BIOGRAPHIES
The following is a list of biographies which contribute information or ideas about the role of Greek love in the lives of their subjects. It is necessarily selective as it is not an attempt at the uselessly gargantuan task of listing every biography mentioning its subject's involvement in Greek love. General biographies of the famous are much more likely to be included if not superseded from a Greek love point of view by more specialist studies. Books devoted to biographical episodes, diaries and books of correspondence are included, as are books with only one or more chapters, provided those chapters are devoted to Greek love. Several biographies never in print and first published on this website are included.
Many of the books listed under fiction are also predominantly autobiographical.
The books are arranged in chronological order of their subjects' dates of birth. All translations mentioned are into English.
Jonathan יְהוֹנָתָן, died ca. 1010 BC, Israelite prince, and David דָּוִד, King of Israel, ca. 1040-970 BC
Revd. D. H. Mader, David and Jonathan, written 2003 and first published on this website, 2023. Read here. An essay arguing persuasively that David, described as a comely na'ar (boy) too young to fight, and the older Jonathan, who fell in love with him at first sight, were a pederastic couple on the model typical in many warrior societies worldwide.
Archias Ἀρχίας, flourished 734 BC, founder of Syracuse
Andreas Morakis, "Archias, the Heracleids, the Bakhiads and the Foundation of Syracuse" in The Ancient History Bulletin, Northfield, Minnesota: St. Olaf College, Vol. 35, issue 3-4, 2021, pp. 102-124. A thorough appraisal of all the ancient sources for the Corinthian who fled his city for Sicily after being responsible for the death of the boy he loved.
Aktaion Ἀκταίων, ca. 749-ca. 734 BC, Corinthian noble
A. Andrewes, "The Corinthian Actaeon and Pheidon of Argos" in The Classical Quarterly
Solon Σόλων, ca. 639-559 BC, Athenian statesman and lawgiver
Ploutarchos, "Σόλων Solon" in Βίοι Παράλληλοι Bíoi Parállēloi, early 2nd century AD. Translated from the Greek by Bernadotte Perrin as "Solon" in Plutarch's Lives, Loeb Classical Library volume 46, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A general biography and the source of almost all known about its subject, in whose life Greek love played a central role.
Peisistratos Πεισίστρατος, Tyrant of Athens, ca. 603-528/7 BC
B. M. Lavelle, Fame, Money and Power: The Rise of Peisistratos and “Democratic” Tyranny at Athens, Ann Arbor, Michigan: The University of Michigan Press, 2005. An exhaustive scholarly study of Peisistratos, including an appendix analysing in detail the ancient statements that he had been Solon's eromenos, but concluding it was improbable on dubious chronological grounds.
Cyrus Kuruš the Great, King of Persia, ca. 600-530 BC
Xenophon, Κύρου παιδεία Kyrou Paideia (The Education of Cyrus), ca. 370 BC. Translated by Walter Miller as Cyropaedia, Loeb Classical Library volume 51, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. A biography, often considered fictionalised and inaccurate of the founder of the Persian Empire, including an amusing anecdote about how a noble in love with him when he was a boy, contrived to let him kiss him.
Anakreon Ἀνακρέων, ca. 570-486 BC, Teian lyric poet
Alan Shapiro, Re-fashioning Anakreon in Classical Athens, Munich: Wilhelm Fink, 2012. Available online. A short book examining this poet's reputation in 5th-century BC Athens, focussing on a marble statue of him believed to be a faithful Roman replica of the Greek original set up on the Athenian Acropolis fifty years after the his death, and described by Pausanias.. The author concludes that the statue reflects the ideal of a muscular, manly pederasty found among Athenian conservative and aristocratic circles where the poet was celebrated long after his death as the prototype of the noble erastes.
Hipparchos Ἵππαρχος, ca. 555-514 BC, Athenian noble
Charles W. Fornara, "The 'Tradition' about the Murder of Hipparchus" in
Hieron Ἱέρων I, Tyrant of Syracuse, died 467 BC
Xenophon of Athens, Ἱέρων Hieron, ca. 360 BC. Translated from the Greek by E.C. Marchant as Hiero, Loeb Classical Library volume 183, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A dialogue in which Hiero explains why being a ruler does not bring greater happiness, and giving as an example how making love to boys is less pleasurable for him than others because he can have what sex he wants and cannot be sure the boy is willing out of love.
Aristeides Ἀριστείδης, ca. 528-468 BC, Athenian statesman and general
Ploutarchos, "Ἀριστείδης Aristeides" in Βίοι Παράλληλοι Bíoi Parállēloi, early 2nd century AD. Translated from the Greek by Bernadotte Perrin as "Aristides" in Plutarch's Lives, Loeb Classical Library volume 47, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A general biography explaining his enmity with his political rival Themistokles as originating in rivalry over a boy they both loved.
Themistokles Θεμιστοκλῆς, ca. 524-ca. 459 BC, Athenian admiral and statesman
Ploutarchos, "Θεμιστοκλῆς Themistokles" in Βίοι Παράλληλοι Bíoi Parállēloi, early 2nd century AD. Translated from the Greek by Bernadotte Perrin as "Themistocles" in Plutarch's Lives, Loeb Classical Library volume 47, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A general autobiography including two anecdotes about his wooing boys.
Empedokles Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, ca. 494-ca. 434 BC, Akragasian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "ἘμπεδοκλῆςEmpedokles" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton VIII, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 185, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography mentioning his eromenos.
Zenon Ζήνων, ca. 490- ca. 430 BC, Elean philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Ζήνων Zenon" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton IX, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 185, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography describing him as the paidika of an earlier philosopher.
Sokrates Σωκράτης, 469-399 BC, Athenian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Σωκράτης Sokrates" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton II, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short general biography mention Sokrates as a physicist's paidika, as well as his chaste love of the boy Alkibiades.
Johannes Matthias Gesner, "Socrates sanctus Paederasta: Commentatio societati regiae Gottingensi praelecta a. d. V. Febr. 1752: Accedit Eiusdem Corollarium de antiqua asinorum honestate" in Commentarii societatis regiae scientiarum gottingensis, Göttingen, 1753. Translated from the original Latin and introduced by Hugh Hagius as Socrates, The Holy Pederast, New York: Bibliogay, 2002. An essay on Sokrates and the institution of Greek pederasty concluding that the former was chaste.
Alkibiades Ἀλκιβιάδης, ca. 450-404 BC, Athenian general
Robert J. Littman, "The Loves of Alcibiades" in Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, Vol. 101 (1970), pp. 263-276. Analysis of all that is known of Alcibiades's liaisons, concluding that the one he had as a boy with Sokrates was probably sexual, and perhaps those with other men too.
Agesilaos Ἀγησίλαος II, King of the Spartans, ca. 445-360/1 BC
Ploutarchos, "Ἀγησίλαος Agesilaos" in Βίοι Παράλληλοι Bíoi Parállēloi, early 2nd century AD. Translated from the Greek by Bernadotte Perrin as "Agesilaus" in Plutarch's Lives, Loeb Classical Library volume LXXXVII, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1917. Read the Greek love content. The later but fuller of two ancient biographies of this great commander, including a series of Greek love episodes bringing Spartan pederasty very much to life.
Xenophon Ξενοφῶν, ca. 430-355/4 BC, Athenian general
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Ξενοφῶν Xenophon " in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton II, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short general biography mentioning his passionate love for a boy.
