Welcome to my website with a special focus on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender history.

(Updated 29 April 2012)

It contains numerous articles that I've written over many years, as well as a large selection of primary documents, plus bibliographies and useful links to other websites on LGBTQ history. It also contains some of my writing on non-gay eighteenth-century history and literature.

BOOKS BY RICTOR NORTON
Mother Clap's Molly House
My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries
Gothic Readings 1764-1840
Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Anne Radcliffe
Myth of the Modern Homosexual: The Search for Cultural Unity
Sex Doctors and Sex Crimes: Eighteenth Century British Erotica
Sodomites, Mollies, Sapphists and Tommies: Eighteenth Century British Homoerotica

LINKS
Links to Queer History Websites
Links to Reviews of Books on Queer History
Links to Reviews of Biographies of Gays and Lesbians

REVIEWS AND CRITIQUES

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY

MORE ABOUT ME
A Brief Biography
Photos by me and my partner on Flickr
My Library on LibraryThing

THE GREAT QUEERS OF HISTORY

• The Suppression of Lesbian and Gay History
• Early Gay Historians
• Lists of Famous Homosexuals
• The Great Queers of History
• Gay Tombs in Westminster Abbey
• The Passions of Michelangelo
• King James I and VI
• Sir Francis Bacon
• Anthony Bacon
• The Trial of Mervyn Touchet, Earl of Castlehaven
• John, Lord Hervey: The Third Sex
• Rev. John Church, England's First Gay Minister
• William Beckford of Fonthill
• John Addington Symonds, Father of Gay History

QUEER CULTURE
• Reflections on Gay History
• Reflections on the Gay Movement (1974)
• Young Hung Stud Seeks Same: The Myths Behind the Wanton Ads
• A History of Gay Marriage
• The Nazi Persecution of Homosexuals
• Class-based Erotics
• The Gay News Blasphemy Trial

THE QUEER CANON
• The Homophobic Imagination
• Critical Censorship of Gay Literature
• William Shakespeare's Sonnets
• Walt Whitman, Prophet of Gay Liberation
• Herman Melville's Novels
• Henry James's The Turn of the Screw
• Andre Gide's Recovery of the Old Adam
• Jean Cocteau's White Paper on Homophobia
• Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

THE RENAISSANCE HOMOSEXUAL PASTORAL TRADITION

1. An Era of Idylls
2. Edmund Spenser
3. Affectionate Shepherds
4. The School of Spenser
5. Lovely Lad and Shame-Faced Catamite
6. The Maid in Man's Attire
7. Faithful Friend and Doting Lover
8. Bibliography of Pastoral Literature

A HISTORY OF HOMOPHOBIA

1. Homophobia and the Ancient Hebrews
2. The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah
3. The Later Roman Empire & The Early Middle Ages
4. Gay Heretics and Witches
5. The Medieval Basis of Modern Law

A HISTORY OF HOMOEROTICA
• A History of Gay Sex
• Problems of Pornography
• High Moral Climates
• England's First Pornographer
• Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal
• The Beginnings of Beefcake
• Aleister Crowley's White Stains
• Bawdy Limericks
• Naked as Bacchus
• Flower in Broken Leaf
• Blessed are the Puer in Heart

LESBIAN HISTORY
• The Nature of Lesbian History
• Catharina alias Anastasius
• Lesbian Pirates: Anne Bonny and Mary Read
• Tommies and the Game of Flats
• Lesbian Marriages in 18th century England
• Romantic Friendships among Women
• Anne Lister, The First Modern Lesbian
• Political Definitions of 'The Lesbian'

THE GAY SUBCULTURE IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND
• The Gay Subculture in Early Eighteenth-Century London
• The Raid on Mother Clap's Molly House
• The Sodomites' Walk in Moorfields
• Maiden Names and Little Sports
• Caterwauling (Sexual Behaviour)
• Public Rage (Homophobia)
• Blackmail
• The First Public Debate about Homosexuality in England, 1772
• The Vere Street Coterie, 1810
• The Bishop of Clogher
• Homosexual Terms in 18th-century Dictionaries
• Georgian Views of Homosexuality in the Ancient World

