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GAY F. BAT-BMGARDNER
It’s a story worth reuntg as a remr of the rrosive homophobia that vastated the private life and stroyed the public reer of this brilliant artist. I have always been terted gay history and ially thought Osr Wil would be the lead character whatever this new work was gog to be. Wil’s trial and imprisonment for “gross cency” was one of the semal events of the late 19th century, a stark example of the persecutn and crimalizatn of gay men that lasted to the 1960s.
Wil’s life was well documented, but no one had wrten any tail about everyday gay life late-Victorian England.
As I dug eper and began to nnect the dots, a shadowy picture began to emerge of the subterranean gay world that had flourished England before gay men even knew what to ll themselv. The word “homosexual” did not exist. “Sodome” and “pervert” were the most mon ephets ed to vilify gay men.