A very interesting collection - although not all of the entries are up to snuff. The editors' goal was to find early writings containing homosexual or homoerotic elements, and some of the passages included here strike me as being a bit of a stretch. Others, however, were fascinating.

One of the reasons I picked up this book was that it includes the complete text of "A Marriage Below Zero," by Alan Dale (aka Alfred J. Cohen), which is otherwise hard to find. This was one of the more interesting entries: a short novel narrated by a young woman who is embittered by the failure of her marriage and loss of her husband to his male lover. [Neither the lover nor the husband come across as very decent people, but since the story is being told by the wife it's not too surprising.] I thought the story was quite well-written despite the obligatory tragic ending.

Other authors excerpted here include Ambrose Bierce, Herman Melville, Henry James, Willa Cather, E. F. Benson, Owen Wister, Saki, and E. M. Forster. There's also an anonymous-or-is-it entry, an excerpt from "Teleny": the authors mention that Oscar Wilde is considered a possible author, but it can't be proven. Anyway, this excerpt is deliciously steamy porn, with lyrical yet explicit descriptions of all of your basic acts; it'd be right at home in a modern collection.

Part historical overview, part literary sampler, this book's hard to qualify but worth checking out.

Controlled release:

I'm sending this to BCer MaulLove.

Very excited about reading this book, wondering what stories are in here!