1890 - 1899
Oscar Wilde & ‘Lord Alfred ‘Bosie’ Douglas
1890 The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is published in Lippincott’s Magazine.
The Scots Observer noted the novel had been written for “outlawed noblemen and telegraph
boys.”
Noodlot [Footsteps of Fate] by Louis Couperus, Dutch author. A homosexual sabotages his
friend’s marriage, but then has his head beaten to pulp by his erstwhile friend, who is
punished by a nominal 2-year prison sentence.
The Méphistophéla by Catulle Mendès becomes a bestseller. The protagonist is a vampirical,
smoking transvestite who thinks Jesus actively promoted lesbian sex.
5 March. Edmund Gosse writes to J.A. Symonds: “the position of a young person so tormented
is really that of a man buried alive & conscious, but deprived of sleep.”
19 August – J.A. Symonds writes a letter to Walt Whitman, asking if there’s the possibility of
semi-sexual emotions in Whitman’s concept of comradeship. Whitman claimed to be
shocked by the idea. He claims to have fathered 6 illegitimate children, but none of
whom have been traced.
La Folie à Paris by Paul Garnier has an invert illustrating ‘moral degeneracy’, but his speech
echoes that of any passionate lover.
Summer. Frederick Rolfe rambles through the Alban Mountains, Italy with a group of boys he
befriended.
September. ‘The Dantesque and Platonic Ideals of Love’ is published in The Contemporary
Review
Somerset Maugham (16) loses his virginity to Ellingham Brooks (26).
Sergei Diaghilev and his cousin Dmitri Filosofov, both 18 fall in love, and stay together for 15
years.
Lord Ronald Gower and Lord Errol were implicated in the previous year’s Cleveland Street
Scandal.
Tchaikovsky’s interest in his nephew Bob grows sharply at this time.
Henry Scott Tuke’s The Bathers is purchased by Leeds Art Gallery.
Carl Liman, at a medical conference, described a case in which 8 doctors had probed a patient,
resulting in 8 reports which contradicted each other.
John Henry Newman dies and is buried in the same grave as Ambrose St. John.
1891 Billy Budd by Herman Melville is completed. Billy is variously described as Apollo, Hercules,
and “as feminine in purity of natural complexion.” Claggart’s attraction to Billy is
obviously of a sexual nature.
Death of Herman Melville.
Left to Themselves by ‘Xavier Mayne [Edward Prime-Stevenson] – homoerotic friendships
between adolescent males.
A Problem in Modern Ethics by J.A. Symonds is published in an edition of 50 copies.
O Barão de Lavos by the Portugese Abel Botelho, a tale of a degenerate aristocratic ‘pederast’
sold out in 2 weeks, and became one of the few homosexual works to be translated into
Spanish – one of the first major European novels to have a homosexual protagonist with
homosexuality as a theme. It was treated seriously by critics.
The Power of Mesmerism. A Highly Erotic Narrative, an item of homosexual porn was probably
published in Brussels.
Destiny by Louis Couperus – Frank is about to marry, but his friend Bertie, loves him and he
forges a letter to prevent the wedding. When he finds out Frank kills Bertie.
Left to Themselves: Being the Ordeal of Gerald & Philip by Edward Prime-Stevenson –
romantic teenage friendships.
The Baron of Lavos by Abel Botelho – one of the first major European novels to have a homo-
sexual protagonist with homosexuality as a theme.
Tim: A Story of Eton by Howard Sturgis – a romantic attachment between 2 boys.
Le Livre de l’amitié by Emmanuel Signoret. He wanted his and his lover’s blood to mingle and
their ‘loins’ to ‘quiver’, & their burning mouths remained pressed together for a long
time.” He lists Jesus & John: “hair blowing in the breeze of sensual pleasure” with
Verlaine and his young lover, Lucien Létinos.
‘The Decay of Living’ by Oscar Wilde reveals that the death of Lucien de Rebempré, the lover
of Vautrin in Le Père Goriot, was “one of the greatest tragedies of my life,” without his
full meaning being entirely clear. Wilde meets Lord Alfred Douglas.
Dr F.C. Müller noted that there were more than 100 sodomy trials detailed in the Prussian
Secret Service Archives. He published the transcript of the 1721 trial of Catharina
Margaretha Linck because of its lesbian content.
Tim: A Story of Eton by Howard Sturgis. The epigraph stated: “Thy love to me was wonderful,
passing the love of women.” Tim is allowed to see his boyfriend Carol only when he is
dying.
