Balzac didn’t dare: Origins of the Gay Novel
Tom Crewe, 8 February 2024
When we happen across a gay man in the 19th-century novel, we do just that. We are made suddenly aware of him, standing in sharp relief against the busy background, apparently having very little to do with it. Usually, we see him just for a moment. Often we do not trust ourselves: we do a double-take. Occasionally, there is a flash of recognition. ‘It seemed to me,’ Henry James...