Graham Robb

Strangers

"A brilliant work of social archaeology....A major historical contribution."—Adam Goodheart, The New York Times Book Review

The nineteenth century was a golden age for those people known variously as sodomites, Uranians, monosexuals, and homosexuals. Long before Stonewall and Gay Pride, there was such a thing as gay culture, and it was recognized throughout Europe and America.

Graham Robb, brilliant biographer of Balzac, Hugo, and Rimbaud, examines how homosexuals were treated by society and finds a tale of surprising tolerance. 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?

This is a landmark work, full of tolerant wisdom, fresh research, and surprises. 31 illustrations.

"A work of enormous value....Robb makes some startling and bold findings."—William S. McFeely, Los Angeles Times Book Review

"A brilliant work of social archaeology, all the more remarkable because the truths he unearths were never buried very deep; for decades if not centuries they have been hidden in plain sight....In excavating the long-buried lives of our gay great-great-granduncles and lesbian great-great-grandaunts, Robb has done more than make a major historical contribution. He has, as it were, provided their distant nieces and nephews, gay and straight, with a family tree that we have never had before."—New York Times Book Review