Before Wilde: Sex Between Men in Britain's Age of Reform"This is a work of great originality that fills a huge gap in the history of homosexuality."--George Robb, author of British Culture and the First World War "This book fills an aching gap in the history of male homosexuality in Britain, the mid-years of the nineteenth century. Charles Upchurch shows the importance of this period in foreshadowing what was to come in the greater dramas of the late century, signaled by Wilde's disastrous fall. But more than this, the book refuses to see homosexuality as a thing apart. Its history is firmly located in a dense history of families, communities, rapid change, new forms of policing, and social reform. The result is a compelling account that illuminates dark corners, and throws new light on the familiar. It is a major contribution to our understanding of sex between men in a period of dramatic change."--Jeffrey Weeks, author of The World We Have Won: The Remaking of Erotic and Intimate Life |
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24 September accused Annual Register April argued arrest attempted sodomy August behavior Britain British Central Criminal Court character charges Cleveland Street Scandal constable convicted courtroom coverage CRIM Criminal Petitions cross-dressed cultural defendant early nineteenth century economic eighteenth eighteenth-century England English evidence extortion Gender George Havelock Ellis Home Office Hyde Park incident indecent assault individuals infamous crime involved John Journal jury Krafft-Ebing letter liberal London Lowndes magistrate masculine Metropolitan Police middle middle-class molly houses moral Morning Chronicle Morning Post Newbery newspapers November October Oxford papers pattern police court policeman political prisoner prosecution Protheroe Psychopathia Sexualis public house punishment Reform respectable Rogers same-sex desire sentence September 1842 servants Session sex between men sexual acts sexual advance sexual assaults sexual desire similar social society soldier stories Street Thomas tion trial University Press unnatural assault unnatural-assault upper upper-class Victorian Weekly Dispatch Whitehurst William women working-class York young