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Available for over a year

A major new anthology explores what it was actually like for queer men in London between 1945-1959. It uncovers the lives of well-known figures like John Gielgud, ‘Chips’ Channon and E.M. Forster, and men living quiet lives of anonymity in pubs, clubs, more public places of assignation, or at home. It details a community forced to live at constant risk of blackmail or prison. Yet it also shows a thriving and joyous subculture, one that enriched a mainstream culture often ignorant of its debt to gay creators. London was the place to which gay men gravitated and the book is rich with letters, diaries, psychological textbooks, novels, films, plays and police records, covering a wide range of viewpoints, from those who deplored homosexuality to those who campaigned for its decriminalisation.