Pages Passed from Hand to Hand: The Hidden Tradition of Homosexual Literature in English from 1748 to 1914

by Mark Mitchell (Editor), David Leavitt

Before E. M. Forster's Maurice, written in 1914, introduced a new openness about the favorable depiction of homosexuality in English fiction, a number of novels and stories carried coded portraits of homosexuals and homosexuality. Many of these were, by necessity, published privately; still others were written to insure that the homosexual component would be recognizable to a select few; still others embedded homosexual content within such "safe" genres as the Western and the public school novel. There have been several recent anthologies of twentieth-century gay fiction, but David Leavitt and Mark Mitchell's fascinating book is the first to explore the texts that circulated before the "gay fiction" genre came into being, and before greater tolerance allowed writers to treat homosexual themes directly. Leavitt and Mitchell include extracts from stories and novels by well-known writers such as Herman Melville, Walter Pater, Henry James, Willa Cather, and D. H. Lawrence, as well as work from neglected figures such as Count Eric Stenbock, John Francis Bloxam, "Alan Dale," and Gerald Hamilton -- the inspiration for Christopher Isherwood's Mr. Norris. The result is an entertaining and revelatory anthology, and a valuable contribution to our understanding of the literary treatment of homosexuality.

Genres: Queer, History, LGBT, Nonfiction, Short Stories, Gay, Anthologies

480 pages, Paperback

First published January 20, 1998

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this expansive anthology, editors Mitchell and Leavitt have unearthed some obscure works by nearly two centuries of English and American literature with covert and openly "gay" themes. From British bawdy houses to Western cowboy ranches, the level of homosexual identification varies. Herman Melville's story focuses more on building a chimney for a cabin (I did not get the 'gay' inference), and others include the predictable tragic outcomes of their eras. Alan Dale's complete novel A Marriage Below Zero is published in its entirety, penned as a confessional from the wife of a closeted man. It all builds to an excerpt from E.M. Forster's then-groundbreaking Maurice, with an early university excerpt of his schoolmate's declaration of love. Altogether, it's a fascinating, well-researched survey.

[Tinquerbelle]

Selections from:
1) The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748); Smollett, Tobias
2) Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749); Cleland, John
3) The History of Henry Dumont, Esq. (1756); Charke, Charlotte Cibber
4) "I and My Chimney" (1856); Melville, Herman
5) Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania (1870); Taylor, Bayard
6) "In a Transport," South Sea Idylls (1873); Stoddard, Charles Warren
7) Marius the Epicurean (1885); Pater, Walter
8) A Marriage Below Zero (1889); Dale, Alan
9) Tim: A Story of Eton (1891); Sturgis, Howard Overing
10) "The Mocking-Bird," Tales of Soldiers and Civilians (1891); Bierce, Ambrose
11) "Collaboration" (1891-2); James, Henry
12) Teleny; or The Revers of the Medal (1893); anonymous
13) "Boris Orlss" (1893); Bradford, The Reverend Edwin Emanuel
14) "The Priest and the Acolyte" (1894); Bloxam, John Francis
15) "Hylas," "Narcissus," "The True Story of a Vampire," Studies of Death: Romantic Tales (1894); Count Stenbock, Stanislaus Eric
16) "The Roman Road," The Golden Age (1895); Grahame, Kenneth
17) "In Praise of Billy B." (1897); Baron Corvo, Frederick Rolfe
18) "Em'ly," The Virginian: A Horseman of the Plains (1902); Wister, Owen
19) The Challoners (1904); Benson, Edward Frederic
20) "A Catalogue," The ROmance of a Choir-Boy (1905); Nicholson, John Gambril
21) "The Sculptor's Funeral," The Troll Garden (1905); Cather, Willa
22) "A Revelation," The Hill: A Romance of Friendship (1905); Vachell, Horace Annesley
23) "Evensong and Morwe Song" (1908); Scott-Moncrieff, Charles Kenneth
24) "Tobermory," The Chronicles of Clovis (1911); Saki
25) "The Better End: Conclusion of a chapter from the unpublished novel, What Percy Knew, by H*nr* J*m*s" (c. 1912); Wilkinson, Louis Umfreville
26) "Out of the Sun," Her Enemy, Some Friends--and Other Personages: Stories & Studies Mostly of Human Hearts (1913); Prime-Stevenson, Edward Irenaeus
27) "The Prussian Office" (1914); Lawrence, D.H.
28) Desert Dreamers (1914); Weston, Patrick
29) Maurice (1914); Forster, E.M.