"Plato Πλάτων" Aristokles Ἀριστοκλῆς, ca. 426-348/7 BC, Athenian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Πλάτων Plato" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton III, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A general biography naming various youths Plato loved and quoting his epigrams about them.
Sir Maurice Bowra, “Plato’s Epigram on Dion’s Death”, being Chapter VIII of his Problems in Greek Poetry, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953, pp. 126-137. Detailed and convincing reasons for believing that the epigram in which Plato said Dion "didst madden my soul with eros" was genuinely by him, incidentally affirming the authenticity of two other epigrams about his love for a youth named Aster.
Phaidon Φαίδων, ca. 414 -398+ BC, Elean philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Φαίδων Phaidon" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton II, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A very short biography which nevertheless mentions that Phaidon had once been a slave-boy prostitute.
Eudoxos Εὔδοξος, ca. 393-ca. 340 BC, Knidian astronomer and mathematician
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Εὔδοξος Eudoxos" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton IX, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 185, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography describing him as the paidika of a physician.
Philip Φίλιππος II, King of the Macedonians etc., 382-336 BC
B. Antela-Bernárdez, "Philip and Pausanias: A Deadly Love in Macedonian Politics" in The Classical Quarterly, New Series, Vol. 62, No. 2 (December 2012), pp. 859-861. A brief interpretation of the murder of Philip by his slighted former loved-boy, concluding that its ultimate cause was his weakness in the eyes of the nobility.
"Theophrastos Θεόφραστος" Τύρταμος Tyrtamos, 372/0-ca. 288/6 BC, Eresian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Θεόφραστος Theophrastos" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton V, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography including Theophrastos's love of his mentor Aristotle's son, more than 35 years younger.
Alexander Αλέξανδρος the Great, King of the Macedonians etc., 356-323 BC, conqueror.
Andrew Chugg, Alexander's Lovers, Milton Keynes: Lightning Source, 2006. Review. An interesting but imperfect account of all Alexander's love affairs, which most unusually and admirably (for a modern book) insists on the genuineness of both his heterosexual and homosexual loves.
Demetrios of Phaleron Δημήτριος ὁ Φαληρεύς, ca. 350-ca. 280 BC, Athenian statesman
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Δημήτριος Demetrios" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton V, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography, including mention of his having a lover in his youth.
Polemon Πολέμων, ca. 343-276/269 BC, Athenian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Πολέμων Polemon" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton IV, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography mentioning Polemon's love affairs with adolescent boys.
Krantor Κράντωρ, before 335-276/5 BC, Kilikian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Κράντωρ Krantor" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton IV, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography describing him as the lover of the Aiolian philosopher Arkesilaos.
Demetrios the Beseiger Δημήτριος Πολιορκητής, King of the Macedonians, 337/6-283 BC
Ploutarchos, "Δημήτριος Demetrios" in Βίοι Παράλληλοι Bíoi Parállēloi, early 2nd century AD. Translated from the Greek by Bernadotte Perrin as "Demetrius" in Plutarch's Lives, Loeb Classical Library volume 101, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1920. Read the Greek love content. A general biography including stories of the colourful King's seduction (and one attempted seduction ending in tragedy) of local freeborn boys during a long stay in Athens.
Bion Βίων, ca. 335-ca.245 BC, Olbian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Βίων Bion" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton IV, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short general biography in which it is strongly hinted that Bion had been the catemite of his master who left him everything at his death, besides loving boys as a man.
Zenon Ζήνων, 334/3-262/1 BC, Cypriot founder of the Stoic school of philosophy
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Ζήνων Zenon" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton VII, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 185, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A general biography including references to his sexual preference for young boys.
Krates Κράτης, died 268/4 BC, Athenian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Κράτης Krates" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton IV, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography relating how Krates was the beloved of Polemon, qva, his predecessor as head of the Academy.
Arkesilaos Ἀρκεσίλαος, 316/5-241/0 BC, Aiolian philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Ἀρκεσίλαος Arkesilaos" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton IV, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 184, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography including an account of him as both an eromenos and later an avid lover of boys.
Hamilcar "Barca", ca. 280-229/8 BC, Carthaginian general
Cornelius Nepos, "Hamilcar" in his De viris illustribus (Illustrious Lives): Excellentium imperatorum vitae (Lives of Emnent Commanders), 2nd edition, 27 BC. Read the Greek love content. A short general biography mentioning rumours Hamilcar was the lover of a youth he made his son-in-law.
Herillos Ἥριλλος, 3rd century BC, Chalkedonian Stoic philosopher
Diogenes Laertios Διογένης Λαέρτιος, "Ἥριλλος Herillos" in Βίοι καὶ γνῶμαι τῶν ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ εὐδοκιμησάντων Bioi kai gnomai ton en philosophia eudokimesanton VII, early 3rd century AD. Translated from the Greek by R. D. Hicks in Lives of Eminent Philosophers, Loeb Classical Library volume 185, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1925. Read the Greek love content. A short biography mentioning how many men were in love with him when he was a boy.
Kleomenes Κλεομένης III, King of the Spartans, died 219 BC
Ploutarchos, "Κλεομένης Kleomenes" in Βίοι Παράλληλοι Bíoi Parállēloi, early 2nd century AD. Translated from the Greek by Bernadotte Perrin as "Cleomenes" in Plutarch's Lives, Loeb Classical Library volume 102, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1921. Read the Greek love content. A general biography of the King who tried to restore Sparta's old ways, including anecdotes about his boyhood lover and his own beloved when King.
Publius Terentius Afer, 184/3-159/8 BC, Roman playwright of Carthaginian origin
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Vita Terentiii" in De Viris Illustribus, AD 106/113. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "The Life of Terence" in Lives of Illustrious Men, Loeb Classical Library volume 38, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. A general biography including reports that as a youth he deployed his beauty to win the favour of lustful great men.
Lucius Cornelius Sulla Felix, 138-78 BC, Roman dictator
Ploutarchos, "Σύλλας Sullas" in Βίοι Παράλληλοι Bíoi Parállēloi, early 2nd century AD. Translated from the Greek by by Bernadotte Perrin as "Sulla" in Plutarch's Lives, Loeb Classical Library volume 80, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1916. A general biography mentioning Sulla's passion for an actor continued after the latter was past boyhood.
Gaius Julius Caesar, 100-44 BC, Roman dictator
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Divus Julius" in De Viris Illustribus, AD 106/113. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "The Deified Julius" in Lives of Illustrious Men, Loeb Classical Library volume 31, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A lively and generally favourable biography including passages recounting how Caesar was dogged throughout his career by the belief that, aged 18 or 19, he had given himself sexually to the King of Bithynia.
Publius Vergilius Maro, 70-19 BC, Roman poet
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Vita Vergili" in De Viris Illustribus, AD 106/113. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "The Life of Virgil" in Lives of Illustrious Men, Loeb Classical Library volume 38, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A general biography of the great poet described as "especially given to passions for boys", including a brief summary of his two favourite boy loves.