Tales of Soldiers & Civilians by Ambrose Bierce. Note the story ‘The Mocking-Bird.’
The Cloister by August Strindberg includes the description of a mournful same-sex Viennese
Ball.
‘The Pupil’ by Henry James appears in Longman’s Magazine. It has a homosexual subtext.
Hubertus Schouten writes an article refuting the legend that John Calvin was branded on the
right shoulder for being a sodomite.
July. Strand Magazine. ‘A Scandal in Bohemia’ by Arthur Conan Doyle. Irene Adler
impersonates a slim youth in an ulster.
August. In ‘A Double Evolution’ in the Daily News it was claimed that men were taking on the
characteristics of women and vice-versa.
Edward Carpenter (47) meets George Merrill, a working-class man from Sheffield (25). He
stops visiting male prostitutes in Paris, and they spend the rest of their lives together.
Late Summer. Lionel Johnson introduces Oscar Wilde to ‘Bosie’ Douglas at his home in Tite
Street.
Ethel Smyth meets and has an erotic encounter with Empress Eugénie’s bare leg.
Die Conträre Sexualempfindung by Albert Moll published. It was based on interviews with
hundreds of Berlin Uranists’. He claimed that Uranists often become heavy smokers to
disguise their sexuality. He exploded many myths but claimed that there were character
traits: hysteria, gossiping and effeminate gestures. He said that there was no connection
between physical hermaphrodism and sexual inversion. Hairy women were not
predisposed to be lesbians & homosexual penises did not point in a different direction to
those of heterosexuals. His most radical conclusion was that homosexuality was a
naturally occurring variety of human sexuality.
A lecture on ‘perverted sexuality’ by Knud Pontoppidan is published in Denmark, prompting
the publication of a long and learned anonymous article ‘The Feeling of Contrary
Sexuality, which may have been written by Poul Andræ, the son of the Prime Minister.
E.M. Forster (11) meets a paedophile who instructs him how to masturbate the paedophile’s
penis.
Warren & Marshall travel to Boston (US) to meet the director of the Museum of Fine Arts.
Arthur Rimbaud dies in Marseilles with the name of the boy Djami on his lips.
Havelock Ellis marries Edith Lees, but she falls in love with an old female friend.
James Millis Peirce, dean of Harvard, writes to J.A. Symonds: “We ought to think and speak of
homosexual love, not as ‘inverted’ or ‘abnormal’…but as being in itself a natural, pure and
sound passion.”
December. ‘Sin and Illness’ by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson – argues that sexual deviants should not
be punished.
Spring’s Awakening by Frank Wedekind – includes confused, intense sexuality at puberty with
some homosexual desire.
1892 Charles Gilbert Chaddock co-opts Benkert’s term into English for the first time: homosexuality.
However, some give the credit to J.A. Symonds in a letter.
Agabal, a poem by Stefan George. A young king builds an underground world, which surpasses
the natural beauty of the normal world. Traces of a homosexual sensibility may be detected.
Krafft-Ebing’s work becomes available in an English translation.
February. The premiere of Lady Windermere’s Fan by Oscar Wilde is attended by ‘Bosie’
Douglas. Their relationship begins a few days later.
5 March. The Star reported the opening of the new play The Kiss by Théodore de Banville in a
translation by John Gray. Oscar Wilde was present with a “suite of young gentlemen all
wearing the vivid dyed carnation which has superseded the lily and the sunflower.”
Samuel Butler is shocked to discover on the death of Charles Pauli that other men had also been
financing him, and Pauli left nothing to Butler in his will.
March. Violent Hunt publishes a short story, ‘The Green Carnation’, in which the eponymous
bloom was a pledge of love between Billy and an older man, Mr Dacre.
September. ‘Collaboration’ by Henry James is published in The English Illustrated Magazine
for September.
Nicola D’Inverno becomes the model and then valet of John Singer Sargent for 25 years.
The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti by J.A. Symonds – male pronouns had been changed to
female pronouns in Michelangelo’s poetry.
An English translation of Psychopathia sexualis by Richard von Krafft-Ebing appears.
In Memphis Alice Mitchell cuts her lover’s throat, resulting in a series of murderous lesbians to
appear in fiction.
Le Cycle patibulaire by Georges Eekhoud is published in a limited edition of 200.
Degeneration by Max Nordeau is published in German. An attack on so-called degenerate art
and artists, including Oscar Wilde. It criticises ostentatious shopping for exquisite curios
and art objects.
