Synopses & Reviews
Fiction. LGBT Studies. The first important American gay novel, originally published in 1919. "Entertaining...eminently readable work...distinguished by its beautifully evoked period atmosphere, its sly humor...an engaging and quite undeservedly neglected comedy of bad manners"--The New York Times.
Synopsis
“Entertaining . . . eminently readable, distinguished by beautifully evoked period atmosphere and sly humor.”—The New York Times
America’s first gay novel, published in 1919.
Synopsis
A literary triumph by a contemporary of Henry James, from Turtle Point Press. Henry Blake Fuller (1857-1929), a contemporary of both James and William Howells, lingers in a kind of literary purgatory. According to Carl Van Vechten, one of Fuller's greatest admirers, he is second only to James in American writing of that period. And it was no less than Edmund Wilson who singled out Bertram Cope's Year, written in 1919 as Fuller's finest work. Yet all this literary pedigree would be meaningless were not this novel so affecting today. Its rich texture and keen observational writing make it a masterpiece of American realism. The novel centers around a young mid-western college professor named Bertram Cope, and involves, among other things, the courtship of Cope by a gay older man. This open homosexuality -- the novel has several other gay characters -- was in fact the reason for the book's obscurity, as it was a taboo topic at the time. Most critics ignored the work outright when it was published, and Fuller later said he wished he had never written it. Only the writer James Huneker came to the novel's defense, comparing Fuller to Stendahl. It is past time to give this wonderful book the audience it so richly deserves.
Synopsis
America's very first Gay novel, published in 1919 is set in Evanston, Illinois.
About the Author
Henry Blake Fuller (1857-1929) was a Chicago-born American satirist, essayist, memoirist, critic, and novelist. His best known novels are The Cliff-Dwellers and The Chevalier of Pensieri-Vani.