Imperator Caesar Divi Augustus (originally Gaius Octavius), Roman Emperor, 63 BC–AD 14
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Divus Augustus" in De Vita Caesarum, ca. AD 121. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "The Deified Augustus" in Lives of the Caesars, Loeb Classical Library volume 31, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A lively general biography including accusations that, as a boy, Octavian (as he then was) gave himself to men sexually, but not mentioning his own catamites reported by other writers.
Anon., "Augustus" in Epitome de Caesaribus Libellus de Vita et Moribus Imperatorum Breviatus, ca. 400. Translated from the Latin by Thomas M. Banchich as "Augustus" in A Booklet about the Style of Life and the Manners of the Imperatores, Buffalo, New York, 2009. Read the Greek love content. A brief and late biography mentioning that Augustus was accustomed lying with twelve boys and twelve girls.
Tiberius Caesar Divi Augusti Filius Augustus, Roman Emperor, 42 BC – AD 37
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Tiberius" in De Vita Caesarum, ca. AD 121. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "Tiberius" in Lives of the Caesars, Loeb Classical Library volume 31, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A lively but hostile general biography, of which the long passage describing the Emperor's sexual antics with boys on Capri (some of it corroborated by Tacitus) is perhaps the best-known description of man/boy sex ever.
Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Augustus, Roman Emperor, AD 14-69
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Vitellius" in De Vita Caesarum, ca. AD 121. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "Vitellius" in Lives of the Caesars, Loeb Classical Library volume 38, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A lively general biography recounting how he had been one of the Emperor Tiberius's kept boys and, as emperor followed the whims of a freedman who had once been his willing.slave-boy catamite.
Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, Roman Emperor, AD 37-68
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Nero" in De Vita Caesarum, ca. AD 121. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "Nero" in Lives of the Caesars, Loeb Classical Library volume 38, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A lively general biography telling of the catamite the emperor had castrated and his other boysexual antics, but strangely omitting his rape of his step-brother.
Titus Flavius Caesar Vespasianus Augustus, Roman Emperor, AD 39-81
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Divus Titus" in De Vita Caesarum, ca. AD 121. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "The Deified Titus" in Lives of the Caesars, Loeb Classical Library volume 38, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A lively general biography recounting how Titus kept troops of ancing-boys and eunuchs to satisfy his lust.
Titus Flavius Caesar Domitianus Augustus, Roman Emperor, AD 51-96
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, "Domitianus" in De Vita Caesarum, ca. AD 121. Translated from the Latin by J. C. Rolfe as "Domitian" in Lives of the Caesars, Loeb Classical Library volume 38, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A lively general biography saying that, as an impoverished boy, Domitian had sold himself to powerful men, but, a little surprisingly, not mentioning his own well-documented and prominent loved-boy, Earinus.
Marcus Ulpius Traianus Augustus, Roman Emperor, AD 53-117
Julian Bennett, Trajan. Optimus Princeps, Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2001. A general biography which does no more than summarise what is known of the love life of the most exclusively boysexual of the Roman emperors.
Publius Aelius Hadrianus Augustus, Roman Emperor, AD 76-138.
Ish-Kishor, Sulamith. Magnificent Hadrian: A Biography of Hadrian, Emperor of Rome, London: Victor Gollancz, 1931. A sympathetic account of Hadrian, with much about his boy Antinous, but which attempts heavy-handedly to psychoanalyse the "tragedy" of the Emperor's homosexual temperament.
J. Morwood, Hadrian, London: Bloomsbury, 2013. A lively and detailed general biography which gives the emperor's love affair with Antinous the importance it deserves within a study of his life.
See also under Antinous ca. 111-130.
Flavius Earinus, born ca. AD 77, living 94, Pergamese eunuch loved-boy of the Roman emperor Domitian.
H. Henriksén, “An Imperial Eunuch in the Light of the Poems of Martial and Statius” in Mnemosyne, 4th Series, Fasc. 3 (June 1997) pp. 281-94. A scholarly analysis of all that is known or can be deduced about Earinus.
Straton Στράτων of Sardis, Greek erotic poet, fl. ca. 120s
P. G. Maxwell-Stuart, "Strato and the Musa Puerilis" in Hermes, 1972, 100. Bd., H. 2 (1972), pp. 215-240. A scholarly analysis of what can be deduced about the ideas and tastes of the little-known compiler of The Boyish Muse.
Antinous Ἀντίνοος, ca. 111-130, the Greek Bithynian boy loved and posthumously deified by the Roman Emperor Hadrian.
Royston Lambert, Beloved and God. The Story of Hadrian and Antinous, London: Viking, 1984. Full well-researched biographies of both man and boy, concentrating on their years together and on Antinous as a widely venerated god.
Jean-Claude Grenier, “L’Osiris Antinoos” in Cahiers Égypte Nilotique et Méditerranéenne, Montpellier, 2008, pp. 1-73. An extremely thorough and scholarly examination of most of the puzzles surrounding Antinous's life.
R.R.R. Smith, Antinous: Boy Made God, Oxford: Ashmolean Museum, 2018. Published to accompany a museum exhibition, a visual biography presenting previously-unpublished art-works illustrating Hadrian’s beloved as an ideal of perfect beauty.
Sean Gabb, The Cult of Antinous: Text of a Lecture Given on Tuesday the 27th June 2023, Deal, Kent: The Centre for Ancient Studies, 2023. Read free here. A concise overview of the life and death of Antinous, his relationship with the Emperor Hadrian, and his posthumous deification and worship.
Caesar Publius Helvius Pertinax Augustus, Roman Emperor, 126-193
Julius Capitolinus, "Helvius Pertinax", 293/305, in Historia Augusta. Translated from the Latin by David Magie as "Pertinax" in Historia Augusta, Loeb Classical Library volume 139, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1921. Read the Greek love content. The sparse but only source for the personal life of this little-known emperor, mentioning his use of his predecessor's huge collection of catamites.
Caesar Marcus Aurelius Commodus Antoninus Augustus, Roman Emperor, 161-192
Aelius Lampridius, "Commodus Antoninus", early 4th century, in Historia Augusta. Translated from the Latin by David Magie with the Latin titles in the Loeb Classical Library volume 139, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1921. Read the Greek love content. A rather sensational general biography which describes how Commodus disreputably gave himself to men as boy as well as keeping 300 catamites as Emperor, but misses Herodian's fine account of the role of one of his kept boys in the drama of his murder.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus "Elagabalus", Roman Emperor, ca. 204-222
Aelius Lampridius, "Antoninus Heliogabalus", early 4th century, in Historia Augusta. Translated from the Latin by David Magie as "Antoninus Elagabalus" in Historia Augusta, Loeb Classical Library volume 140, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1924. Read the Greek love content. The fullest and most sensational of the three main ancient accounts of the boy Emperor who shocked Rome with his enthusiasm for sex with men, but later and less authoritative than the contemporary accounts in the histories of Herodian and Cassius Dio, who both also offer other details on this and other aspects of his life.
J. Stuart Hay, The Amazing Emperor Heliogabalus, London: Macmillan, 1911. Available online. A Cambridge professor's thorough and lively biography. Though the Emperor's homosexual liaisons are discussed with a frankness and detail remarkable for the time of writing, this is a only a general life of the emperor whose openly-expressed sexual passion as a boy for virile men was extraordinary by classical standards.
