THIS ISSUE takes us back to the dawn of LGBT identity as we explore some of the 19th-century writers who first put legibly queer characters and behaviors on the page. Though it was 1868 before Karl Maria Kertbeny coined the term “homosexual,” and it didn’t become widely used for another couple of decades, our contributors detect hints of same-sex attractions in works as early as The Count of Monte Cristo, serialized in 1844, and Frankenstein, published in 1818.
Will Bashor argues that there are hints of queerness in both Mary Shelley’s gothic cautionary tale and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, books in which each protagonist creates a double for himself who represents hidden desires. J. Barnes contends that little is hidden in The Count of Monte Cristo, which depicts two women who are obviously devoted to each other, one of whom even dons a man’s suit and cuts her hair short.
What could be gayer than a private meeting of the minds between Walt Whitman and Oscar Wilde? Andrew Rimby reports that the tête-à-tête left such an impression on the young Wilde that he said ten years later he could still feel Whitman’s kiss upon his lips. Eric L. Tribunella detects early depictions of adolescent same-sex desire in the late-19th- and early 20th-century works of Edward Irenæus Prime-Stevenson, C. K. Scott Moncrieff, and Edwin Emmanuel Bradford. In a History Memo, Peter Jordaan recounts the tale of Victorian aristocrat Geoffry Wheatly Cobb, who loved ships almost as much as he loved sailors. Charles Timbrell has contributed an Artist’s Profile on composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky and the many men in his life.
Taking us deeper into the 20th century are two recipients of The G&LR’s Charles S. Longcope Jr. Writers and Artists Grant. Keira Roberson has researched the life of Lotte Hahm, an important queer figure in Weimar-era Germany through World War II, who created spaces for lesbians and trans women to congregate. And Hugo Ljungbäck has dug into the archives to explore unsung gay filmmakers of the mid-20th-century like Harold T. O’Neal, Cyrus Pinkham, Jerett Robert Austin, and François Reichenbach. Scott Bane completes this trio of 20th-century tales with an article on lovers F. O. Matthiessen and Russell Cheney, who were as influential in the arts as they were devoted to progressive politics and racial equality.
The issue also includes many great reviews of fiction and nonfiction books, plus critical analyses of recent queer-themed TV shows Boots and Heated Rivalry and movies Pillion and Plainclothes. In these difficult times for many in the LGBT community, it’s encouraging to see that queer stories are still being told.
