Book Review: My Dear Boy

My Dear Boy

Gay Love Letters Through the Centuries

Editor:                            Rictor Norton

Publisher:                      Leyland Publications

Type:                              Soft Cover

Pages:                             278

Genre:                            non-fiction

Published:                     1998

ISBN:                             9780943595719

 This book is well written and well produced. It has a few black and white photos, paintings and drawings within. It should be noted that there is a little nudity, but this is very tasteful and artistic.

 This book is exactly what it says on the cover, it presents love letters between male loves thorough history. It is amazing that so many gay love letters have survived.

 The introduction makes a very excellent point that while some have tried to claim that homosexuality s a modern invention. That claim is as ridiculous as claiming there were no alcoholics before Magnus Huss "discovered" alcoholism in 1852.

 Each entry starts out describing the writer and recipient of the letters and then often shows some written correspondence back and forth between them.

 We start off reading of Alexander the Great and his lovers, the we move on to Marcus Aurelius who funnily enough equated his desire for his male lover with being thirsty after a great fever. After that we move to ancient China and a love story that might just bring a tear to the eye.
 I will also mention that some of there solve letters come from saints, monks and clerics.

 The stories come from all over the world, Germany, Portugal, China, Rome, Japan, Italy, Brittan, France, America among other locations. 

 Some of the authors i knew while others were a mystery to me. Some more famous names included; Hans Christian Anderson, Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, King Ludwing II, Pior, Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Michelangelo, King James, Alexander Hamilton, Lord Byron, William Burroughs, TS Elliot, Edward Carpenter, Oscar Wilde, Countee Cullen, TE Lawrence and Allen Ginsberg.

 This is a fascinating and very important work. Australians LGBTQ community is currently going through a hate campaign enabled by the right wing government, in it every Australian will get to vote on if LGBTQ people should have equal marriage rights. During this horrible "debate" i have hear much vilification and many threats against LGBTQ individuals, family's and youth. But the worst was probably one woman. She was arguing that LOVE was between a man and a woman, not marriage, no she was adamant that only a man and a woman could love. For more on what kind of people are voting on our rights read the #TheyGettoVote hashtag on Twitter.

 Anyway i highly recommend this book for anyone who is interested in history, or LGBTQ issues. If fact if your going to comment publicly on LGBTQ issues you have a responsibility to educate your self on those issues. You should read this book. This book should be in every high school, perhaps an edited version with some pictures removed if necessary, but it needs to be there.