Martijn Icks,
Harry Sidebottom, The Mad Emperor: Heliogabalus and the Decadence of Rome, London: Oneworld, 2022. A well-considered marshalling of everything known about the boy emperor, taking the original and convincing line that his actions turning the Roman world against him, including his overt promiscuity with well-endowed men, were done out of a sincere religious mission to promote the worship of the Near Eastern god whose high priest he was.
Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Carinus Augustus, Roman Emperor, ca. 250-285
Flavius Vopiscus, "Carus et Carinus et Numerianus" in Historia Augusta. Translated from the Latin by David Magie as "Carus, Carinus and Numerian" in Historia Augusta, Loeb Classical Library volume 263, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1932. Read the Greek love content. A brief biography of an obscure Empeor with an even briefer mention of his seduction of youths.
Flavius Julius Constans Augustus, Roman Emperor, ca. 323-350
Woudhuysen, George, “Uncovering Constans’ Image” in Alan J. Ross and Diederik W. P. Burgersdijk (eds.), Imagining Emperors in the Later Roman Empire, Leyden: Brill, 2018, pp. 158–182. An attempt to reconstruct Constans's personality from the scanty evidence, including the reports of his taste for good-looking German boys. Concludes that his reputation was generally blackened after his murder.
Han Zigao 韩子高, 538-567, Chinese general
Li Xu 李詡, “Biography of Chen Zigao 陳子高傳”, 16th century, in Lüchuang nüshi 綠窗女史 (The History of the Women of the Green Windows) compiled by Qin-Huai yuke 秦淮寓客, ca. 1600. The historical love story of beautiful boy Han Zigao, who at 16 in ca. 554, became the favourite concubine of the general who was to become the Emperor Wen of Chen. The underlying eros which was only strongly hinted at in the seventh century Chen shu 陳書 (History of the Chen) by Yao Silian 姚思廉, volume 14, is here spelled out.
Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī بن عبد الأول بن الصباح ،ِابو علي, 756–814, Arabic poet
Ewald Wagner, Abu Nuwäs. Eine Studie zur arabischen Literatur der frühen Abbäsidenzeit (Abu Nuwas. A Study of Arabic Literature of the Early Abbasid Period), Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1965. A thorough, exhaustively documented work of reference, which includes discussion of the poet's love of boys.
Philip F. Kennedy, Abu Nuwas. A Genius of Poetry, Oxford: Oneworld, 2005. Besides a short biography of Abu Nuwas, a study of each category of his poetry in its historical context, including the pederastic.
Kūkai 空海, posthumously known as Kōbō Daishi 弘法大師, 774-835, Japanese Buddhist monk
Kobo daishi ikkan no sho (Kobo Daishi’s Book), surviving manuscript 1598, first published 1952. Description and partial translation by Paul Gordon Schalow as “Kukai and the Tradition of Male Love in Japanese Buddhism,” in Buddhism, Sexuality & Gender edited by José Cabezón Ignacio (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), pp. 216-221, here. An explanation of the love of boys given posthumously in a vision to a supplicant praying for it by the founder of the Shingon school of Buddhism, credited also with introducing pederasty into Japan. The detailed advice given could hardly come from one with no experience of pederasty and the original introduction also speaks of the great monk's personal experience.
St. Pelagius of Cordoba, 911/2-925, Galician martyr
Raguel of Cordoba, Passio Pelagii, written 925/967; first published in España sagrada, vol. 23, Madrid, 1867, pp. 230-35. Translated with an introduction by Jeffrey A. Bowman as "The Martyrdom of St. Pelagius" in Medieval Hagiography: An Anthology, edited by Thomas F. Head, New York: Routledge, 2001. The story of the Christian boy of 13 who died rather than yield to the lust for his beauty of the Caliph of al-Andalus, frankly acknowledging the power of his beauty and the unusualness then of his refusal to succumb to assimilation to Islamic culture.
Abu al-Qasim Mahmud ibn Sabuktigin ابوالقاسم محمود بن سبکتگین, Sultan of Ghazni, 971-1030
Bosworth, C. E., “Mahmud bin Sebuktigin” in Encyclopedia of Islam, 2nd edition, Vol. VI, Leyden: Brill, 1991, pp. 65-6. A brief biography, but the only one to summarise with sources the tradition in Persian Sufi poetry that Mahmud was the lover of his much-favoured slave-boy, Ayaz.
Ayaz ایاز, ca. 998-1057/8, Georgian-born governor of Lahore
S. Jabir Raza, "Mahmud's Ayaz in History" in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, Volume 72, Part 1 (2011), pp. 286-293. An assembly of what is known about this slave-boy risen high, including the traditions of his having been the Sultan of Ghazni's loved boy, bought by the time he was ten.
St. Aelred of Rievaulx, 1110-67, English abbot and writer
Brian Patrick McGuire, Brother and Lover: Aelred of Rievaulx, New York: Crossroad, 1994. An informally written biography attempting to make Aelred understandable, including a balanced approach to his feelings for the boy monk Simon.
Awḥad al-Dīn Ḥāmid ibn Abi ʾl-Fakhr Kirmānī اوحدالدین حامد بن ابی الفخر, ca. 1164-1238, Persian Sufi poet
Lloyd Ridgeon, “The Controversy of Shaykh Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī and Handsome, Moon-Faced Youths: A Case Study of Shāhid-Bāzī in Medieval Sufism” in Journal of Sufi Studies, Volume 1, Issue 1, Jan. 2012, pp. 3-30. An article examining the contemporaneous controversy surrounding the Persian poet Awḥad al-Dīn Kirmānī and his promotion of shāhid-bāzī, the Sufi custom of contemplating the bodies of young males in order to witness the divine beauty of God.
Sadi of Shiraz ابومحمّد مصلحالدین بن عبدالله شیرازی, ca. 1208-91/2, Persian poet
Domenico Ingenito, Beholding Beauty: Saʿdi of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry, Leyden: Brill, 2020. Comprehensive but drily academic study of Sadi and his pederastic poetry, showing he saw contemplation of boys' beauty sincerely as a means of drawing closer to God (without sharing the Sufi aim of turning one's back on the world).
Fakhr al-Dīn ʿIrāqī فخرالدین ابراهیم عراقی, 1213-89, Persian sufi master
[Anonymous], Muqaddimah-yi dīvān, 14th century, published in Kollīyāt-e ʿErāqī, edited by S. Nafīsī, Tehran, 1959. In Persian. The only purportedly full translation into English by William C. Chittick and Peter Lamborn Wilson as Fakhruddin ‘Iraqi: Divine Flashes., New York, 1982, was bowdlerised and stripped of its Greek love content. The original biography of ʿIrāqī contains more than half a dozen anecdotes of his engaging in Sufi ritual love play with boys all the way from India to Anatolia.
Arnold the Catalan of Verniolle, born ca. 1292, living 1324, French Franciscan subdeacon
Michael Goodich, "Appendix: The Trial of Arnold of Verniolle for Heresy and Sodomy" in The Unmentionable Vice: Homosexuality in the Later Medieval Period, Santa Barbara, California: ABC-Clio, 1979, pp. 89-123 and 141-2. Read on this website. The records (with an introduction) of a trial for heresy and sodomy with teenage boys in the French county of Foix in 1323-4.
Donato di Niccolò di Betto Bardi "Donatello", ca. 1386-1466, Italian sculptor
H. W. Janson, The Sculpture of Donatello, Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press 1963. An art historian's exhaustive study which acknowledges Dnatello's attraction to boys as essential to understanding the emotional background to his sculptures.
