Image for Queer city  : gay London from the Romans to the present day

Queer city : gay London from the Romans to the present day

See all formats and editions

‘Droll, provocative and crammed to busting with startling facts’ Simon Callow, GuardianIn this powerful Sunday Times bestseller Peter Ackroyd looks at London in a whole new way – through the history and experiences of its gay population. In Roman Londinium the city was dotted with lupanaria (‘wolf dens’ or public pleasure houses), fornices (brothels) and thermiae (hot baths).

Then came the Emperor Constantine, with his bishops, monks and missionaries. And so began an endless loop of alternating permissiveness and censure. Ackroyd takes us right into the hidden history of the city; from the notorious Normans to the frenzy of executions for sodomy in the early nineteenth century.

He journeys through the coffee bars of sixties Soho to Gay Liberation, disco music and the horror of AIDS. Today, we live in an era of openness and tolerance and Queer London has become part of the new norm.

Ackroyd tells us the hidden story of how it got there, celebrating its diversity, thrills and energy on the one hand; but reminding us of its very real terrors, dangers and risks on the other.

Read More
Available
£9.74 Save 25.00%
RRP £12.99
Add Line Customisation
5 in stock Need More ?
Add to List
Product Details
Vintage
0099592940 / 9780099592945
Paperback / softback
24/05/2018
United Kingdom
English
ix, 262 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (black and white, and colour), maps (c
20 cm
Reprint. Originally published: London: Chatto & Windus, 2017.