Jean Lorrain is fined 3000 francs for publishing a lesbian story in L’Echo de Paris.
Revelations of a Bellhop, a lost item of homosexual Berlin porn was published.
Edward Wesley de Cobain, MP for Ulster, is charged with assaulting a William Allen and is
evicted from his seat. He fled to America and became a preacher in Brooklyn.
3 September. The Irish newspaper, The Southern Star, warns inhabitants of Brooklyn about de
Cobain’s presence.
André Gide has his first sexual experience in North Africa.
Oscar Wilde (38) meets and falls in love with ‘Bosie’, Lord Alfred Douglas (22).
John Gray and Marc-Andre Raffalovich meet and fall in love.
Rev Charles Parkhurst is horrified to discover “painted pansies” occupying each partitioned off
area in the Golden Rule Pleasure Club at West 3rd Street.
Alexander Berkman begins a prison sentence for attempted assassination. Early in his sentence
he wonders if 2 men can love each other. He has a physical relationship with “Johnny”,
and is propositioned by a man called Red.
The US Post Office Department was actively destroying lesbian novels imported from France.
Love in Earnest by John Nicholson. A volume of Uranian poems, including 50 sonnets inspired
by a boy named Ernest.
Tchaikovsky warns his nephew Vladimir “Bob” Davydow to be wary of fellow-homosexual
Aleksey Apukhtin’s interest in him.
Sir Edmund Trelawny Backhouse alleges he met Lord Rosebery at a select gathering at which
other guests include J.A. Symonds & Lord Randolph Churchill. Backhouse further alleged
that Rosebury was able to prolong intercourse for the benefit of both parties. Rosebury
was also alleged to have a predilection for birching.
The Ripper, a play by Adolf Paul – first Swedish play about homosexuality.
Warren & Marshall chose items from the Van Branteghem estate near Paris for Boston Museum.
Walter Pater publishes ‘Emerald Uthwart’, a highly autobiographical story.
Edward Carpenter (48) meets George Merrill from the Sheffield slums in a railway carriage, and
they become lovers and lifelong companions.
Dr de Rode informs a Congress of Criminal Anthropology in Brussels that he was overwhelmed
with “repulsive details” of “pitiful triviality.”
Count Kessler’s lover, the handsome Bavarian aristocrat and officer cadet, Otto von Dungern (18),
decides to leave Kessler (24) and marry to aid his promotion. Dungern ultimately becomes
a Nazi.
An anonymous author publishes Records of the Most Ancient & Puissant Order of the Beggar’s
Benison & Merryland, Anstruther. (1732).
Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson publicly defends Herman Bang against “slanderous coarseness.”
1893Plato and Platonism, essays by Walter Pater.
In the Key of Blue by John Addington Symonds. Includes the essay ‘The Dantesque Platonic
Ideals of Love’ and the poem ‘Clifton and a Lad’s Love.’
Walt Whitman: A Study by J.A. Symonds is published on the day of the author’s death.
Teleny an anonymous work of pornography sometimes partially attributed incorrectly to Oscar
Wilde.
Boris Orloff by the Rev Edwin Bradford is published in the Boy’s Own Paper in September.
Samuel Butler meets Hans Raesch, a Swiss student, who stayed with him for 2 years.
The Disinherited of Love’s Happiness by Otto de Joux, a defence of homosexual love. Within 4
years he receives 736 grateful letters. He estimated that one in 3 servants were homosexual.
Progressive journalist Maximilian Harden starts attacking well-known homosexuals in Die
Zukunft.
Albert Moll’s 1891 book is translated into French, but was prosecuted by moral campaigners.
Underneath the Bough by ‘Michael Field’ [Katherine Bradley & Edith Cooper, aunt & niece]. A
series of love lyrics written to each other.
Dr Daniel presented a paper in New York ‘Should Insane Criminals or Sexual Perverts be
Allowed to Procreate?’ An essay on eugenic castration.
André Gide (24) visits North Africa and has his first homosexual experiences – with an Arab
called Ali.
Jean Lorrain, novelist, imagined Christ as a hermaphroditic Cupid, a beardless, heavy-lidded
Adonis with “a kind of ambiguous charm.”
A newspaper hints at Hans Christian Andersen’s sexuality 18 years after his death.
May. Tchaikovsky writes to his nephew Bob that the thought that this letter will be in his hand
brings him joy and tears to his eyes.