Laurie Schneider, "Donatello's Bronze David" in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 55, No. 2 (June 1973), pp. 213-216. An essay on the meaning of Donatello's most famous statue that links it to his typical Florentine "homosexuality" while evading the character of that homosexuality.
Robert Williams, "'Virtus Perficitur': On the Meaning of Donatello's Bronze 'David'" in Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 53rd Band., H. 2/3 (2009), pp.217-228. Explains the eroticism of the landmark nude statue of a boy and acknowledges its connection to the artist's sexuality, while arguing that eroticism has been exaggerated in explaining its meaning.
Gilles de Rais, Baron, ca. 1405-40, French Marshal
Jean Benedetti, Gilles de Rais, New York: Stein & Day, 1971. A general biography of the companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc best known for sodomising and sadistically murdering well over a hundred children aged 6 to 18, mostly boys.
Mehmed II the Conqueror, Ottoman Sultan, 1432-81
Franz Babinger, Mehmed der Eroberer und seine Zeit: Weltenstiirmer einer Zeitenwende, Munich: F. Bruckmann, 1953. Translated from the German by Ralph Manheim as Mehmet the Conqueror and his Time, Princeton University Press, New Jersey, 1978. A thorough and well-balanced general biography of the conqueror of Constantinople, including accounts of his famous sexual interactions with noble European boys.
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi Botticelli, ca. 1445-1510, Italian painter
Jacques Mesnil, Botticelli, Paris: Albin Michel, 1938. In French only. The definitive biography of the artist, which concludes that he was "particularly sensible to the charm" of adolescent boys.
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci, 1452-1519, Italian artist and inventor
Sir Kenneth Clark, Leonardo da Vinci: An Account of his Development as an Artist, Cambridge University Press, 1939, revised 1952 and 1967. A ground-breaking and authoritative biography, concluding, amongst other things, that da Vinci relationship with his boy model Salai was classically pederastic.
Alessandro Cinuzzi, 1458-1474, Italian page
Markus Wesche, Formosissimus Puer: Gedichte auf den Tod des Pagen Alessandro Cinuzzi 1474 (Most Beautiful Boy: Poems on the Death of the Page Alessandro Cinuzzi 1474), Hamburg: Männerschwarm-Verlag, 2009. The first part of this book contains biographical and historical background information about Cinuzzi, a page in the household of Pope Sixtus IV's nephew who died aged 15 and was considered the epitome of male beauty by his many contemporary admirers, who wrote posthumous poems in praise of his virtues and physical beauty. The second part contains the aforementioned poems in the original Latin and Italian.
Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, 1477-1549, Italian painter
Giogio Vasari, "Vita di Giovannantonio detto Il Soddoma da Verzelli, pittore" in his Le vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori, 2nd edition, vol. III, Florence: Giunti, 1568. Translated from the Italian by Gaston du C. de Vere as "Giovanni Antonio Bazzi, called Il Sodoma" in Lives of the Most Eminent Painters, Sculptors and Architects, vol. VII, London: Macmillan, 1914. Read the Greek love content. A contemporary biography explaining that this artist is best known as "Il Sodoma" (The Sodomite) since "since he always had about him boys and beardless youths, whom he loved more than was decent."
Ẓahīr-ud-dīn Muhammad "Babur", Mughal Emperor of Hindustan, 1483-1530
Ẓahīr-ud-dīn Muhammad "Babur", Bāburnāma, manuscript finished 1529/30. Translated from the Chagatai by Annette Susannah Beveridge as The Bābur-nāma in English (Memoirs of Bābur), 2 volumes, London: Luzac, 1922. Read the Greek love content. The lively autobiography of the first Mughal emperor, including his account of falling in love with a boy.
Astorre Manfredi, Lord of Faenza, 1485-1502
Michael Hone, Astorre Manfredi: The Life and Times of the Most Beautiful Boy of the Renaissance, privately printed, 2019. Manfredi was a boy lord captured by Pope Alexander VI's bastard son Cesare Borgia and imprisoned in Rome for a year, after which his naked body was found drowned in the Tiber. The sound contemporary historian Francesco Guicciardini recorded that he had suffered "execrable nefariousnesses" from "someone", hardly surprising when one considers the peculiar combination of violent circumstances, Manfredi's well-attested beauty and the popularity of sodomising boys in early modern Italy. On this slender information, the author, long engaged in converting online snippets of popular history into gay propaganda, has written this "biography" which has hardly anything to say about its subject besides making, without a shred of evidence, the grossly improbable claim that the boy was raped by the Pope himself.
Julius III (originally Giovanni Maria Ciocchi del Monte), Pope, 1487-1555, and Innocenzo Ciocchi del Monte, ca. 1535-77, Italian Cardinal
Francis A. Burkle-Young & Michael Leopoldo Doerrer, The Life of Cardinal Innocenzo del Monte: A Scandal in Scarlet, Together with Materials for a History of the House of Ciocchi del Monte San Savino, New York: Edwin Mellen, 1997. Special pleading to discount the unsurprising suspicions of contemporaries that the aged Pope's obvious partiality for and extraordinary promotion of an uneducated boy was not founded on Greek love.
Benvenuto Cellini, 1500-71, Italian sculptor
Benvenuto Cellini, La Vita di Benvenuto di maestro Giovanni Cellini fiorentino, written in Florence ca. 1558-67, published 1730. First translated from the Italian by Thomas Roscoe as Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini ... Written by Himself, London: H. Colburn & Co., 1822. Read the Greek love content. Excellent, detailed and colourful autobiography with frank references to his attachments to several boys and appreciation of their beauty, but which unsurprisingly stops short of admitting sex with them.
I. Arnaldi, La vita violenta di Benvenuto Cellini (The Violent Life of Benvenuto Cellini), Bari: Laterza, 1986. A thorough general biography including what is known of his sexual liaisons with boys.
Margaret A. Gallucci, Benvenuto Cellini: Sexuality, Masculinity and Artistic Identity in Renaissance Italy, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. A study focussing on the relationship between the image Cellini presented of himself in his writings (after his second and more serious conviction for sodomising an apprentice boy, all thoroughly documented) and cultural ideas of masculine identity.
Benedetto Varchi, 1503-65, Italian humanist
Umberto Pirotti, Benedetto Varchi e la cultura del suo tempo (Benedict Varchi and the Culture of His Time), Florence: Olschki, 1971. A general biography presenting plenty of explicit evidence of Varchi's love of boys, recounted in a somewhat negative tone.
Nicholas Udall, 1504-56, English headmaster and playwright
William L. Edgerton, Nicholas Udall, New York: Twayne, 1965. A monograph which investigates the paradox of Udall being let off lightly after confessing to buggery of an Eton pupil.
Elizabeth Pittenger, " 'To Serve the Queere': Nicholas Udall, Master of Revels," in Queering the Renaissance, edited by Jonathan Goldberg, Durham: Duke University Press, 1994, pp. 162-189. An article disagreeing with Edgerton's foregoing analysis, suggesting there was not much of a paradox, and finding links between the charge of sodomy and ambiguities in Udall's writings.
Mustafa Âlî bin Ahmed bin Abdülmevlâ Çelebi, 1541-1600, Ottoman historian
Cornell H. Fleischer, Bureaucrat and Intellectual in the Ottoman Empire: The Historian Mustafa Âli (1541–1600), Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1986. A general biography which discusses Âlî's proclivity for boys.
