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And, as you mentioned, the fluidity of the sexuality is really interesting. I’m not a big reader of porn-Victorian or otherwise-but one thing that strikes me about Sins is that, aside from the occasional old-fashioned Briticism, a lot of the porn passages seem astonishingly modern for a book from 1881. I think he saw that we had published the more famous Teleny, which has been attributed to Oscar Wilde, and thought Sins would go well with that one. Well, The Sins of the Cities of the Plain is definitely a surprising book in a lot of ways! I’d never heard of it either, until Wolfram Setz, a German historian who introduced the book for us, suggested it. So I’m curious about what’s surprised you as you’ve unearthed some of these texts. Kinsey must have creamed his jeans over this one. In reading one of the gay Victorian novels Valancourt has brought back into print, The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, I was first of all surprised that I’d never heard of this book, but I was also surprised by the fluidity of the sexuality therein. I’ve since chatted up one of the publishers, James Jenkins (his partner in books and marriage, Ryan Cagle, handles the horror side of the business), to learn more about some of the gay titles they’ve brought out. I immediately went to their website and was startled at the number of books that they’ve resurrected, and the obvious care and diligence that went into those books’ recovery. My friend Trebor Healey interviewed them recently at the Huffington Post, where I learned that they’ve been reprinting gay classics and Gothic and horror books since 2005. Intuition, coded cover art and friendly guidance has led me to many a title, and I’m glad that there are still surprises on this journey, chief among them Valancourt Books. The Stonewall riot may have been the start of a civil rights movement, but it was not the beginning of our history. There was always the possibility that I would find a rarity, or even a book previously unknown to me.Īs an adult reader, I’m continually surprised at the breadth and depth of gay fiction.
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James Jenkins: Publishing Lost Gay ClassicsĪs a young reader, several of my favorite science fiction authors were lamentably out of print, so a trip to a used bookstore was a treasure hunt.