Queer City
Gay London from the Romans to the Present Day
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2.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
A history of the development of London as a European epicenter of queer life.
In Queer City, the acclaimed Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way–through the complete history and experiences of its gay and lesbian population. In Roman Londinium, the city was dotted with lupanaria ("wolf dens" or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels), and thermiae (hot baths). Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks, and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure. Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden history of the city; from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early nineteenth century. He journeys through the coffee bars of sixties Soho to Gay Liberation, disco music, and the horror of AIDS. Ackroyd reveals the hidden story of London, with its diversity, thrills, and energy, as well as its terrors, dangers, and risks, and in doing so, explains the origins of all English-speaking gay culture.
Praise for Queer City
"Spanning centuries, the book is a fantastically researched project that is obviously close to the author's heart…. An exciting look at London's queer history and a tribute to the "various human worlds maintained in [the city's] diversity despite persecution, condemnation, and affliction.""—Kirkus Reviews
"[Ackroyd's] work is highly anecdotal and near encyclopedic . . . the book is fascinating in its careful exposition of the singularities—and commonalities—of gay life, both male and female. Ultimately it is, as he concludes, a celebration as well as a history," —Booklist
"A witty history-cum-tribute to gay London, from the Roman "wolf dens" through Oscar Wilde and Gay Pride marches to the present day," —ShelfAwareness
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
British novelist Peter Ackroyd has written several histories of his native London, but Queer City might be the most fascinating. His overview of London’s gay history begins with its Roman settlement in 47 AD and runs all the way to the present, recounting thousands of years’ worth of remarkable tidbits about gay subcultures and the ever-shifting public response to them. From the laissez-faire Elizabethan age (with a nod to the same-sex content in Shakespeare’s comedies) to Britain’s criminalization of homosexuality beginning in the 18th century to the AIDS crisis of the 1980s, Ackroyd shows how gay life has permeated London’s political and cultural history. He writes with a love of language that sparkles when he dives into centuries of outdated code words for gay people, including the odd Victorian term “invert.” This is a quick and engrossing read.