Anthony Bacon, 1558-1601, English spy
Joyce T. Freedman, Anthony Bacon and his World, 1558-1601, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Temple University, 1979. Read the Greek love content. A general biography which gives the most thorough published account of the charges brought against Bacon for sodomy with one of his pages in France.
Francis Bacon, Viscount St. Alban, 1561-1626, English Lord Chancellor
Lisa Jardine and Alan Stewart, Hostage to Fortune: The Troubled Life of Francis Bacon, London: Victor Gollancz, 1998. A detailed and scholarly biography closely based on primary sources, which pays much greater attention than previous ones to Bacon's sexual liaisons with boy servants by quoting the primary sources in full. It does not, however, have anything to add to them.
Christopher Marlowe, 1564-93, English playwright
Jonathan Goldberg, "Sodomy and Society: The Case of Christopher Marlowe" in Southwest Review, Vol. 69 No. 4 (Autumn 1984) pp. 371-8. An article ourlining well the little that can surmised sexually about Marlowe once the contemporary accusation that he loved boys is viewed in its setting.
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, English playwright and poet, and "Mr. W. H.", mysterious English youth
Oscar Wilde, The Portrait of Mr. W. H., full edition, New York: Mitchell Kennerley, 1921. PDF. Though presented as a story about two men who tried to find evidence that W.H. stood for the boy actor Willie Hughes, this is also a serious exposition of that theory.
John Masefield, Shakespeare and Spiritual Life, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924. Presents arguments that W.H. was a boy actor small and delicate enough to play boys' roles.
J.Z. Eglinton, "Shakespeare's Boyfriend and Sonnet XX" in International Journal of Greek Love I, New York, 1965, pp. 24-30. Read on this website. Scholarly conjecture on the love affair built around the idea W.H. probably stood for the boy actor William Hostler.
James I & VI King of England, Scotland and Ireland, 1566-1625
David M. Bergeron, Royal family, royal lovers: King James of England and Scotland, Columbia, Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 1991. A poorly-written biography by an English professor which dogmatically insists well beyond the evidence allows that the 14-year-old King's passion for his much older cousin Lennox was sexually realised as were his much later loves of beautiful youths.
John Matusiak, James I: Scotland's King of England, The History Press, 2015. A general biography which leaves no doubt the boy King was in love with his adult cousin Lennox and much later with male youths, discusses the possibility these relationships were sexual, but affirms the ambiguity of the evidence.
Michael Young, King James and the History of Homosexuality, New York University Press, 1999. Another fashionable attempt to insist without evidence that the King's Greek love relationships were given (what would have been hypocritical) sexually-conscious expression, the dishonest argument taken further in this instance to advance James as supposed evidence of an early-17th-century gay orientation.
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio, 1571-1610, Italian painter
Peter Robb, M: The Man Who Became Caravaggio, Sydney: Duffy & Snellgrove, 1998. Dazzling and thoroughly rsearched account of the artist's tempestuous life and his art, convincing about his greatness and daringly honest and positive about his love of pubescent boys.
Andrew Graham-Dixon, Caravaggio: A Life Sacred and Profane, London: Allen Lane, 2009. A general biography that addresses the evidence for Caravaggio's sexual interest in boys without exaggerating its importance, but is unsurprisingly misleading about its pederastic meaning.
Richard Barnfield, 1574-1620, English poet
Harry Morris, Richard Barnfield, Colin's Child. Tallahassee, Florida: Florida State University. 1963. The first book on Barnfield's life and work, rather than just being an edition of his poems, showing that he had "a decided preference for young boys."
Kenneth Borris and George Klawitter (eds.), The Affectionate Shepherd: Celebrating Richard Barnfield, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania.: Susquehanna University Press, 2001. Seventeen essays on Barnfield and his poems which typify the moral hypocrisy of 21st-century "scholarship" in denouncing previous marginalisation of them for their "homoeroticism" while largely ignoring or misrepresenting the plainly and exclusively pederastic character of that homoeroticism.
Charles d'Albert, Duke of Luynes, 1578-1621 and Louis XIII King of France and Navarre, 1601-43
Louis Battifol, "Louis XIII et le duc de Luynes" ("Louis XIII and the Duke of Luynes") in Revue Historique, vol. 102 Fasc. 2 (1909) pp. 241-264 & vol. 103 Fasc. 2 (1910), pp. 248-277. Well-sourced and thorough study of the love affair of the boy-king and his amiable middle-aged courtier, presented as all the more passionate for being sexually sublimated.
Théophile de Viau, 1590-1626, French poet and dramatist
Frédéric Lachèvre, Le Procès de Théophile de Viau (The Trial of Theophilus de Viau), Paris: Librairie Honoré Champion, 1909. Previously unpublished documents from the French National Arhives on de Viau's trial and condemnation for sodomisng boys.
Zhang Dai 張岱, 1597-1684, Chinese essayist and historian
Jonathan D. Spence, Return to Dragon Mountain: Memories of a Late Ming Man, New York: Viking, 2007. A vivid reconstruction of the interesting and dramatic life and times of the gentleman writer, but which does not elaborate on his pederasty beyond quoting the line in the obituary he wrote of himself that "he loved handsome serving boys".
Jerôme Duquesnoy "the younger", 1602-54, Flemish sculptor
Georges Eekhoud, “Un illustre uraniste du XVIIe. siècle Jérôme Duquesnoy. Sculpteur Flamand” in Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstuffen II (Leipzig, 1900) pp. 277-287. Translated from the French by Leo Adamson as "A Distinguished 17th Century Uranian: Jérôme Duquesnoy: Flemish Sculptor" in Paidika Vol. II, No. 1 (Amsterdam, summer 1989) pp. 44-49. Read on this website. A biography of the sculptor intended to redeem him from the unfair oblivion he had suffered since he met his doom over sex with boys.
Geert Debeuckelaere, " 'Omme dieswille at Gij, Hieronymus Duquesnoy...," in Tijdschrift voor Homogeschiedenis I (1984) 5-22, translated from the Flemish by G.-J. Cbelens as "For the reason that thou, Hieronymus Duquesnoy ..." in Paidika Vol. II, No. 1 (Amsterdam, summer 1989) pp. 50-57. Read on this website. On the eminent sculptor and his trial and public strangulation for sodomising willing boys of eight and eleven.
Charles Coypeau "Dassoucy", 1605-77, French musician and poet
Jean-Luc Hennig, Dassoucy & les garçons (Dassoucy and the Boys), Paris: Fayard, 2011. A full biography valuable not only for its account of Dassoucy's affairs with his "musical pages", but for the pederastic milieux of the period.
Ferdinando II de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1610-70
[Luca Ombrosi?}, Vita di Ferdinando II. quinto granduca di Toscana (Life of Ferdinand II, fifth Grand Duke of Tuscany), ms. 1737/50, edited for publication by Filippo Orlando and Giuseppe Baccini, Florence: Giornale di Erudizione, 1886. Read the Greek love content. A general biography including the story of the Grand Duke's love affair with his page Bruto, with whom he also joined in sex play with his other most beautiful page.
Giovanni Battista Lulli, 1632-87, French composer of Italian origin
R. H. F. Scott, Jean-Baptiste Lully, London: Peter Owen, 1973. A general biography focussed more on Lully's pederasty than on his music.
