My Dear Boy: Gay Love Letters through the Centuries

My Dear Boy is an anthology of gay love letters documenting the heartbreak and joy of love between men for almost two thousand years. Emperor Marcus Arelius, Bo Juyi, Saint Anselm, Erasmus, Michelangelo, Mashida Toyonoshin, Thomas Gray, William Beckford, Walt Whitman, Tchaikovsky, Henry James, Countee Cullen, William Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg are just a few of the correspondents included, who range from kings and aristocrats, musicians and artists, military men and monks, to farm labourers and herring merchants, political activists and aesthetes, black poets and Japanese actors, drag queens and hustlers.

Important letters by Marsilio Ficino, Federico Gonzaga, Henrich von Kleist, Charles-Victor de Bonstetten, Johannes von Muller, Johann Joachim Winckelmann, and Jean Cocteau have been specially translated for this anthology.

Some of the letters come from books proudly published by their writers and some have been published in newspapers and pamphlets as part of political and religious attacks; some come from court records (from the Inquisition to the Old Bailey) and some were discovered in a cardboard box after a house clearance; many have narrowly escaped censorship and suppression.

This richly diverse collection of letters illustrates the basic theme of romantic love: infatuation, longing, sex, separation, the fear of rejection, jealousy, the joy of reunion, celebration, and debates about "marriage" and "infidelity" in gay relationships. Whether the affairs were stormy or tender, they are, above all, testimonials to an enduring love.

A full introduction charts the survival of gay love letters throughout history, and each selection is introduced with a biographical note describing the context in which the letters were written. Illustrated with more than two dozen photographs.