May. Oxford students publish a cartoon of Wilde capsizing a punt because of his immense
weight, which couldn’t be counteracted by the feather-weight presence of a cross-dressed
Alfred Douglas.
June. Lord Ronald Gower meets Frank Hird, and they become life-long lovers. In this year
Gower was having an affair with American journalist William Morton Fullerton.
Marc-André Raffalovich meets and falls in love with John Gray, alleged to be the inspiration for
Dorian Gray. They remained lifelong lovers.
Robbie Ross & Lord Alfred Douglas have sex with a boy of 16.
Douglas has a brief affair with George Cecil Ives, and introduces him to several Oxford poets.
August. The Marquis of Queensbury stalks the streets of Bad Homburg threatening to bullwhip
Lord Rosebury for corrupting his son Drumlanrig.
Autumn. Drumlanrig is found dead in a turnip field, probably a suicide victim.
The Dreyfuss case reveals a homosexual affair between Captain Maximilian von Scwartzkoppen,
a military attaché in Paris at the German embassy and his Italian counterpart, Alessandro
Panizzardi.
Martin Kok (43) was jailed for 3 weeks for gross indecency with a butcher’s apprentice (16). He
was acquitted because this was not illegal. However, a newspaper hinted that he’s been
seduced at the age of 8 by Hans Christian Andersen – a lie Kok denied.
William von Gloeden starts exhibiting his tasteful male nude photographs internationally. He
begins living with Il Moro, Pancrazio Buciuni (14).
Mikhail Kuzmin (21), Russian poet & composer, meets a military officer known as ‘Prince
George’ (25). The lovers visited Turkey, Egypt & Greece, but the lover died from heart
disease in Vienna on the return journey.
Magnus Enckell, Finnish artist, paints the Awakening, his most famous work, depicting a youth
emerging naked from his bed-covers.
Dr F.E. Daniel of Texas, considered castration was a humane alternative to the death sentence.
Charles Viber’s Précis de médicine légale contains a section on examination of a pederast: “one
introduces a finger into the orifice, so as to appreciate fully the resistance of the sphincter.”
c.1893George Ives co-founds the Order of the Chaeronea.
1893-4Nanskoku by M. Sasanoya, a history of Japanese pederasty from earliest times to the introduction
of western culture.
Henry Scott Tuke paints the homoerotic August Blue.
1893-8Edward Carpenter maintains a relationship with George Adams in Millthorpe.
1894 Homogenic Love by Edward Carpenter. It names many same-sex lovers from the ancient world,
and the classical and oriental authors in whose work such passages may be found.
The Green Carnation by Robert Hitchens is published anonymously. It contains a caricature of
Oscar Wilde & his circle.
‘Two Loves’ by Lord Alfred Douglas (‘Bosie’) is published in The Chameleon. This contains the
line “the love that dare not speak its name.”
‘The Priest and the Acolyte’ by John Bloxham is published in The Chameleon in December. It is
brought up in evidence against Oscar Wilde in one of his trials.
L’Amitié antique by Ludovic Dugas.
Studies of Death by Count Stenbock. Includes the short stories ‘Hylas’, ‘Narcissus’ and ‘The True
Story of a Vampire.’
Songs of Bilitis by Pierre Louys. An erotic collection of 143 prose poems with lesbian themes.
Erlöist by Heinz Tovote. A homosexual man is encouraged to fall in love with a boyish woman.
La Maison de la veille by Catulle Mendès, a naked male soprano lies on the naked corpse of his
lover hoping to revive it.
Ivar Bye by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson – a touching story of Ivar Bye falling in love with another man.
Hawaiian Life by Charles Warren Stoddard – forbidden delights available for tourists.
‘The New Chivalry’ by Charles Kains Jackson – advocates the social potential of same-sex love –
helps with over-population.
‘Perverts’ by August Strindberg is written in French, but published posthumously.
In Round the Red Lamp by Arthur Conan Doyle, Charley Manson, an alienist, is interested in “the
singular phenomena of waxing and of waning manhood” & “those actions which have cut
short many an honoured career and sent a man to prison when he should have been hurried to
a consulting-room.
3 March. In the Footlights Annual Alfred Bryan depicts Oscar Wilde cross-dressed as Lady
Windermere.
Of the Wrong Direction by Jacobus Schoondermark – the first Dutch book on homosexuality
asking for pity.
