More than 600 pictures ? portraits and pornography, postcards and cuttings and snapshots from private albums ? go to make up one man's personal and highly idiosyncratic view of gay history since the invention of the camera. Gay people, their friends, lovers, idols and enemies in all their glory, divas, bodybuilders and drag queens, heroes and villains, from Marie Lloyd to Madonna, Sandow to Schwarzenegger, Boulton to Savage, Labouchere to Mary Whitehouse. And alongside the famous and infamous, are the images of ?ordinary? gay men taken at moments that only friends and lovers would bother to record.
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About the Author
James Gardiner works as a researcher, author and film stylist specialising in popular entertainment and the gay life which was, and is, so often connected with it. He deals in pictorial ephemera relating to these subjects, and has built up a unique photo-archive of old picture postcards from the period.
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First Sentence
"...[The Turkish Baths at Jermyn Street] represented a twilight arena for elderly men who came to sweat poisons from their systems and youths who came to strike beguiling poses in Turkish towels... although they were closely overseen by attendants, they provided a discreet place to inspect a young man before offering a cup of tea at Lyons." (AJ Langguth) Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
"...[The Turkish Baths at Jermyn Street] represented a twilight arena for elderly men who came to sweat poisons from their systems and youths who came to strike beguiling poses in Turkish towels... although they were closely overseen by attendants, they provided a discreet place to inspect a young man before offering a cup of tea at Lyons." (AJ Langguth) Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A lovely book, part history lesson and part scrapbook, which gathers together photos and clippings from 150 years of gay life. Some photos are only of anonymous men in intimate portraits, some are muscle mag fodder, whilst others are prime examples of Victorian erotica. As you finger through you see gay men like Alan Turing, Ivor Novello, Kenneth Williams, Anthony Perkins and Divine. Sprinkled in are icons like Judy Garland, Princess Di and Bette Davis though there is a definite British bias to the material. More often than not each photo only has the briefest identifying caption, though there are longer passages about landmark legal cases, plays and movies plus examples of polari. It is thorough (Quentin Crisp, Tom of Finland, Dirk Bogarde and even Soldiers in Skirts all make appearances) and will expose you to some new faces, but ultimately it's little more than a scrapbook. Lots of pretty pictures and the occasional caption means it's lovely to look at, but to really learn anything about the people featured here you'll have to do your research elsewhere.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By schumann_bg
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Just a few minutes looking at this book makes me feel a connection to the past again, and it also gives a sense of how we are on a continuum ... It is truly astounding how James Gardiner has put together all these images, they are so important, and really the accessibility of it is a great virtue. You don't have to make any effort to get entirely taken over; it is by turns moving, informative, erotic, curious, and there is quite a lot to read if you want to, but it is primarily a visual book. James Gardiner himself appears in one small image from the 70s of him sitting in his flat in his underwear - it may be small but Boy! wasn't he sexy too! One of the best things about the book is the way it mixes up well known figures with people who weren't known at all - everyone is in there, or so it seems! I can only go on piling up the superlatives, but in the end this book has to be seen to be believed!
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3.4 out of 5 stars
8 reviews
44 of 50 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
Great possibilities, ultimately disappointing
16 Sep 1999
By A Customer
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
There are some wonderful archival photos in this book, but it lacks a basic level of "scholarship" that leaves it as one guy's idiosyncratic take on British-dominated gay history. Seems to me there is way too much focus on drag, and a more international perspective would have helped as well.
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
A multifacteted overview
9 Mar 2002
By Grady Harp
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
To dismiss this book as just an excuse to dredge up some titillating photographs for the purpose of publishing is an injustice. This collection is an historical perspective on many levels - the camera as a art form since its invention, a survey of sociolgical transformations as to the perception of homosexuality, the psychological sweep from the closet to the stage to Stonewall to the AIDS bedside and beyond. There are many many captured moments that seem voyeuristic in the best sense of the word in that the spontaneity of individuals interacting as well as groups entertaining are fresh and often off guard. Here is a portfolio of tenderness, of hilarity, and of tragedy. Would that there were more essays interspersed to document the various periods traversd. But then we must also pay homage to the phrase "a picture is worth a thousand words". Well worth your time.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great Pix, but...
6 Sep 2007
By NonModo
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Paperback
I got this as a present, and I am never sure what one has to do with picture books once seen they seem to have exhausted their usefulness. Nevertheless, it passes the time for novices on this subject; and one could always leave it lying around for 'straight' visitors to find...
This picture volume has more the feel of a labour of love than that of a scholarly work, and I am sure it doesn't aspire to that. The fact that it is very much London (UK) based limits its scope for other audiences somewhat despite some Baron von Gloeden images. I did find a 2 or 3 people in there I had come across in my time when clubbing in London; it serves me as a nice memento then. (Bless; Regina Fong)
This picture volume has more the feel of a labour of love than that of a scholarly work, and I am sure it doesn't aspire to that. The fact that it is very much London (UK) based limits its scope for other audiences somewhat despite some Baron von Gloeden images. I did find a 2 or 3 people in there I had come across in my time when clubbing in London; it serves me as a nice memento then. (Bless; Regina Fong)
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3.4 out of 5 stars
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