Fanny (and Stella) by gaslight

"Gay history, as generally told, is a history of criminality, repression and punishment but, actually, gay history is also the history of people who fall in love, people who go out and have sex with each other, people who create a sub-culture and who form an identity. And that’s really what I wanted to write about, although the story in the book is framed within the context of a criminal trial.”

What a wonderfully entertaining man Mr Neil McKenna is! We turned out en masse on Monday night to listen to this esteemed researcher and writer - as he launched his long-awaited tome Fanny and Stella - The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England, at Islington Central Library, as part of Camden & Islington LGBT History Month.

"The year 1869 had not been kind to young Mr Ernest Boulton who generally preferred to call himself – or herself – Stella.

In fact, 1869 had been decidedly cruel, beginning with Stella's startling discovery of a brazen and heartless infidelity on the part of her caro sposo, Lord Arthur Clinton, with none other than her best friend – and beloved sister – Mr Frederick Park, who generally preferred to be called Fanny. It had, according to Lord Arthur, only happened once. But once was enough. Of course, Stella blamed Fanny. Arthur was easily led and it was not the first time he had had his head turned by the tricks and wiles of a designing and unscrupulous young man dressed in women's clothes, as Stella now thought of Fanny.

It was a bitter blow. There had been tears, tantrums, scenes and slappings. Arthur was devastated and appalled. Fanny could only hang her head in shame and beg Stella's forgiveness. But Stella was adamant. She renounced her husband, disowned her sister and did what all sensible married women should do in such circumstances: she went home to her mamma in Peckham Rye."

Reading a couple of extracts from the book, he went into detail about the tawdry circumstances of the lives and the arrest of the two "ladies", and explained why he had chosen to write about their story. “I don’t think you can ever have too much camp,” he said. “Bring back camp.”

“I had wanted to write a book which was going to be completely gay. I was fed up with writing stuff that had to be seen through a prism of heterosexuality. I just thought I’m going to go for it. I’m going to write a book that is totally and completely gay. I’m going to call Fanny and Stella ‘she’ because that was what they called themselves… and that was a little bit of a sticking point again at various stages of the publication process. I much preferred to call them ‘she’ and that was a battle I won.

I think it’s quite new and quite exciting for Faber to publish a rip-roaringly gay, unmediated, utterly-butterly book about gay men, drag, bottoms, fucking and cock-sucking.

I wrote the book because I’d finished my book on Oscar Wilde and I was looking for another subject. I had mentioned Fanny and Stella in the Oscar Wilde book and I wondered if there was any mileage in them.

I discovered there was a full trial transcript in the National Archive, put together with maybe 30 or 40 depositions and maybe 30 or 40 letters. It’s remarkable, because most Victorian trials don’t survive. Sometimes there’s a shorthand account of a trial or part of a trial but, usually, we’ve only got fragments. I think that’s because the Public Record Office was bombed in the War and lots of stuff was destroyed. But also lots of stuff was never kept. It was never considered important to keep. So I’m very grateful to the the succession of people at the National Archive who thought this was – maybe – important to keep."



Despite being accused in court of "conspiracy to solicit, induce, procure and endeavour to persuade persons unknown to commit buggery", the two were never convicted in what became the cause celebre of the tabloids of the day - getting more column inches than the Franco-Prussian War, apparently. But why the hoo-ha? And why were they acquitted?

As Mark Simpson, writing in The Independent said: "the very obviousness and shamelessness of Stella and Fanny's (deliciously outrageous) behaviour was presented as proof that they could not possibly be guilty. Which, in a strange, 20th-century gay pride sense, was sort of true."





I have, needless to say, written of the lovely Fanny and Stella before - check out my entry in the Dolores Delargo Towers Museum of Camp from March 2012.

It remains a magnificent story - and one I can't wait to read (Mr McKenna signed us a copy on the night)! Here is just a taster:



An utterly captivating evening!

Read more and purchase the book from Mr McKenna's website.

Bookworm...

Internet has been down at home for two days, MySpazz has gone over to the dark side, but as predicted this is turning out to be a great literary week!



On Monday Madame Acarti, Paul, Jim and I settled ourselves in the "Royal Box" (front table) at Polari (back in the prime surroundings of St Paul's Pavilion where it belongs), to help celebrate the third birthday of "London's peerless gay literary salon". It seems like only yesterday that we first stepped across the hallowed threshold of the (late, dearly departed) Trash Palace in Wardour Street to be educated, entertained and indeed aurally assaulted by the magnificent (and also dearly departed, RIP) Sebastian Horsley!