Count Bruto di Tebaldo Annibaldi della Molara, 1639-1685, Florentine courtier
Walter Bernardi, Il Paggio e l’anatomista; Science, Sangue e Sesson alla corte del Granduca di Toscana (The Page and the Anatomist; Science, Blood and Sesson at the Court of the Grand Duke of Tuscany), Florence: Le Lettere, 2008. Long known as the beautiful Roman pageboy with whom Ferdinando II, Grand Duke of Tuscany was caught by his wife in flagrante delicto in ca. 1652, this study from Florentine archives showed he remained an important and trusted courtier until expelled by the vengeful wife on the Grand Duke's death.
Gian Gastone de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1671-1737
[Luca Ombrosi?}, Vita di Gio. Gastone I Settimo ed ultimo Granduca della R. Casa de' Medici, con la lista dei provvisionati di Camera, dal volgo detti i Ruspanti, ms. 1737/50, edited for publicaion by Filippo Orlando and Giuseppe Baccini, Florence: Giornale di Erudizione, 1886. Translated from the Italian by Harold Acton as The Last of the Medici, Florence: Orioli, 1930. Read the Greek love content. An 18th-century manuscript sufficiently explicit about Gian Gastone's pederasty for the unsold copies of Acton's translation to be seized by detectives for obscenity.
Alberto Bruschi, Gian Gastone. Un trono di solitudine nella caligine di un crepuscolo (Gian Gastone. A Throne of Solitude in the Haze of a Twilight), Florence: SP/44 Editore, 1995. In Italian only. A mixture of archival documentation and historical fiction.
Giuliano Dami, 1683-1750, Tuscan courtier
Alberto Bruschi, Giuliano Dami. Aiutante di Camera del granduca Gian Gastone de' Medici (Giuliano Dami. Chamber Aide to the Grand Duke Gian Gastone de' Medici), Florence: Opus libri, 1997. In Italian only. A monograph on the boy of humble origins who by thirteen was the Grand Duke of Tuscany's beloved, and was later his procurer of boys as well as much his most influential advisor.
Carolus VI, Holy Roman Emperor, 1685-1740
Konstantin Pachner von Zobor, “Aus den Tagebüchern Kaiser Karls VI. Anmerkungsheft” ("From the Diaries of the Emperor Charles VI. Notebook"), typewritten ms.,Vienna, 1946, OeStA, HHStA, HA, Abschriften Tagebücher Kaiser Karls VI. Quotes with commentary from the Emperor's unpublished private diaries in the Austrian State Archives showing that, besides affairs with his beloved wife, many other women and his best friend, for the last year of his life he had a sexual liaison with a hunter's boy of whom he wrote "the boy is my greatest love."
Charlotte Backerra, "Disregarding Norms: Emperor Charles VI and His Intimate Relationships" in Royal Studies Journal, Vol 6 No2, Winchester University Press, 2019. An exploration of how the Emperor may have reconciled his his Catholic piety with his extra-marital affairs, especially the homosexual two, providing additional likely surmise on the love affair with a hunter's boy mentioned in his diaries.
Zheng Xie 鄭燮, 1693-1765, Chinese painter
Zheng Xie, Banqiao ji 板橋集 (Collected Writings), 18th century. A miscellany including several references to the author's love of boys.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-78, Genevan philosopher
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les Confessions, Launette Aux Deux-Ponts: Chez Sanson, 1782-9. Translated by J. M. Cohen as The Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau, Harmondworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1952. Read the Greek love content. An autobiography down to 1765, including the story of the attempted seduction of the 15-year-old Rousseau by a Croat pederast in Turin.
Johann Joachim Winckelmann, 1717-68, German art historian
Gustav Bychowski, "Platonic Love and The Quest for Beauty: The Drama of J. J. Winckelmann" in American Imago, vol. 21, No. 3/4 "Eros and Thanatos" Fall-Winter 1964, pp. 80-94. On Winckelmann's sexual attraction to androgynous ephebes as the inspiration for his work on ancient Greek art.
Thomas Pelzel, "Winckelmann, Mengs and Casanova: A Reappraisal of a Famous Eighteenth-Century Forgery" in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 54, No. 3 (Sep., 1972), pp. 300-315. The story of the cruel trick played on Winckelmann in getting him to extol as authentically ancient a forged painting of Jupiter kissing Ganymede that was perfectly calculated to appeal to his artistic and sexual tastes.
Giacomo Girolamo Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, 1725-98, Venetian adventurer
Giacomo Casonova de Seingalt, Histoire de ma vie jusqu’à l’an 1797, 12 vols., finished 1797, first published in full Paris, Brockhaus, 1960-2, 12 vols. Translated from the original French by Willard R. Trask as History of My Life, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 6 vols., 1966-71. Read the Greek love content. A lively account of the author's life in places ranging from Madrid to Moscow and Constantinople. Though best-known for his amorous adventures with females, he briefly described one with a boy and alluded to others, besides describing the Greek love liaisons of others.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832, German writer
Alice A. Kuzniar (editor), Outing Goethe and His Age, Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1996. A series of essays, of which three are specifically about Goethe, who wrote of appreciating boys sexually while preferring girls.
W. Daniel Wilson, Goethe Männer Knaben: Ansichten zur "Homosexualität" (Goethe Men Boys: Views on 'Homosexuality'), translated from an unpublished ms. in English into German by Angela Steidele, Berlin: Insel Verlag, 2012. A comprehensive study of Greek love in Goethe’s writings including Ganymed (1774), Der Erlkönig (1782), Venetian Epigrams (1790), West-Eastern Diwan (1819), and many others. Also included is a chapter devoted to discussing Goethe's large collection of artwork featuring male youths that he displayed in his Weimar home. The conclusion drawn is that Goethe's attraction to boys in not known, but he was at least sympathetic to Greek love.
William Thomas Beckford, 1760-1844, English novelist and art collector.
Alexander Boyd, England's Wealthiest Son: William Beckford, London: Centaur Press, 1962. A thorough, sensitive and balanced account of probably the richest man ever to be ruined over Greek love.
Timothy Mowl, William Beckford. Composing for Mozart, London: J. Murray, 1998. A waspish and unsympathetic account, poorer in detail than Boyd's, leaving one to wonder what is the point of a biography that offers neither understanding nor new information.
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron, 1788-1824, English poet.
Thomas Moore, Life of Lord Byron: with His Letters and Journals, 2 volumes, London: John Murray, 1830-1. The first biography of Byron, by his friend and literary executor who had owned his burned memoirs and had access to other priceless manuscript sources. Thus in some respects a primary source, it contains invaluable information about Byron's boy loves, though Moore would not admit to their sexual character and generally avoided saying anything that would have been incendiary.
Gabriel Matzneff, "Les fruits verts (Sour Fruit)", being Chapter 9 of his La Diététique de lord Byron (Lord Byron's Dietetics), Paris: Table ronde, 1984. A beautifull-written and well-documented account of Byron's love of adolescents of both sexes, suggesting eleven was his favourite age in both cases.
Louis Crompton, Byron and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th-century England, London: Faber & Faber, 1985. A thorough account of Byron's love affairs with boys, demonstrating their importance in his life, with a vivid portrait of early 19th-century homophobia to explain their context.
