Left To Themselves by Edward Prime-Stevenson(Vallencour...

Left To Themselves by Edward Prime-Stevenson

(Vallencourt Books, 2016)

 

This novel, written for (and about) boys, was published in 1891 and is believed to be the first book ever published to be (self-proclaimed) "homosexual" in essence.  Edward Prime-Stevenson (1858 - 1942) was an American journalist and novelist living in Europe.  In 1908 he published The Intersexes, a defense of homosexuality from legal, moral, biological and personal perspectives.

Left To Themselves is  an adventure story about two boys, the twelve-year-old Gerald Saxton and the seventeen-year-old Phillip Touchstone.  Gerald's father, who is vacationing with a group of (all) men in Nova Scotia, has sent for Gerald, and Phillip is enlisted as his chaperone on the journey, which goes repeatedly and dangerously wrong.  The story thrillingly follows them  from a resort camp in the Adirondacks to New York City to a shipwreck to an idyllic deserted island and finally to an ornery seaside town.  

The two boys -- or the boy and the boy/man - immediately form an uncommon and deep friendship and are devoted to one another in a tender and profound way.  They are pursued and hounded at all stages of their journey by a handsome man who is intent upon kidnapping Gerald (for reasons that are never clearly defined), and who blackmails and threatens Phillip to gain access to his prize.  This constant threat of blackmail is what, according to Eric L. Tribunella, who wrote the very interesting introduction, signifies the homosexual subtext of the book, for blackmail was a crime that originated with, and was primarily associated with, homosexuality.

The plot itself is reliant on coincidences that make no narrative or practical sense, and this fault weakens and blurs the reader's enjoyment of the book.  But as most adult readers will be reading the book for its literary and cultural merits, this narrative failure is of no real import.  

A unique, fascinating glimpse into how homosexuality and adolescent sexuality were regarded in an earlier age.