October. Alfred Bryan depicts Oscar Wilde as a flower-merchant wearing on over-sized carnation
in his lapel.
In The Greek Interpreter by Doyle, Sherlock’s brother is a confirmed bachelor and a member of
“the queerest club in London, and Mycroft, one of the queerest men.”
Archives d’anthropologie criminelle by Marc-André Raffalovich claims that “one can, without
much risk (or any risk at all), make friends with a congenital invert.”
George Bernard’s marble version of the Struggle of the Two Natures in Man is completed and
exhibited at the Paris Salon.
Henry Scott Tuke makes a chalk drawing of Frank Hird, Lord Ronald Gower’s lover.
Spring. Queensberry writes to ‘Bosie,’ asking him to break with Wilde. The lovers leave England
and holiday in Florence, where they meet Gide.
22 May. Marcel Proust meets Venezuelan-born composer Reynaldo Hahn for the first time. They
begin an intense love affair, which lasts for 2 years. They remain friends.
June. Queensberry makes a scene in Wilde’s Tite Street home.
Summer. Some of Wilde’s love letters to Bosie are obtained by Queensberry.
August – October. Wilde works on The Importance of Being Earnest.
October. Wilde determines to break with Bosie, but news breaks of Bosie’s brother’s suicide, and
he is full of pity for him and they reunite.
24 October. A cartoon is published in Judy in which a woman appears to be controlling a man
who claims he will be turning over a new leaf. She replies: “if you mean that you are
going to turn woman, you’ve been effeminate enough for a very long time.”
The Vale Press is established by Charles Ricketts & Charles Shannon.
Dr Kiernan of Chicago on treating a lesbian: “there is entirely too much sympathy wasted on these
patients, since sympathy to them is as poisonous as to the hysteric whose mental state is
very similar.”
Henry Scott Tuke’s August Blue is purchased by the Tate, London.
Andreas Andersen paints Morning in Florence, 1895, which shows the sculptor, Hendrik
Andersen naked in bed while his friend John Briggs Potter is getting dressed.
Warren & Marshall set up a second home in Rome where they could purchase more antiquities,
some from illegal excavations.
Frank Blunt was sentenced to a year in prison for theft, but he was a woman who always wore
male attire. Gertrude Field said she was married to Blunt, and paid for the complete
defence.
c.1894 Lucien Römer, Dutch author, writes poetry about his love for a young man to who died early,
which remained sealed until 2000.
1895 January. Max Beerbohm warns Robbie Ross that Alfred Douglas could prove fatal to Reggie
Turner, who didn’t have a strong enough will.
18 February. The Marquis of Queensbury leaves a card at the Albermarle Club “for Oscar Wilde,
posing somdomite” [sic].
5 April. Oscar Wilde was arrested at the Cadogan Hotel.
30 April – Oscar Wilde makes a defence of “the love that dare not speak its name” in court.
Edward Shelley claims in court that colleagues teased him as “Mrs Wilde” & “Miss Oscar.”
Stories Toto Told Me by Frederick Rolfe are published in the Yellow Book.
Greek Studies by Walter Pater is published posthumously.
A Madman’s Defence by August Strindberg – written in French, describes his wife & her friends
as lesbians.
Miscellaneous Studies by Walter Pater – contains the homoerotic ‘Apollo in Picardy.’
April. Lord Ronald Gower and Frank Hird visit Horatio Brown in Venice.
Homogenic Love by Edward Carpenter.
Horatio Brown publishes John Addington Symonds, a Biography, but felt pressurised by
Symonds’ surviving family to excise all mention of his homosexuality.
Bom-Crioulo by Adolfo Caminha features a black sailor in love with a white cabin-boy.
Good Darkie [Bom-Crioulo] by Adolfo Caminha – first Latin American literary work to feature
male homosexuality as a main theme, and a black homosexual protagonist.
Dr Fritz Strassmann complained that all Uranists visited his surgery with ready-to-publish
manuscripts.
‘The Roman Road’ by Kenneth Grahame is published in The Yellow Book.
‘A Story of Cliffe School’ by John Nicholson written around this time. Warns of the perils of self-
abuse.
André Gide consults a doctor before becoming engaged: “You’ll soon see that it’s all in your
imagination.” It wasn’t!
Samuel Butler & Henry Jones both burst into tears when Hans Raesch leaves for Singapore.
Anthony Kehoe, 52, a tailor, was convicted of having consensual sex with a 21-year-old labourer,
John Murphy. He was sentenced to 18 months’ hard labour. The young man received 6 months’
hard labour.
