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

(Updated 25 July 2014)

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
• Myth of the Modern Homosexual
• Gothic Readings 1764-1840
• Mistress of Udolpho: The Life of Anne Radcliffe
• Eighteenth Century British Erotica

Academic Papers (PDF files)
• Ann Radcliffe, 'The Shakespeare of Romance Writers'
• Pastoral Homoeroticism and Richard Barnfield
• William Beckford's Newspaper Cuttings
• F*ck Foucault
• Paradigms of Same-Sex Marriage

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

MORE ABOUT ME
• Wikipedia Entry
• A Brief Biography
• Photos by me and my partner on Flickr
• My Library on LibraryThing
• My Facebook page

CONTACT ME

This website is archived on the British Library's UK Web Archive.

QUEER CULTURE

LESBIAN HISTORY

THE QUEER CANON
Shakespeare, Whitman, Melville, Henry James, Gide, Cocteau, Censorship, etc.

A HISTORY OF HOMOPHOBIA
Ancient Hebrews, Destruction of Sodom, Roman, Medieval, Heretics and Witches

A HISTORY OF HOMOEROTICA
Pornography, Libertinism, Beefcake, Limericks, Uranian Verse, Teleny, etc.

POSTMODERN QUEER THEORY
A Critique of Social Constructionism
F*ck Foucault (PDF file)

MY DEAR BOY
Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

THE HOMOSEXUAL PASTORAL TRADITION
in English Renaissance Literature

THE GAY SUBCULTURE IN GEORGIAN ENGLAND

HOMOSEXUALITY IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLAND
A Sourcebook of Primary Documents

REVIEWS AND CRITIQUES

SOME THOUGHTS ON . . .
• Walter Benjamin's Theory of Cultural Work
• The Villa Borghese
• Books on Gay History
• The Gothic Lady's Library
• Queering Andrew Marvell
• Criminal Biographies
• Physical Impairment
• Horace Walpole

BIBLIOGRAPHY OF GAY AND LESBIAN HISTORY

THE GEORGIAN UNDERWORLD
Criminal Subcultures in 18th-Century Britain (non-gay)

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

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

WHAT'S NEW
• Walter Benjamin's Theory of Cultural Work
• The Villa Borghese
• Books on Gay History
• Ann Radcliffe (pdf file)
• "The Cry of Sodom"
• The Gothic Lady's Library
• Queering Andrew Marvell
• Criminal Biographies
• Physical Impairment
• Horace Walpole
• Review of Zarathustra's Secret
• Review of The Reckoning
• Review of Sex in Elizabethan England
• Bits & Pieces
• F*ck Foucault (pdf file)
• Paradigms of Same-Sex Marriage (pdf file)