1940 - 1949
Under construction
1940 20 May. Kind are Her Answers by Mary Renault.
Oscar Wilde: A Summing Up by Lord Alfred Douglas.
September. Diplomat Sumner Welles was drunk before a funeral and propositioned several
Pullman porters. He was investigated by J. Edgar Hoover.
Tennessee Williams embraces his homosexuality in Provincetown.
The Pilgrim Hawk: a Love Story by Glenway Wescott. The hawk was a symbol of the
process & sexual frustration.
Conversation Piece by Paul Cadmus is painted. It is triptych of Glenway Wescott, Monroe
Wheeler & George Platt Lynes.
Natalie Burney flees Paris with her love Romaine Brooks, painter, for Italy.
Summer. James Lees-Milne & Richard Stewart-Jones enjoy a second honeymoon period
after the latter’s nervous breakdown.
Ralph Hall, is conscripted into the RAF, and over the next 4 years sends his lover, Montague
Glover, hundreds of letters. [1930].
The Nazis occupy Holland, destroying Jacob Schorer’s homosexual library & archive.
1940-1 Christ Held by Half-Naked Men by Marsden Hartley – Nova Scotia fishermen pose nude.
1940-50 Roger Martin du Gard works on Mémoires de lieutenant-colonel Maumort – and compiles a
substantial dossier on homosexual matters, in an attempt to show it was natural. The
novel remained unfinished and unpublished in his lifetime.
1941 Reflections in a Golden Eye by Carson McCuller. Featuring the homosexually repressed
bully Captain Penderton.
January. Daphne du Maurier reads her sister, Angela du Maurier’s lesbian-themed novel The
Little Less.
American Renaissance: Art & Expression in the Age of Emerson & Whitman by F.O.
Matthiessen.
Guy Burgess moves into Anthony Blunt’s flat at 5 Bentinck Street.
Patrick White, as part of British Army Intelligence meets Greek soldier Manoly Lascaris in
Alexandria. They become lifelong companions.
Georgette Leblanc dies, so Margaret Anderson return to New York. On the journey she
meets Dorothy Caruso, widow of the opera singer. They live together until 1955.
Quentin Crisp picks up G.I.s during the London blackout.
Around this time Alfred C. Kinsey has an affair with his student Clyde Martin.
Sergei Nabokov and Hermann Thiene are arrested by the Gestapo for being homosexual.
Spring. US homosexuals in military prisons were to dishonourably discharged without trial
after lengthy interrogations, systematic humiliation and physical abuse.
The author Paul Scott marries for protection.
Lincoln Kirstein, founder of the New York City Ballet, marries Fidelma Cadmus, and she
moves in with Lincoln, and the dancer, Pete Martinez.
Death of Francis Skinner (31) from polio, ending his relationship with Ludwig Wittgenstein.
Sir Paul Latham MP was arrested for improper behaviour with 3 gunners & a civilian while
serving as an officer in the royal artillery. He attempted suicide by crashing his
motorbike into a tree, but survived. He was court-martialled & found guilty of
10 acts of gross indecency.
Spring. Eardsley Knollys becomes assistant at the National Trust office & thereby is acquain-
ted with James Lees-Milne. They would eventually become firm friends, and
although both homosexual, never lovers.
At this time the BBC did not want to mention on air or in the Listener that Proust was homo-
sexual, according to J.R. Ackerley.
Peter Pears reads E.M. Forster’s essay about George Crabbe, and suggests to Britten that
Peter Grimes would be an ideal subject for an opera.
Dr Samuel Lieberman treated a young black man with marked effeminacy by giving him
electric shocks over a 3-month period. He seemed to respond, but was back within a
year for more treatment.
Yury Yurkin, Russian poet, and many other writers are arrested by the Stalinist regime &
executed.
Another short stocky effeminate black man was given hormone medication, but this had no
effect on his personality or behaviour.
A white male (54), who liked to be spanked, after his mother found him when he was 12 with
another boy and spanked him, was one of the first people to be partially lobotomised
for the offence. He seemed to be less interested in other men, but by 1945 he had
dementia, was incontinent had memory loss, all caused by the lobotomy.
1942 The short story ‘The Sailor-Boy’s Tale’ is published in Karen Blixen’s collection Winter’s
Tales. Male love is shown to be magical, enigmatic, but also dangerous.
