The book explores the changing ways in which male-male sex and love have been perceived and experienced from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the present. Celebrated figures, such as Richard Lionheart, whose love for Philip Augustus of France was so well-documented, Oscar Wilde, gubject of the most explosive scandal of the Victorian period, and Derek Jarman, the great artist and chronicler of the age of AIDS, are examined alongside little-known figures: Eleanor/John Rykener, a cross-dresser in Chaucer's England, the mollies of eighteenth-century London, the habituants of underground gay bars and cafes in 1930s Manchester and Brighton, and the newly-confident gays of contemporary Britain, who marry, adopt children and command the increasingly powerful 'pink pound'. Drawing on a fabulous wealth of research, the authors - each an expert in his field - have worked closely together to deliver a powerful, highly-readable and eye-opening history of love and desire between men in Britain.
Acknowledgements Introduction Matt CookChapter 1
Male-Male Love and Sex in the Middle Ages, 1000-1500 Robert MillsChapter 2
Renaissance Sodomy, 1500-1700 Randolph TrumbachChapter 3
Modern Sodomy: The Origins of Homosexuality, 1700-1800 Randolph TrumbachChapter 4
Secrets, Crimes and Diseases, 1800-1914 H. G. CocksChapter 5
Queer Conflicts: Love, Sex and War, 1914-1967 Matt CookChapter 6
From Gay Reform to Gaydar, 1967-2006 Matt CookIllustrations Further Reading Notes Author Biographies Index