HOMOSEXUALITY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
• A Sourcebook of Primary Documents

THE GEORGIAN UNDERWORLD: CRIMINAL SUBCULTURES IN 18TH CENTURY BRITAIN (non-gay)

1. The Underworld & The Underclass
2. Crime Waves
3. The Fight Against Crime
4. The Geography of the Underworld
5. The Black Boy Alley Gang
6. Criminal Fraternies
7. Fencing, Pawnbroking and Organized Crime
8. Highwaymen
9. Footpads & Street Robbers
10. Vagabonds & Beggars
11. Pickpockets & Shoplifters
12. Coiners & Counterfeiters
13. Smugglers
14. Gambling & Boxing
15. Prostitution
16. Homosexuality
17. The Underworld & Popular Culture
18. Table of Contents

GRUB STREET CHRONICLE (non-gay)
• Early Eighteenth Century Newspaper Reports: A Sourcebook

GOTHIC LITERATURE (non-gay)
• Anthology of Gothic Readings, 1764-1840
• Ann Radcliffe, Mistress of Udolpho
• Aesthetic Gothic Horror

POSTMODERN QUEER THEORY: A CRITIQUE OF SOCIAL CONSTRUCTIONISM

1. The Uses of Gay History
2. Social Constructionism
3. Essentialism
4. Gender Nonconformity
5. Sexual Identities
6. Discourse versus Desire
7. The Uses and Abuses of Theory
8. Homosexual Identities
9. Passive Roles
10. Sexual Orientation
11. Exclusive Homosexuality
12. Bisexuality
13. The Myth of the Modern Homosexual
14. The Term 'Homosexual'
15. A False 'Birth'
16. The Medicalization of Homosexuality
17. Internalized Homophobia
18. Inversion and Subversion
19. Intergenerational and Egalitarian Models
20. Capitalism and the Family
21. Labelling Theory
22. The 'Sodomite' and the 'Lesbian'
23. Queer Language
24. Queer Culture vs. Homophobic Discourse
25. The False Charge of 'Anachronism'
26. Political Definitions of 'The Lesbian'
27. Queer Subcultures
28. Against Queer Theory

GAY LOVE LETTERS THROUGH THE CENTURIES
• My Dear Boy anthology
• Gay Love Letters through the Centuries
• Emperor Marcus Aurelius (c. AD 139)
• Flavius Philostratos (c. 3rd century)
• Paulinus of Nola & Ausonius (c. 4th century)
• Bo Juyi & Yuan Zhen (early 9th century)
• Saint Anselm (c. 1071–1075)
• Some Early Medieval Clerics
• Baudri of Bourgeuil (early 12th century)
• A Spanish Monk (c. 1100)
• Marsilio Ficino (1473)
• Pietro Aretino (1528)
• Michelangelo (1533)
• Sir Philip Sidney and Hubert Languet (1573)
• King James and the Duke of Buckingham (1620-23)
• Francisco Correa Netto to Manoel Viegas (1664)
• Mashida Toyonoshin, a Samurai (1667)
• Thomas Gray (1716-1771)
• John, Lord Hervey (1727–1731)
• Johann Joachim Winckelmann (1746, 1762)
• Johannes von Muller to Charles-Victor de Bonstetten (1774-1802)
• Alexander Hamilton (1779-80)
• Heinrich von Kleist (1805)
• William Beckford (1807)
• Lord Byron (1807)
• Rev. John Church (1810)
• Thomas Jefferson Withers (1826)
• Hans Christian Andersen (1840s)
• Herman Melville to Nathaniel Hawthorne (1851)
• Brother Augustine (1864)
• Ludwig II to Richard Wagner (1865)
• Edward Fitzgerald 1866-70
• Walt Whitman (1860–1870)
• Fanny and Stella (1868–1870)
• Edmund Gosse (1879–1883)
• Edward Carpenter & George Merrill (1886-91)
• Tchaikovsky (1891–1893)
• Oscar Wilde to Lord Alfred Douglas (1893-96)
• Henry James (1899–1902)
• F. Holland Day (1907–1909)
• Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo) (1909)