Peter Ackroyd: A secret history – 2,000 years of gay life London | History books | The Guardian

Contents:

• LONDON GAY MAP
• PETER ACKROYD: A SECRET HISTORY – 2,000 YEARS OF GAY LIFE LONDON

LONDON GAY MAP

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PETER ACKROYD: A SECRET HISTORY – 2,000 YEARS OF GAY LIFE LONDON

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Perhaps is new book, a history of gay London entled Queer Cy, returns to faiar terrory, so much so that ’s surprisg Ackroyd hasn’t already wrten : fact, turns out that, after a manner of speakg, he has. More famoly, a 1983 novel is wrten as a fictnal diary by Osr Wil, a photograph of whom rat his study, sandwiched between Thomas More and the Elizabethan mag John the new work go far eper, travellg om the barely visible remas of Celtic London and the arrival of Christiany the AD300s to the great sex sndals of the 19th century – Wil clud – and on to recent fights for gay rights. If the Celts strike as somewhat mp – Ackroyd suggts the word has s origs the mid-1800s and the gay slang Polari – then so might Chcer’s Pardoner The Canterbury Tal (the prototype of “a London queer”, Ackroyd suggts).

The same go for the nizens of the “molly ho” of 18th-century London – clubs-cum-brothels where gay men uld mgle, drs up and have many chroniclers of gay culture, Ackroyd don’t neglect lbianism: we are gleefully taken on a tour of the dildo shops of the Geian cy – ’s said that one tablishment  Leicter Fields sold nothg else – and behd the closed doors of cigarillo smoke-filled Edwardian clubs such as the Cave of Harmony and the Orange 2017, 50 years after some forms of homosexualy were tentatively legalised, ’s hard to thk of anythg that has unrgone greater upheavals than gay culture. As a percentage of the populatn, there were as many gay bars 18th-century London as there are today. Growg up on a uncil tate East Acton the 1950s, Ackroyd knew he was gay.