Quentin Crisp becomes a life-model.
The Turning Point by Klaus Mann – autobiography. Any homosexual content is hidden
between the lines.
In Abergavenny a page-boy (15) complained about a cinema manager behaving improperly
during the blackout. This unearthed a scandal involving hairdressers, hotel chefs,
clerks, window-dressers, and actors. The cinema manager attempted suicide.
Sentences of between 1 to 12-years imprisonment were meted out.
Laurence Housman deposits a book, detailing his brother’s (A.E. Housman) romances with a
series of young men, at the British Library, with the proviso it not be published for
25 years.
Arturo Lopez-Willshaw, a rich flamboyant Chilean, spots Baron Alexis de Redé (19), moves
him in to his neoclassical palace in Neuilly to become his lifelong live-in lover.
António Botto is dismissed from his government post, by the increasingly repressive Salazar
regime. He had become notorious for his bohemian life-style, fondness for sailors &
for his acid comments.
Miguel de Molina persecuted for his politics and his homosexuality flees Spain for
Argentina.
James Lees-Milne’s diaries for this time depict Alan Lennox-Boyd as being infatuated with
American aesthete Stuart Preston. Milne starts slowly falling out of love with Rick
Stewart-Jones.
Put Out More Flags by Evelyn Waugh – Ambrose Silk is portrayed as an intellectual &
aesthetic queen.
A police raid on a male brothel catches David Walsh, Democratic senator of Massachusetts,
and the composer-critic Virgil Thomson.
August. Isherwood has enjoyed the quick-witted company of Pete Martinez since they met
in 1939, but they have a sexual encounter at this time.
Eddy Sackville-West falls in unrequited love with Benjamin Britten.
George Lees-Milne refers to the Duke of Kent as a pansy, after his death in air crash.
J.R. Ackerley falls for a guardsman on the run with gonorrhoea, Freddie Doyle.
The Pétain regime makes the first explicit anti-homosexual law in France, when it made
homosexual acts with men under-21 an imprisonable offence.
1943 Maiden Voyage by Denton Welch – autobiographical novel with homosexual aspects.
MP Tom Driberg is arrested for fellating a Norwegian sailor in Edinburgh.
Edward Maisel publishes a biography of composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes, but is unable
to mention his homosexuality.
Prescott Townsend is caught committing an “unnatural and lascivious act” with an 18-year-
old man.
William Plomer was arrested near Paddington Station for propositioning a soldier. He
destroys his correspondence with Ackerley, Isherwood, Lehmann & Spender &
advises E.M. Forster to do the same.
Handsome US actor Bill Roerick visits E.M. Forster via an introductory letter from Isher-
wood. They become platonic friends.
Desmond Shawe-Taylor places an advert in Exchange & Mart offering a pair of trooper’s
breeches for sale. The replies he received show that “breeches” was code for
bondage gear &/or people who enjoyed caning.
George Platt Lynes ends his relationship with Glenway Westcott & Monroe Wheeler when he
moves in with his studio assistant Jonathan Tichenor.
Sept-Dec. Desmond Shawe-Taylor is in America meeting many members of the homosexual
community.
André Gide & the Crisis of Modern Thought by Klaus Mann.
Klaus Mann goes back into the closet to enlist in the US army.
Sandy Baird (33) was killed in action. He had enjoyed a long affair with Brian Howard (38).
‘You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To’ by Cole Porter inspired by choreographer, Nelson
Barclift.
27 March. Willem Arondeus, Sjoerd Bakker & Johan Brouwer, all homosexuals, plus others
break into Amsterdam’s citizen registration building, and set fire to it, attempting to
destroy fake identity papers and passports. All but 2 of the conspirators were hunted
down, put on trial & shot.
Luís A. Duarte Santos, lecturer at Coimbra University, Portugal, believes homosexuality is
caused by external factors, and homosexuals were responsible for their actions.
James Lees-Milne’s closest friend is now Jamesey Pope-Hennessey. Stuart Preston returns,
but the affair stutters as Preston is lionised by high society. Hamish Erskine escapes
from a prisoner-of-war camp & he & Milne go to bed with each other.
1944 Gerald Haxton dies of alcoholism. Alan Searle becomes Maugham’s secretary and heir.
July. The Friendly Young Ladies by Mary Renault.
