A Gay History of Britain - Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages Book

Covering nearly a thousand years from the Norman Conquest to the internet age, this is a history rich in personalities, not only public figures like Richard Lionheart or Derek Jarman, but also little-known individuals such as Eleanor, a cross-dresser in Chaucer s England, and Mark Partridge, branded a mollying bitch in eighteenth-century London.

A Gay History of Britain tells their stories against a shifting historical background of changing laws, fluctuations of popular prejudice, and unexpectedly influential events, such as the coming of the railways. It also poses some intriguing and crucial questions.

Did Richard Lionheart, Eleanor, Mark Partridge and Derek Jarman share a sense of sexual identity? How differently did the mollies of the eighteenth-century and the twentieth-century activists of Outrage! think of themselves? What links and divides the vivid expression of homosexuality in the playhouses of Renaissance London and the secrets and scandals of Victorian England?

Drawing on a fabulous wealth of research, the authors each an expert in his field have worked closely together to deliver a compelling and eye-opening exploration of the many different ways in which British men have expressed their love and desire for one another.

"A valuable, long-overdue addition to the canon of gay history."
Gay Times

"[A] substantial, moving and significant [story], well captured in an impressive book..."
The Independent

"[A] thorough and fascinating glimpse back at gay life in the UK over the last 1,000 years... a landmark achievement, shedding light on a section of history too often ignored or overlooked."
Out in the City