The Young and Evil (1933) by Charles Ford and Parker Tyler
A classic of queer modernism that was championed by Gertrude Stein and Djuna Barnes, this first edition of the controversial gay novel focuses on bohemian life in New York’s Greenwich Village in the 1920s and 1930s. Published in Paris, many copies were seized and destroyed by British customs when the book was first issued.
The magazine Hellas was published 1953-1954, one of several post-World War II homophile publications in the German-speaking area.
Norma Trist: A Story of the Inversion of the Sexes (1895), by J. W. Carhart, was the first lesbian novel in English.
Les Fellatores: Moeurs de la Décadence (1888)
Both the author and publisher of this nineteenth-century French erotic novel about decadence and homosexuality were heavily fined and sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for violating public morals.
Sexual Inversion (1897), written by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds, first appeared in German in 1896 and was the first English medical text on homosexuality (called “sexual inversion”).
First edited by founder Rolf Putziger in Hamburg, this early post-World War II gay journal began in 1951 as Die Insel: Monatsblätter für Freundschaft und Toleranz, but was later renamed Der Weg zu Freundschaft und Toleranz (The Path to Friendship and Tolerance). In addition to its photos of male physique, the magazine featured discussions especially of relevance to gay men, including the decriminalization of homosexuality (removal of the law §175), as well as political news.
Maximin: Ein Gedenkbuch (Maximin: A Memorial Book), published in 1907, was the work of German poet Stefan George (1868-1933). Dedicated to the memory of poet Maximilian Kronberger (1888-1904), who died young after contracting meningitis, the book is a beautiful art nouveau presentation of grief from Stefan George and the literary circle that famously orbited him. This rare book is one of approximately 200 copies.
L’Homme Sirène
The mysterious author of this rare fin-de-siècle queer novel, Louis Didier, concealed his identity under the pseudonym Luis D’Herdy.
