it is significantly stronger in its narrative and structure. The conceit works much better in this full-length form.
The book is written in prose rather than verse, adopting a self-consciously (although not always entirely felicitous) antiquated style throughout, which does nothing to affect readability.
In some ways, however, it is also similar to Bunyan’s A Pilgrim’s Progress – although extremely relevant to our own day. In the course of this novel, we meet everyone: The Great Trump, Queen Candace, King Tucker, The David of Icke, Delingpole the True, Jordan “The” Peterson, Douglas of Murray, Nick Fuentes, and many more.
A few threads tie each of the realms of Augustine Virgil’s Inferno together, which slowly emerge with greater and more horrifying clarity. The book provides answers for many questions – including some that readers may not have asked themselves yet. It takes time for these questions emerge, although they are perhaps summarised in the Sphinx’s third riddle, after the halfway mark.
I don’t want to give too much away about the book. It unfolds in a particular way, and its powerful effect could be undermined by providing too much of a synopsis of the plot or its structure. However, you can see the author interviewed by Theo Howard of The Two Cities Podcast here:
In the interview above, the author confirms that two further parts for Purgatorio and Paradiso are in the works for Stabat Mater Press, making his Commedia Moderna a trilogy in the Dantean style.
I want to emphasise again how funny the book is, and that it is full of genuine “laugh out loud” moments. Alongside these are moments of beauty and profundity.
I strongly recommend readers of The WM Review read this highly enjoyable and edifying work.
N.B.: We do not receive Amazon commissions (for the reasons discussed below) or any other commissions for sales of this book.
About Stabat Mater Press
Stabat Mater Press was founded in 2024 as a publishing house for traditional Catholic books, and “dedicated to the restoration and preservation of the Church’s intellectual and spiritual patrimony.”
“We prioritize,” they say, “Works that are expressly related to, or can shed light on, the Social Kingship of Our Lord.”
They also are engaged in restoring older texts. With a few exceptions, publishers releasing OCR scans of old texts can have low standards – and publish their Catholic works indiscriminately with very bad books (occult, masonry, heresy, and so on). Stabat Mater Press’s editions are avoiding both problems. You can see a sample of their quality in this preview of Fr Edward J. Cahill’s Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement:
Regarding big print-on-demand publishers of good and bad OCR scans indiscriminately, SMP says:
“As a family-owned publishing house, we take seriously the idea that Catholic books should be made by Catholics and for Catholics—those formed by the Faith, obedient to the Church, and committed to tradition.”
Stabat Mater Press has already put together a small but impressive range of books in nice editions, including:
Freemasonry and the Anti-Christian Movement – Fr Edward J. Cahill
To Restore All Things: Essays of Catholic Political Thought – de Maistre, Belloc, Dononso Cortes
Japan’s Holy Martyrs: The Franciscan Story – Fr Emmanuel Kenners OSF
The Heresy of Popular Sovereignty – Fr Charles Maignen
He is There, She is Near: Eucharistic and Marian Devotions – Fr Matthew Russell
It is also shortly to release a new translation of The Social Kingship of Christ: According to Cardinal Pie, which draws together many writings of the nineteenth century cardinal on this most important truth – more on which in due course.
The editor is planning to migrate all of the titles away from Amazon in due course, in accordance with the vision which Theo Howard called “The Little Way of Christendom” – which is explained in the video and One Peter Five articles below:
The Little Way of Christendom, Part 1
The Little Way of Christendom, Part 2
We wish this publishing house all the best in its endeavours.
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Sounds interesting. Hopefully I can get it before long.
I just received my copy yesterday.