[Frederick · Rating 5 out of 5]

This collection will introduce the reader to many neglected works of gay fiction.
In particular, this book gives to the reader an entire novel well worth the reprinting: A MARRIAGE BELOW ZERO, written in the 19th century by a man named Alan Dale. It is one of the most riveting novels I've ever read. It is written from the point of view of a young bride who gradually realizes her husband is cheating on her. The reader, of course, knows she's beginning to discover her husband's sexual orientation. Superficially, this is an anti-gay work, but I think it can just as easily be read as an attack on the enforced state of denial people are put in regarding homosexuality. I found it a very realistic novel.
Mark Mitchell and David Leavitt unearthed a treasure in A MARRIAGE BELOW ZERO. An antiquarian book dealer has told me "copies of this book are scarce as hen's teeth." It is the centerpiece of PAGES PASSED FROM HAND TO HAND.
I recommend this collection for that novel, but that is not a minor recommendation. Readers of PAGES PASSED FROM HAND TO HAND will learn about the history of gay publication.

[T.C. Mill · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great opportunity to read some historical gay fiction I probably wouldn't have had the chance to learn about otherwise.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 1 out of 5]

(My 2021 review was corrected, but not changed in 2024)

I am giving this anthology one star because I did not like the anthology not because I didn't like the contents (although many of them are of doubtful interest in literary terms and just because a work mentions or describes a homosexual - however laboured or defined - I don't think it necessarily belongs as part of the 'Gay Tradition' - I refer in particular to the excerpts from Tobias Smollett and John Cleland). But the main reason I don't like the anthology is because I feel it trades on false advertising and promotion; on the back cover Edmund White (whom I normally trust when he puffs a book) writes 'This anthology restores the missing record that was nearly erased by censorship and neglect...Could it be that the whole History of English literature will now have to be rewritten?' My answer would be no because much of what is in here is pretty second rate as literature. As for censorship - there are excerpts from or stories by Walter Pater, Ambrose Bierce, Henry James (the story collaboration - not his gayest by any means), Kenneth Grahame, Frederic Rolfe, E F Benson, Willa Cather, Saki, and D H Lawrence - all of which were in print (not circulated clandestinely) at the time (pre 1914) and easily available in libraries then (possibly more then now) and subsequently.

Of excerpts from novels that were out-of-print (possibly) by 1914 'A marriage Below Zero' by Alan Dale (pseud for Alfred J Cohen and 'South Sea Idylls' By Charles Stoddard were published by mainstream publishers and sold out in the open as were 'Tim a story of Eaton' by Sturgis (in fact a friend mine was given a copy of this novel when he went to Harrow in the 1970s) and Vachell's 'The Hill' - in fact the last two school stories went through many editions. Except for two stories which appeared in short lived Public School (for non UK readers that means private school) or College magazines - even then one of them featured prominently in Wilde's libel trial so it was well known and probably sought out - so maybe it was passed from hand-to-hand.

As the anthology is supposed to be a survey of gay literature before 1914 (clearly only English and American writers though this isn't stated maybe just taken as understood possibly because as Americans the compilers generation certainly behaved at times as if they had invented everything to do with being gay with a polite nod towards the English because of Wilde - forgetting that he was Irish - though interestingly there is nothing from Wilde in this anthology)) and called 'Pages Passed from Hand to Hand' and the introduction says many of the works in it were of necessity circulated privately. An emphasis is placed on the fact that all these works predate Forster's 'Maurice'. Which is interesting because while all the works in the anthology were published - and almost all by mainstream publishers and sold over the counter - the only work that was circulated by hand - and then to a very restricted self-referential and, to be honest in bred snobbish clique, was Forster's 'Maurice' of which there is, for some needless reason as it is widely available elsewhere, an excerpt.

I have a bone to pick about 'Maurice' and the way Forester waited until after his death to publish it by which stage the importance of a gay story with a happy ending was neither novel nor new. I know all the arguments about publishing it - but he could have done so in the 1950s or 60s - there was nothing in it to cause an obscenity prosecution and his position within academia was secure. It might have been a challenge, he might have been attacked, but it was possible to do so and, as he had stopped writing back in 1924 because he couldn't write honestly so it was a bit hypocritical to not publish when he could. It would have been a challenge and maybe unpleasant but he could have done some good instead of sitting around in Cambridge passing it to various effete contemporaries and pretending he was so daring and challenging.

To return to this anthology - the contents are interesting, the best (which is very little) is already known and available - I am severely disappointed and I warn anyone thinking of it not pay the large price that this volume usually commands.

[Joji Grey · Rating 5 out of 5]

A MUST read for any modern day Dandy. It has snippets of rare and beautiful Uranian literature.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important if you want to try gay stuff, bookwise that is ;-)
There was a pbk too