Peter Ackroyd - Queer City: Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

NONFICTION
London: The Biography
Albion: The Origins of the English Imagination
The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays,
Short Stories, Lectures, edited by Thomas Wright
Thames: Sacred River
Venice: Pure City
The English Ghost
London Under

FICTION
The Great Fire of London
The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde
Hawksmoor
Chatterton
First Light
English Music
The House of Doctor Dee
Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem
Milton in America
The Plato Papers
The Clerkenwell Tales
The Lambs of London
The Fall of Troy
The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein
Three Brothers

BIOGRAPHY
Ezra Pound and his World
T. S. Eliot
Dickens
Blake
The Life of Thomas More
Shakespeare: The Biography

BRIEF LIVES
Chaucer
J. M. W. Turner
Newton
Poe: A Life Cut Short
Wilkie Collins
Charlie Chaplin
Alfred Hitchcock

Copyright 2018 Peter Ackroyd
Jacket design by John Gall
Cover art by John Atkinson Grimshaw courtesy of Getty Images
Author photograph by Charles Hopkinson

Published in 2018 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017949745

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3099-3
eISBN: 978-1-68335-301-0

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1 Sappho, from Les Vrais Pourtraits et vies des Hommes Illustres, Andre Thevet, 1584. Image: Glasshouse Images / Alamy Stock Photo

2 Radish, English school, c. 19th century. Image: Private Collection / Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images

3 Early mounted Knights Templar in battle dress, Italian school, 1783. Image: Bibliotheque des Arts Decoratifs, Paris / Archives Charmet / Bridgeman Images

4 Piers Gaveston and the Barons, 1872. Image: 19th era / Alamy Stock Photo

5 The Pardoner, from Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales. Image: University Library, Cambridge (Photo by Culture Club / Getty Images)

6 Ganymede, 1878. Image: ZU_09, iStock images

7 George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, after Cornelius Johnson, c. 1623. Image: Hulton Archive / Getty Images

8 Frontispiece for T. Dekker and T. Middletons The Roaring Girle, 1611. Image: Culture Club / Getty Images

9 Aphra Behn, after John Riley, c. 18th century. Image: Chronicle / Alamy Stock Photo

10 Captain Edward Rigby, after Thomas Murray, 1702

11 A male brothel, La prostitution contemporaine, 1884. Image: Wellcome Library, London (CC BY 4.0)

12 View of Newgate prison, c. 1760. Image: Guildhall Library & Art Gallery / Heritage Images / Getty Images

13 Hannah Snell, c. 1745. Image: MPI / Getty Images

14 A macaroni, from Social Caricature in the Eighteenth Century, Emily Morse Symonds, 1905. Image: The Print Collector / Print Collector / Getty Images

15 Trying & Pillorying of the Vere Street Club, c. 1810

16 Frontispiece for Jack Sauls The Sins of the Cities of the Plains, 1881

17 A Night in the Cave of the Golden Calf, The Daily Mirror, 1912

18 Gay Liberation Front Manifesto, 1971

1 Greek red figure pottery, c. 500 BC. Image: Ancient Art and Architecture / Alamy Stock Photo

2 Costume of a Saxon Chief, Charles Hamilton Smith, 1815. Image: The Protected Art Archive / Alamy Stock Photo

3 Statue of the Emperor Trajan, London, 1959. Image: View Pictures / UIG via Getty Images

4 Seventeenth-century map of London, C. J. Visscher, c. 1650. Image: British Library, London (CC Public Domain Mark 1.0)

5 William Rufus, Historia Anglorum, c. 1259. Image: British Library, London British Library Board. All Rights Reserved / Bridgeman Images

6 Death of Piers Gaveston, c. 1850. Image: The Print Collector / Print Collector / Getty Images

7 Knights, Templars, English School, c. 19th century. Image: Private Collection Look and Learn / Bridgeman Images

8 Chaucers Canterbury Pilgrims, William Blake, c. 1810

9 Sixteenth-century map of London, Frans Hogenburg, c. 1570. Image: National Library of Israel, Jerusalem

10 The Droeshout portrait of William Shakespeare, 1623. Image: The Bodleian First Folio (CC BY 3.0)

11 Christopher Marlowe, c. 1585. Image: Parker Library, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

12 King James I of England and VI of Scotland, Daniel Mytens, 1621. Photo National Portrait Gallery, London

13 Ann Mills, c. 1740. Image: Rischgitz / Getty Images

14 Christina Davies, aka Christopher Welsh, c. 1706

15 Mary Ann Talbot, c. 1800. Image: Three Lions / Getty Images

16 Ann Bonny and Mary Read, c. 18th century. Image: Stefano Bianchetti / Corbis via Getty Images

17 A Morning Frolic, or the Transmutation of the Sexes, after John Collet, c. 1780. Image: Yale Center for British Art

18 This is not the thing: or, Molly exalted, 1762. Photo The Trustees of the British Museum

19 Edward Kynaston, Richard Cooper and R.B. Parkes, c. 19th century

20 King William III, studio of Sir Peter Lely, 1677. Photo National Portrait Gallery, London

1 A molly house interior, 1874. Image: Interim Archives / Getty Images

2 The Bishop of Clogher arrested for a homosexual act with a soldier, George Cruikshank, 1822

3 Charles Bannister as Polly Peachum, James Sayers, c. 19th century

4 The St Jamess Macaroni, James Bretherton, 1772. Image: Guildhall Library & Art Gallery / Heritage Images / Getty Images

5 The Chevalier dEon, c. 18th century. Image: Photo12 / UIG via Getty Images

6 Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton, aka Fanny and Stella, Fred Spalding, c. 1870. Image: Essex Record Office, Chelmsford

7 Oscar Wilde, Napoleon Sarony, c. 1800. Image: Universal History Archive / Getty Images

8 16 Tite Street, London, c. 1910. Image: Hulton Archive / Getty Images

9 E. M. Forster, c. 1920. Photo Hulton-Deutsch Collection / CORBIS / Corbis via Getty Images

10 Radclyffe Hall, 1928. Image: Planet News Archive / SSPL / Getty Images

11 Map of Londons public urinals, from Paul Prys For Your Convenience, Philip Gough, 1937

12 A policeman silhouetted against the lights of Piccadilly, Ernst Haas, c. 1955. Image: Ernst Haas / Ernst Haas / Getty Images

13 Sir John Wolfenden, 1957. Photo Illustrated London News Ltd / Mary Evans

14 Quentin Crisp, 1948. Image: Popperfoto / Getty Images

15 Joe Orton, c. 1965. Image: Bentley Archive / Popperfoto / Getty Images

16 John Gielgud in a stage production of Oscar Wildes The Importance of Being Earnest, 1947. Image: Bettmann / Getty Images

17 Biograph Cinema, Victoria, London to Hell and Back, c. 1950. Photo Ronald Grant Archive / Mary Evans