Our Lady of the Flowers by Jean Genet. The ‘hero’ has erotic fantasies in prison & relation-
ships with pimps & brutal killers.
Young Tom by Forrest Reid – final part of the Tom Barber Trilogy – sensitive Tom is now 15.
December. Brian Howard is dismissed from his post, in which he called his commanding
officer “Colonel Cutie.” He had already met Sam Langford, an Irishman, serving in
the Air Sea Rescue. They had a longstanding open relationship.
Richard Schultz (56) receives a returned letter informing him that Hans Spann (42) died on
active service. Schultz hides Jews from the Nazis.
Homosexual acts in Sweden are no longer illegal.
Fillipo De Pisis is now in Venice, and uses Bruno, a gondolier as a nude model.
Pier Paolo Pasolini (22) forms a school with his mother, and is attracted to one his students.
His first homosexual crush.
Aaron Copland & Victor Kraft have their first rural getaway in New Jersey, but Copland’s
increasing fame meant he also had a string of lovers in their 20s & 30s.
‘The Homosexual in Society’ by Robert Duncan is published in Politics, asking for openness
regarding homosexuality. A previously accepted poem was rejected by the Kenyon
Review.
Woodie Wilson & ‘Kate’ were court martialled for publishing Myrtle Beach Bitch, a gay
serviceman’s newsletter. They were sentenced to a year in prison, and put in a large
wing full of homosexuals.
1945 The Death of Virgil by Herman Broch. An erotic same-sex relationship develops between the
poet & the boy.
The Glass Bead Game by Hermann Hesse. It features homosocial relationships.
In Youth is Pleasure by Denton Welch – autobiographical novel with gay aspects.
April. Tom Mitford dies in the far east. He was James Lees-Milne’s first & perhaps greatest
love. Milne continued to have Freudian dreams about him. Stuart Preston returns
and their affair is rekindled for a short time.
Russell Cheney (63) dies from an asthma attack, leaving F.O. Matthiesen (43) alone and
devastated.
Autumn. Wittgenstein meets the handsome youth Ben Richards (21), and they enjoy a deep
emotional relationship for the last 5 years of Wittgenstein’s life.
Peter Grimes by Benjamin Britten has its premiere. The subtext is of homosexual guilt.
Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh. Anthony Blanche was partially based on Brian
Howard & Harold Acton. Cousin Jasper warns Charles Ryder “beware the Anglo-
Catholics. They’re all sodomites with unpleasant accents.”
Richard Fleischer (19) is examined by a psychiatrist when being drafted, who fails to notice
his curly hair is partly bleached, and he speaks with a “sissy S.”
Kenneth Tynan (18) later alleged that critic James Agate (68) put his hand on his knee &
asked him if he was homosexual.
Fillipo De Pisis, celebrating the end of the war, is arrested for dancing with 20 youths dressed
only in G-strings.
1945-9 The Roads to Freedom by John-Paul Satre published. Contains the gay character, Daniel.
1946 COC Netherlands is founded. The oldest existing LGBT organisation in the world.
Truman Capote (21) is accepted at Yaddo, the artist and writers’ colony at Saratoga Springs,
New York. He falls in love with both Howard Doughty and Newton Arvin(46), who
were long-term lovers.
Alec Guinness is arrested in a lavatory for committing a homosexual act.
‘The Middle Ages’ by Yukio Mishima.
Miracle of the Rose by Jean Genet. A novel of gay relationships.
That Summer,a novella by Frank Sargeson – Billy & Terry are clearly homosexual, but it is
never explicitly stated.
Angus Wilson (33) meets Tony Garrett, and they become lifelong companions.
23 November. William Tilden, former Tennis Champion, is arrested for fondling a teenage
hustler on Sunset Boulevard and given a 1-year prison sentence, serving 7 months.
Luchino Visconti (40) meets stagehand Franco Zeffirelli (23) employs him, and they become
lovers for 3 years.
Norman Douglas, writer, return to live on Capri with his lover Guiseppe Orioli.
John Minton is in a gay love triangle with Lucien Freud and Adrian Ryan.
September. James Lees-Milne has a rapprochement with Jamesey Pope-Hennessey.
A discharged Gay GI writes: “I can’t change. I have no desire to change, because it took me a
long, long time to figure out how to enjoy life. For you’ll agree, I’m not going
back to what I left.
1947 The Kinsey Institute is established in Indiana.
Querelle of Brest by Jean Genet with illustrations by Cocteau is published in a small edition
of 460 copies. The protagonist is a bisexual anti-hero.
Russell Cheney, 1881-1945: A Record of His Work by F.O. Matthiessen
‘Pages From Cold Point,’ a short story be Paul Bowles, includes a boy attempting to seduce
his father.
The Evenings by Gerard Reve – contains masturbation in what was considered a porno-
graphic way. The Minister of State refused him a travel grant.
Oscar Wilde by Edouard Roditi – a serious study of the poet.
Mother of Us All by Gertude Stein & Virgil Thomson – inspired by the life of Susan B.
Anthony, lesbian suffragist.
Arthur “Chick” Austin becomes director of the Ringling Museum in Sarasota, leaves his wife
in Hartford and lives with Jim Hellyar.
Oliver Baldwin is appointed governor of the Leeward Islands, taking his long-term lover,
Johnnie Boyle with him. He was recalled in 1950.
Truman Capote meets Jack Dunphy after the latter’s marriage failed. He sweeps him off to
Europe.
‘Frederico Paciência’, a short story by Mário de Andrade ‘Frederico Paciência,’ describing
the romantic relationship between two students appears posthumously.
J. Edgar Hoover, a secret transvestite, wrote: “depraved human beings, more savage than
beasts, are permitted to rove America almost at will.”
Patrik Kajson Returns by Kurt Haijby is bought up by Swedish authorities to prevent expos-
ure of King Gustav’s affair with Haijby.
Mid-April. E.M. Forster arrives in New York & is collected by Bill Roerick & his partner
Tom Coley. He lives for a time with Paul Cadmus & Jerry Foley. Cadmus has an
affair with the young painter George Tooker.
June. Forster meets Donald Windham, and tells him of his admiration for his erotic short
story ‘The Hitchhiker.’
28 July. Return to Night by Mary Renault.7 October.
Freya Stark marries British diplomat Stewart Perowne. He is homosexual and is unable to
consummate the marriage.
Former diplomat Sumner Welles evades his police guard, and invites back a handsome youth
to his room after giving him $150.
July. Tennessee Williams (36) meets Frank Merlo (26) and they embark on a 14-year love
affair.
June – August. Allen Ginsberg (21) & Neal Cassady (21) were in Denver together.
James Lees-Milne disapproves of Lord Carrisbrooke who went on to have a lifelong lover,
Simon Fleet; and Sir David Bowes-Lyon who made suggestive comments indicating possible
homosexuality.
Winter. Monroe Wheeler & Glenway Wescott were pulled out of bed, beaten & robbed at
gunpoint. They reported the crime, but were later embroiled in an investigation to
discover their homosexual network.
10 December. Daphne du Maurier writes to Ellen Doubleday in which she explained she
believed her outward form was a mistake. Inside she was a boy, with a boy’s mind
and heart and ambitions.
William Tilden, former tennis pro, made advances to a hitch-hiker (16), & is arrested. He
was sentenced to a year in prison, and served 10 months.
Henry Scott Tuke touring Italy paints oil studies of young male nudes.
1947-54 Jean Genet lived with his lover Java in hotels, always placing a photo of a handsome young
German murderer on the wall first.
1948 Circle of 1948 founded in Denmark, later known as F-1948, designed to lobby for gays &
lesbians.
Brave and Cruel, short stories by Denton Welch – includes ‘When I was Thirteen,’ which
depicts the flowering and destruction of a child’s sexual awakening.
21 February. Daphne du Maurier writes to Ellen Doubleday “nobody could be more bored
with the ‘L’ people than I am – I like to think my Jack-in-the-box- was, and is, unique.”
15 April. Mary Renault and Julie Mullard leave London by train for France. On board the
ship to South Africa they meet Peter Albrecht (later known as Peter Arne) & Jack
Corke, who seem resourceful, but who cheat them out of Mary’s fortune.
15 July. Daphne du Maurier informs Ellen Doubleday that if she saw her as “just one more
Ventian wanting to make a pass” she must tell her. Daphne would throw Ellen then
herself into the Hudson because she refused “to be classed with that gang.”
Harry Hay (US) conceives the idea of a gay activist group.
Trials of Oscar Wilde by H. Montgomery Hyde.
Memoirs of an Aesthete by Harold Acton.
Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male by Alfred Kinsey. It includes the tangled relationships
of Glenway Wescott, Monroe Wheeler & George Platt Lynes.
Around this time Roger Brown (psychologist) meets Shakespearean scholar Arthur Gilman at
the University of Michigan. They become partners for over 40 years.
Montgomery Clift was arrested for soliciting in Times Square.
Patrick White & Manoly Lascaris move to Australia for the remainder of their life.
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. The novel contains childhood homosexual
fantasies, which could be autobiographical.
‘Portrait of My Uncle’ by Vladimir Nabokov. The uncle molested Nabokov.
The Military Orchid by Jocelyn Brooke describes conscientious objectors as self-indulgent,
effeminate cowards.
Ned Gorem, US composer, wins Gershwin Memorial Award & begins diaries detailing his
Parisian homosexual encounters.
Jean Cocteau provides illustrations for an edition of Querelle by Jean Genet.
‘Entrance to an Unwritten Novel’ by E.M. Forster published in the Christmas edition of the
Listener. Actually, part of the text of the homosexual story ‘The Other Boat’.
The Servant, a novella by Robin Maugham.
Harold Nicholson makes a pass at Truman Capote.
February. James Lees-Milne meets Burnet Pavitt, former diplomat, and they become very
close.
William Tilden is arrested for fondling another 16-year-old hitchhiker, receives a 1-year
sentence, and on release is a social and professional pariah.
Tennessee Williams & Frank Merlo becomes a couple, and Merlo asks that Williams remains
faithful.
Yannis Tsarouchis paints Seated Sailor & Reclining Nude.
Norman Hartnell (47), fashion designer, is surprised by his bookkeeper, Mrs Godley, in full
evening dress. This is passed off as fancy dress, but Hartnell was evidently a cross-
dresser, and was obviously expecting the arrival of a man.
Patrick White returns to Australia & finds in William Dobell’s art: “flashes of homo-sexual
brilliance & insight.”
Gustav Rasmussen appoints fellow-homosexual Jens Dahl as Danish permanent Under-
Secretary.
1948-9 E.M. Forster reworks the final part of Maurice for the last time.
1949Mid-January. E.M. Forster, Benjamin Britten & Eric Crozier begin work on Billy Budd.
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. A young homosexual man hides behind a mask to fit
into society.
The Thief’s Journal by Jean Genet. It explores the relationship between a gay-subculture & the
criminal underworld.
Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith. Thriller with a homoerotically obsession between
2 potential murderers.
The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal – the portrayal of homosexuality causes a scandal.
Adventure Story by Terence Rattigan – a play about the life of Alexander the Great.
Das Holzschiff [The Ship] by Hans Henny Jahn – homoerotic dreams of a sailor.
Around this time the painter Fairfield Porter has an affair with the poet James Schuyler, who
moves in with Porter and his wife for 11 years.
Jack Merlo admits to Jack Warner that his job is to sleep with Tennessee Williams.
James Baldwin (25) meets & falls in love with bisexual Swiss artist Lucien
Happersberger (17) in Paris.
Paul Cadmus completes his painting What I Believe, inspired by E.M. Forster’s essay.
The painting contains multiple male nudes (& a few female nudes). Among others the painting
features Forster, 2 self-portraits, 2 Lincoln Kersteins, and a Jerry French.
Del Martin (28) & Phyllis Lyon (31), future lesbian activists meet working on the same Seattle
trade journal.
The Wrong Set, short stories by Angus Wilson – some homosexual characters.
Pier Paolo Pasolini loses his job as a teacher, when his homosexuality is publicised.
E.M. Forster & Bob Buckingham visit the US. They stay with Glenway Westcott & Monroe
Wheeler. Westcott organises a party with the unstated theme of sex. Other guests
included Joseph Campbell & Dr. Alfred Kinsey. Later, Westcott invites Kinsey to
watch sex parties.
J.R. Ackerley has a holiday at Heytesbury, Siegfried Sassoon’s house. These two homosexuals
appraise each other in their respective diaries.
J.R. Ackerley meets Simon Raven at Cambridge. They share homosexual stories, and Raven
begins book reviewing for the Listener.
The Old Man and the Child by François Augiéras. Augiéras describes his sexual relationship
with his uncle.
Dr George S. Thompson concluded that Metrazol-induced shock had no effect on sexual
orientation.
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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