Walter Jekyll, son of an army captain, travels to Jamaica with his intimate friend, Ernest Boyle.
The Cercle Hermaphroditos was formed at the Paresis Hall, New York. It was the 1st known
informal transgender advocacy. No printed proof of existence has been found.
André Gide returns to North Africa and has further homosexual experiences with young Arab
boys.
Dr Hirschfeld is shaken by the suicide of a lieutenant on the eve of his marriage, who asked
Hirschfeld to improve the lot of homosexuals.
Charles W. Stoddard adopts Kenneth O’Connor (15) – they live together for 8 years.
George Seymour, future Marquess of Hertford, scandalises Queensland by performing at male-
only parties in a sequined outfit with butterfly wings.
Earth Spirit by Frank Wedekind – features the lesbian Countess Geschwitz.
c.1895Magnus Enckell, Finnish artist lives in Italy for a decade, affecting his style.
A.E. Forrest had sex with so many boys on the Solomon Islands that his bishop thought the
mission was completely undermined.
Carl Hansen Fahlberg fell in love & lived for a year with a male prostitute in Berlin.
1896The anonymous pornographic gay novel Teleny. Some sections have been attributed to Oscar
Wilde, almost certainly erroneously.
Uranisme et unisexualité by Marc-André Raffalovich. [Uranism and Unisexuality.] “The sacred
and tender love of one’s fellow man, the love of the young, naked, bleeding god ….fills
Uranists ….with understandable enthusiasm.”
Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis & J. A. Symonds is published in German.
The first volume of August von Platen’s diaries are published.
Havelock Ellis presents a report to the British Journal of Mental Science on Guy T. Olmstead’s
castration to cure him of homosexuality. He began to suffer from hysterical melancholia.
The American Journal of Insanity publishes an article describing when large sums of money are
bequeathed by a homosexual pair, then the family often contest the will on the pretext of
insanity.
Edward Carpenter has Love’s Coming of Age printed privately. A pamphlet introducing
homosexuality with sympathy to a heterosexual audience.
Lord Alfred Douglas publishes his Poems in France.
Edward Carpenter (56) meets his life-partner George Merrill (26), an uneducated odd-job man, in
a railway carriage.
Der Eigene [The Exceptional: A Magazine for Male Culture] is founded, and is published until
1931. It was edited by Adolf Brand.
Sappho und Sokrates is published pseudonymously (written by Magnus Hirschfeld). Its subtitle
was “or how can one explain the love of men and women for people of the same sex?”
The Babe, B.A. by E.F. Benson. Includes hints of same-sex relationships.
Eros and Art by Ludwig Frey is published in German.
Critical Kit-Kats by Edmund Gosse – contains insightful portraits of Whitman & Pater.
Willy, Colette’s husband, worries that homosexual interpretations of Wagner’s Parsifal would
impose ridiculous constraints on artists: “so now every tragic character will be forced to
encumber himself with a woman for fear of being taxed with homosexual inclinations?”
George Saint-Paul, a doctor, publishes ‘Novel of a Born Invert’, a case-study written by an Italian
aristocrat handed to him by Emile Zola.
John Nicholson begins writing The Romance of a Choir-Boy, which he completes in 1905. His A
Chaplet of Southernwood. Inspired by his love for 16-year-old Alec Melling.
Sentimental Tommy by J.M. Barrie – inspired by his close friendship with Bevil Quiller-Couch,
young son of Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch.
Symonds reprints A Problem in Modern Ethics in an edition of 100 copies.
The Greek View of Life by Goldsworthy Dickinson.
Sexual Inversion by Adelino Silva is published in Portugal.
Eva Gore-Both (26) of the Anglo-Irish gentry was recuperating from a respiratory condition in
Italy meets Esther Roper (28). They become lifelong companions & social reformers.
Magnus Hirschfeld begins writing a pamphlet Sappho und Sokrates, in which he argued for the
legalisation of homosexuality. A patient left a suicide note saying despite trying hard he
could not prevent desires for other men, so he ended his life from guilt & shame.
11 October. Edward Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury, dies on his knees in church. Shortly
afterwards his widow, Mary starts sharing a bed with Lucy Tait, daughter of the previous
Archbishop.
8 November. George Merrill writes a love letter to Edward Carpenter.
1897Sexual Inversion by Havelock Ellis & J.A. Symonds is published in English. Case XVIII is J.A.