As Paul Burston - in celebratory mood, understandably - mused, no-one involved in its launch back in The Green Carnation Bar in Frith Street would ever have believed that three years later we would be in such a prominent and prestigious venue as the Royal Festival Hall.

The evening's proceedings opened with fresh faced new author Ryan Child with his stunning and quite scary tale of a rabid queer-basher who falls for the boyfriend of one of his gang's victims. If Mr Child hadn't been so goddam sexy, we might have been a bit depressed at the gritty reality of his words. But he was mesmerising...



Lightening the mood somewhat, Justin Ward "strummed my life with his words" as he regaled with minute detail the excruciating tale of a small-town gay boy trapped in a world of ghastly family parties in social clubs, leery women and drunken oiks - superbly written and hilarious, but very very familiar... Read another of his short stories about dysfunctional families.

Our next reader William Parker was actually born in Newport (the small town that provided me with so many of those familiar scenarios Mr Ward described), but was brought up away from all that - with his booming actor's voice it was obvious he was one of the lucky ones. His story opened (hilariously) with the main character Ben falling drunkenly head-first down the stairs outside Charing Cross station, and revelled in the recollections of the bewildered childhood that had led him to that point - excellently read, excellently written. We loved it! Read more at http://william-parker.com/

Jonathan Kemp is one of the recently announced contenders short-listed for the brand new Green Carnation Prize for gay literature. His novel London Triptych flick-flaks between the lives of male prostitutes in three different eras - Oscar Wilde's turn-of-the-century, 50s post-war, and modern London - and with a couple of explicit extracts (each told from the rent boys' point of view), he had the audience gripped! A strong contender for the prize, I'd say (although my vote is for the fellow shortlisted Rupert Smith's Man's World).

Almost the climax(!) of the evening was the Kiwi author(ess) DJ Connell, whose debut novel Julian Corkle Is a Filthy Liar has variously been reviewed as "a Tasmanian Adrian Mole" and "one of the funniest rites of passage novels in a long time". From the extracts she read it certainly seems a very funny tale indeed, as the exceptionally camp Julian relates his adventures growing up in the uber-macho rural backwoods of Taz...

To round the night off with suitably big bang, our darling Celine had made an extra special effort to be there, and had brought along a very special friend to say a few words of congratulation on the anniversary - the Latino firebrand Mr Coati Mundi (of Kid Creole & the Coconuts and Dr Buzzard's Original Savannah Band fame)!



After Celine had entertained the punters with a selection of her rollicking rhythmic performance poems (during one of which she entwined herself rather firmly around Jim, seated as he was almost on the stage!), it was time for Paul to make his big announcement - the launch of The Polari Prize. Strictly limited to new works rather than previously published authors, the prize is open to a first book which explores the queer experience and is open to any work published in the UK in English within the twelve months leading up to the submission date (poetry or prose, fiction or non-fiction). So start thinking about your nominations now!

After the glitter had settled on the evening's proceedings Madame Arcati, Paul, Celine, Mr Mundi and I trolled off for a swifty at the Retro Bar before dispersing - such good company to finish off a magnificent evening!

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Continuing the literary theme, last night I went along to Islington Central Library for Homosexuality in literature: sodomy & censorship with Neil McKenna, author of The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde.

This, too, was a fantabulosa (if much less well-attended) event, as the theatrical Mr McKenna took us through a lively selection of examples of where gay lifestyles have been censored, edited, legislated against or erased from the pages of novels, poetry, history books, biographies and the theatrical stage. From early Renaissance comedies, through the Earl of Rochester's play Sodom, to Victorian transvestite rent boys "Fanny" and "Stella", Oscar Wilde, Radcliffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness, Stephen Spender's war poetry to the control that the Lord Chancellor held over the theatre even in the era of Joe Orton, he covered them all...

Whew! It was great, and I want to read (and learn) more. Mr McKenna's historical work about those Victorian trannies, and their scandalous trial, will be published in the new year, and I can't wait to read it. Read more about Neil.

Tonight we are eschewing literature (the book readings by Rupert Smith, Christopher Fowler et al at "Gay's the Word" bookshop) in favour of a rare showing of Terrence McNally's marvellous film The Ritz at the BFI - but this week has definitely been one for books.

I am currently reading Mr Fowler's Paperboy for my LGBT reading group, I recently completed the fourth of Paul Magrs' "Brenda & Effie" books Hell's Belles, and I have decided that as times is 'ard, everyone this Xmas will be getting books from charity shops (which is just another excuse to rifle through the shelves of every "Save The Children", "Oxfam" or "Macmillan Cancer Care" shop from Enfield to Kingston!).

The love of learning, the sequestered nooks,
And all the sweet serenity of books.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow