Contents

Introduction xi

I . A G EN T LE A N G EL
1 “In Memoriam Arcadie” 3
2 “A Gentle Angel Enter’d” 11
3 1855: Leaves of Grass 25

I I . 1 857: O U T R AG E S
4 Inventing the Modern Crime of Obscenity 33
5 The War against “Filth” 41
6 Sodomy as Part of the
1857 Reform of Divorce Law 47

I I I . T H E S TAT E R E G U L AT E S D E S I R E
7 Formative Scandals 67
8 Calamus: “Paths Untrodden” 72
9 Symonds’s Second Scandal 84
10 “Goblin Market”: Attraction and Aversion 87
11 The State Seizes the Female Body 99

I V. L OV E A N D LI T ER AT U R E D R I V EN
U N D ERG RO U N D
12 “I Will Go with Him I Love” 107
13 Regina v. Hicklin: “To Deprave and Corrupt” 123
14 Dangerous Poems 137

V. T H E L A B O R ATO RY O F EM P I R E
15 Six Signs: “The Anus and the State” 147
16 Criminalizing “Effeminacy”:
The Arrests of Fanny and Stella 155
17 “My Constant Companions” 167
18 Comstock: Censorship Crosses the Atlantic 175

V I . CO U N T ERC A M PA I G N S
A N D R E S I S TA N C E
19 The Arrests of Simeon Solomon 185
20 Annie Besant and Charles Bradlaugh 194
21 “The Greek Spirit” 199
22 “Were I as Free”: The Secret Sodomy Poems 202

V I I . T H E N EX T G EN ER AT I O N :
S Y M O N D S , W H I T M A N , A N D W I LD E
23 “Love at First Sight” 213
24 Pilgrimage to Camden 218
25 The Labouchere Amendment: “Gross Indecency” 232
26 Prophets of Modernity 239
27 “The Life-Long Love of Comrades” 242
28 A Problem in Modern Ethics 247

V I I I . T H E M EM O I R S
29 “As Written by Himself ” 263
30 “All Goes Onward and Outward,
Nothing Collapses” 278

Epilogue 285
Acknowledgments 288
Timeline 293
Photo Credits 295
Notes 296
Selected Bibliography 327
Index 349