Synopses & Reviews
Drawn from the secret, never-before-seen diaries, journals, and sexual records of the novelist, poet, and university professor Samuel M. Steward,
Secret Historian is a sensational reconstruction of one of the more extraordinary hidden lives of the twentieth century. An intimate friend of Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Thornton Wilder, Steward maintained a secret sex life from childhood on, and documented these experiences in brilliantly vivid (and often very funny) detail.
After leaving the world of academe to become Phil Sparrow, a tattoo artist on Chicago's notorious South State Street, Steward worked closely with Alfred Kinsey on his landmark sex research. During the early 1960s, Steward changed his name and identity once again, this time to write exceptionally literate, upbeat pro-homosexual pornography under the name of Phil Andros.
Until today he has been known only as Phil Sparrow but an extraordinary archive of his papers, lost since his death in 1993, has provided Justin Spring with the material for an exceptionally compassionate and brilliantly illuminating life-and-times biography. More than merely the story of one remarkable man, Secret Historian is a moving portrait of homosexual life long before Stonewall and gay liberation.
Synopsis
Justin Spring is a writer specializing in twentieth-century American art and culture, and the
Synopsis
A dramatic account based on previously unseen journals and records reveals the mid-20th-century writer's hidden sexual life, marked by relationships with famous contemporaries and the identities he created as Phil Sparrow and Phil Andros to conduct his research.
About the Author
Justin Spring is a writer and curator specializing in twentieth-century American art and culture, and the author of many monographs, catalogues, museum publications, and books, including Fairfield Porter: A Life in Art and Paul Cadmus: The Male Nude.