Ellis notes that there are many clergymen who commit suicide.
Hellenic Love in the Present by Otto de Joux is published in German.
An Unknown People by Edward Carpenter. Later in The Intermediate Sex (1908).
‘In Praise of Billy B.’ by Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo) is written.
Book of Chains by George Ives – some poems cryptically celebrate homosexuality.
Dear Faustina by Rhoda Broughton has an unhygienic protagonist who abducts decent young
girls.
Arnold Aletrino reviews Raffalovich’s Uranisme et unisexualité in Dutch, and makes the first Dutch
defence of homosexuality.
Wilfred Gill publishes an evasive biography of his friend, the homoerotic poet, Edward Lefroy.
Oscar Wilde is released from prison.
Carl Hansen Fahlberg (27) Danish policeman, begins living with Hjalmar Sørensen for 6 years.
The Scientific-Humanitarian Committee is set up by Magnus Hirschfeld & 5 others.
The main aim was to repeal Paragraph 175 of the German legal code, which criminalised
homosexual activity.
The Order of Chaeronea is founded by George Ives. It was a secret society for the cultivation of a
homosexual moral, ethical, cultural and spiritual ethos.
Marcel Proust fights a duel with Jean Lorrain, writer, who had accused him of homosexuality.
J.A. Symonds discovers the original Michelangelo Cecchino poems in the Buonarotti archives. [see
1960].
Jean Delville, Belgian symbolist, paints L’Ecole de Platon in which Plato is actually Christ
surrounded by 12 naked muscular disciples.
February. James Smith, 57 (see 1877), was indicted for gross indecency and an unspecified
abominable crime with Percy Brady, a Royal Navy cadet. He was to return to penal servitude
for life.
30 April. Georges Hérelle, French Philosophy teacher, wrote a long unsent reply in response to
George Saint-Paul’s 1896 book.
15 May. Formation of the Humanitarian & Humanitarian Committee headed by Dr Hirschfeld.
August. A homosexual sex club in Batley Carr was raided by 17 officers of Dewsbury Borough
Police.
September. Carl Lindau, 35, a kitchen porter, of German extraction, was arrested for appearing in
female attire on the corner of Shaftesbury Ave, London. In court he had grown a beard, and
had to stay in prison for 3 months.
December – the Batley Sex Club Trail took place. 12 working-class men were arrested, aged 16-54.
Several men including the youngest were discharged. The homeowner was given 6 years
penal servitude, with 7 others given lighter sentences.
Ronald Gower (50) visits Rome and is strongly attracted to Norwegian sculptor Hendrik Andersen
(25).
E.M. Forster meets Hugh Owen Meredith [HOM], who becomes the model for Clive Durham in
Maurice.
Norman Douglas, writer (29), becomes erotically involved with Michele, the brother of a temporary
mistress (15).
Das Jahr der Seele by Stefan George – contains a cycle of homoerotic verses.
1898January. Ronald Gower offers to legally adopt Frank Hird. Hird leaves his job as Rome
correspondent for the Morning Chronicle.
Sir Edmund Backhouse leaves England for China. His Décadence Mandchoue (publ. 2011)
documents visits to male bordellos.
Evolutionary Socialism by Eduard Bernstein – one of the first socialist books to deal sympath-
etically with homosexuality.
Stories Toto Told Me by Frederick Rolfe. Many tales are pederastic in nature.
White Stains by Aleister Crowley is published, which includes ‘Boy of Red Lips.’ Luke is turned
into a lewd innuendo (14:23): “Go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come
in.”
Paris by Zola features Hyacinthe, a homosexual character, shown in a negative light.
L’Ecole de Platon by Jean Delville is exhibited. It shows Plato as Jesus surrounded by naked
youths. It is considered a homoerotic masterpiece.
Walter Harris marries Lady Mary Saville, daughter of the Duke of Mexborough, despite being a
flamboyant homosexual.
Friedrich Alfred Krupp settles in Capri and builds a palatial villa where he will entertain his
homosexual friends.
The Book of Alda by Abel Botelho – a heterosexual nymphomaniac, but with a 4-page lesbian
scene.
George Merrill moves into Millthorpe with Edward Carpenter, despite advice from Carpenter’s
friends.
April. George Armstrong, c.35, a Bridlington hosier’s manager was charged with assaulting with
intent to commit an unnatural offence on John Dixon, 18. He was found not guilty a month
later.
August. John Cartwright, 49, was alleged to have committed an act of gross indecency with
Gonville Marshall, 18, a shoemaker near Newark. Cartwright was sentenced to 9 months’
imprisonment in the December.
At a Dalmeny house party Raymond Asquith notices that Neville Waterfield, a former secretary of
Lord Rosebury, must have once been very handsome, and believes the worst of his former
master.
Friedrich Krupp (44), German businessman, begins to spend holidays on Capri, and build a house
there. He had liaisons with many local youths, but especially with a barber & amateur
musician (18).
1899Samuel Butler points out that Shakespeare’s love for master W.H. was more “Greek than English.”
Magnus Hirschfeld founded & edited the Yearbook on Sexually Intermediate Subjects. The first
concerted effort to study homosexuality in all its variations.
The Mental Life of Count Platen by Ludwig Frey is published in German.
Resurrection by Leo Tolstoy. Widespread corruption is intensified by references to a few
homosexual scandals.
Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur by Elisár von Kupffer is published by Adolf
Brand (Eng. Title: Love and Friends in World Literature.)
Escal-Vigor (Strange Love) by Georges Eekhoud. Two men seek refuge on an island. Their
mutual love makes them martyrs when they are sacrificed by the island’s inhabitants.
Edmund Gosse confesses in a letter to J.A. Symonds of an obstinate twist in his life.
A.E. Housman (40) befriends a Venetian gondolier (23).
Lord Alfred Douglas publishes his Poems anonymously in England.
Mir iskusstva, a cultural magazine is founded in Russia. Its editors have also been lovers for some
time: Sergei Diaghilev & Dmitry Filosofov.
‘In the Cage’ by Henry James. It has a homosexual subtext. Some have seen this time as the
moment when truth erupted into his carefully guarded life.
Henry James (56) meets the Norwegian sculptor Hendrik Andersen (27). This was one of James’s
closest male friendships.
Escal-Vigor by Georges Eekhoud – an aristocrat has an ill-fated passion for a young country lad.
January. Edward Clancy, ex-guardsman, 37, & Joseph Smith, a music-seller, accused of attempted
blackmail in St. James’ Park. Clancy received 18 months’ hard labour and dismissal from
the Army with ignominy.
January. George Smith aka Gibbons, 38, and Walter Hunt, 14, an errand-boy were arrested after
being caught indulging in buggery in a lodging-house. Smith/Gibbons was sentenced to
18 months’ hard labour at Pentonville. Hunt was given 18 months’ at Pentonville.
January. John Edwards, 27, a stoker on HMS Leader was charged with an unnatural offence with
Stephen Pope, 11. Edwards was found guilty of attempted buggery and sentenced to 9
months’ hard labour.
January. Robert Eyton, Canon of Westminster, resigns suddenly, believed to be for a homosexual
scandal.
February. At a drunken fancy dress ball raided by police Horouth Alajas, 22, a tailor of Hungarian
extraction was arrested for being in female attire. He was bound over at a cost of £10.
February. Francis Broad, 38, an actor was found guilty of gross indecency with Ernest Williams
(a minor?). Broad was sentenced to hard labour for 6 months.
Rev. Henry Meynell, former Prebendar of Lichfield Cathedral was accused of unnatural practices
with a lad called Monk in a cove in Dawlish. The case was dismissed.
Dr John Quackenbos claimed to have cured various ‘complaints’ by hypnosis including “unnatural
passions.”
Death of Cavafy’s mother – Cavafy is thought to have been discreetly visiting the Rue d’Anastasi
quarter in Alexandria to find Greek men willing to provide sexual favours.
Bibliography
Ackroyd, Peter, Queer City: Gay London From the Romans to the Present Day, London: Chatto & Windus, 2017.
Aldrich, Robert, Gay Life Stories, London: Thames & Hudson, 2023.
Aldrich, Robert & Garry Wotherspoon (eds.), Who’s Who in Gay & Lesbian History: From Antiquity to World War II: London,
Routledge, 2001.
Bray, Alan, The Friend, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2003.
Griffin, Gabriele, (ed.), Who’s Who in Lesbian & Gay Writing, Routledge: London, 2002.
Norton, Rictor, My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries, San Francisco: Leyland Publications: 1998.
Rowse, A.L., Homosexuals in History, London: Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 1977.
Spencer, Colin, Homosexuality, a History, London: Fourth Estate, 1995.
Woods, Gregory, Homosexuality in Literature, London: Yale University Press, 1998.
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