Strangers
Subtitle: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century
By: [by] Graham Robb
Edition: First American edition
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: December 30, 2003
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 352
ISBN-13: 9780393020380
Copyright date: 2003
First sentence: MORE THAN ONCE, while working on this book, I left the age of top-hats and bustles to find the world outside strangely similar.
Description: "In Strangers, the biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud has turned his attention to uncovering the real story of male and female homosexuality in the Victorian era. On the basis of archives, diaries, and letters scattered throughout Europe and America, Graham Robb tells a tale that is in part familiar, and in part extremely surprising - a story of oppression and secrecy but also of unexpected tolerance and familiarity." "Contradicting the widely held view that a liberated and proud gay heritage dates back only a few decades, the author uncovers evidence from legislation, literature, medicine, and daily life pointing to a culture of homosexuality that was uniquely well developed, self-aware, and sophisticated. He describes the lives of gay men and women: how they discovered their sexuality and accepted or disguised it; how they came out; how they made contact with like-minded people. He also includes a fascinating investigation of the encrypted homosexuality of such famous nineteenth-century sleuths as Edgar Allan Poe's Auguste Dupin and Sherlock Holmes himself (with glances forward in time to Batman and J. Edgar Hoover). Finally, Strangers addresses crucial questions of gay culture, including the riddle of its relationship to religion: Why were homosexuals created with feelings that the Creator supposedly condemns?"--Jacket.
Notes: Also published in London by Picador.
Includes bibliographic references and index.
Printed in the United States of America.
Manufacturing by The Maple-Vail Book Manufacturing Group.
Table of contents: title: List of Illustrations
pagenum: vii; label: 1.
title: Prejudice
pagenum: 1; label: Part One
pagenum: 15; label: 2.
title: In the Shadows
pagenum: 17; label: 3.
title: Country of the Blind
pagenum: 40; label: 4.
title: Outings
pagenum: 84; label: Part Two
pagenum: 123; label: 5.
title: Miraculous Love
pagenum: 125; label: 6.
title: Society of Strangers
pagenum: 156; label: 7.
title: A Sex of One's Own
pagenum: 174; label: Part Three
pagenum: 195; label: 8.
title: Fairy Tales
pagenum: 197; label: 9.
title: Gentle Jesus
pagenum: 233; label: 10.
title: Heroes of Modern Life
pagenum: 253; label: Appendices
pagenum: 271; label: I.
title: Criminal Statistics
pagenum: 272; label: II.
title: 'A Categoric Personal Analysis for the Reader'
pagenum: 276; label: III.
title: Map of Uranian Europe
pagenum: 278; title: Acknowledgements
pagenum: 280; title: Notes
pagenum: 281; title: Works Cited
pagenum: 307; title: Index
pagenum: 332