Paul Elledge, Lord Byron at Harrow School: Speaking Out, Talking Back, Acting Up, Bowing Out, Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000. A study of Lord Byron's school years at Harrow with some attention paid to his relationships with younger teens. Has interesting information on Byron's homosexuality and upper-class English sexual mores, but is mainly written for those already well-informed about the poet's life.
Fiona Maccarthy, Byron, Life and Legend, London: John Murray, 2002. An excellent general biography, scholarly but readable, which gives Byron's love of boys (strongly affirmed to have been his primary sexual interest) the prominence due to it in his life, but no more than that. Only because this was written in this dishonest century, it is worth noting that no pretence is made that Byron's boys were "men" or that he was "gay".
Franz Schubert, 1797-1828, Austrian composer
Maynard Solomon, "Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto Cellini" in 19th-Century Music, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Spring, 1989), pp. 193-206. The essay which initiated on circumstantial evidence the contentious theory that Schubert was a practicing pederast.
Sir James Brooke, Rajah of Sarawak, 1803-68
J. H. Walker, " 'This peculiar acuteness of feeling': James Brooke and the enactment of desire" in Borneo Research Bulletin 29 (1988) pp. 148-89. A detailed but small-minded study of Brooke's boysexuality, over which his biographer Barley astutely cautions: "Attraction is not seduction, nor is seduction love. To equate them is to reduce the rich, polyphonic music of James's emotional life to a single note."
Nigel Barley, White Rajah: A Biography of Sir James Brooke, London: Hachette, 2002. An entertaining and thorough general biography, which affirms and discusses at length Brooke's compassionate attraction to boys, while taking a more measured approach to it than Walker.
James Campbell Reddie, 1807-78, Scottish author and collector of erotic literature
Mr. P- [Adamo Pedroletti], "Memoranda from Mr. P-." in The Pearl: A Magazine of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading, No. 17, London, November 1880. Read the Greek love content. A vivid account of Reddie's seduction of a boy of 15 at Margate, Kent, which happens to be corroborated by one of Reddie's letters and is the only hard evidence to his sexuality.
Walter Whitman, 1819-92, American writer.
Katherine Molinoff, Walt Whitman at Southold, Brookville, New York: C.W. Post College of Long Island University, 1966. PDF. A presentation of the evidence that while teaching at a school in Southold, Long Island in 1841, Whitman, then 22, was tarred and feathered for having sodomised one or more of his boy pupils.
Calamus Lovers: Walt Whitman's Working Class Camerados, edited by Charley Shively, San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1987. Edited correspondence between Walt Whitman and various teenaged youth and young men, with commentary often twisting facts to make Whitman appear to be a forerunner of the modern gay man.
Walt Whitman's Civil War Boy Lovers, edited by Charley Shively, San Francisco: Gay Sunshine Press, 1989. Edited correspondence between Walt Whitman and various teenaged youth and young men, with commentary often twisting facts to make Whitman appear to be a forerunner of the modern gay man.
Gary Schmidgall, Walt Whitman: A Gay Life, New York: Dutton, 1997. A detailed study of Whitman's homosexuality which claims it is at the root of his poetic vision while, despite the rather dishonest title, making clear that "the ‘singularities’ of his life and of his greatest poetry were . . . evoked by boys and boy love.”
Juan A. Hererro Brasas, Walt Whitman's Mystical Ethics of Comradeship: Homosexuality and the Marginality of Friendship at the Crossroads of Modernity, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 2010. Review. A reassessment of Whitman’s writings, rejecting the usual anachronistic views of him in favour of his own insistence on his poetry as a religion of male comradeship, his sexual involvement with boys is also described and shown to have been far removed from any idea of gay self-identification in his thinking.
Jeremy Lybarger, "Walt Whitman's Boys" in Boston Review, 30 May 2019. Read online. An article devoted to Whitman's homosexuality, showing through his poems and diaries that it was unambiguously pederastic.
Gustave Flaubert, 1821-80, French novelist.
Gustave Flaubert, Flaubert in Egypt, compiled and translated by Francis Steegmuller, London: The Bodley Head, 1972. Read the Greek love content. Flaubert's travel notes intermingled with his letters from his time in Egypt 1849-50, including his sexual experiences with boys there.
Horatio Alger, 1832-99, American novelist.
Gary Scharnhorst, Horatio Alger Jr., Boston: Twayne, 1980. A slender but authoritative biography which was the first to be honest about Alger's pederasty and its likely influence on his writing.
Gary Scharnhorst & Jack Bales, The Lost Life of Horatio Alger Jr., Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985. Review. An elaboration of the preceding biography.
Charles George Gordon, 1833-85, British major-general
Lawrence and Elisabeth Hanson, Gordon: The Story of a Hero, London: Peter Davies, 1953. A biography expanding on eminent historian Lytoon Strachey's vague innuendo to the same effect, to describe the general's "penchant for young boys," whom he is said to have found at least physically exciting.
Godfrey Elton, General Gordon, London: Collins, 1954. A detailed biography by a well-established historian making unusually clear that "boys had always specially attracted" Gordon, while women did not, but making clear his tendency to repress his feelings.
Philip Clayton Van Buskirk, 1833-1903, American marine
Rebel at Large: The Diary of Confederate Deserter Philip Van Buskirk edited by B.R. Burg, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2009. Diaries written in 1861-5 and with more to say about the author's attraction to the boys he encountered than about military matters.
B. R. Burg, An American Seafarer in the Age of Sail: The Erotic Diaries of Philip C. Van Buskirk, 1851-1870, New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1994. A study of some of the diaries of an educated and reflective young man; two chapters concentrate on his account of his and other seamen's erotic involvement with boys as well as women.
Ramakrishna Paramahansa রামকৃষ্ণ পরমহংস, 1836-86, Indian Hindu mystic
Jeffrey J. Kripal, Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna, Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1995. A psychoanalytic study of Ramakrishna, arguing that Ramakrishna's mystical experiences involved a strong homoerotic, mainly pederastic, dimension. Ramakrishna believed that boys were the ideal receptacles or “pure pots” for his mystical teachings.
Oscar Browning, 1837-1923, English historian.
Ian Anstruther, Oscar Browning, A Biography, London: John Murray, 1983. Review. Thorough and interesting biography of a highly eccentric Eton schoolmaster and Cambridge don probably not quite chaste in his love of boys, but who mostly got away with being dangerously outspoken about it.
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, 1840-93, Russian composer.
[various authors], The Tchaikovsky Papers: Unlocking the Family Archive, edited by Marina Kostalevsky and translated by Stephen Pearl, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2018. Letters to and from Tchaikovsky's family, but mostly his own letters, in many of which he confided his love of boys.
Poznansky, Alexander, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man, New York: Schirmer, 1991. A thorough and scholarly general biography which is open about Tchaikovsky's love of boys without unduly emphasising it.
John Addington Symonds, 1840-93, English poet and literary critic.
John Addington Symonds, The Memoirs of John Addington Symonds, London: Hutchinson, 1984, edited by P. Grosskurth. Read the Greek love content. A memoir sufficiently frank about Symonds's homosexual feelings and experience (in his youth plainly pederastic, but later directed towards virile young men) that publication was withheld until nearly a century after his death. Especially interesting for the detailed revelation of his despicable betrayal of the pederastic love affair of his Harrow headmaster, whose downfall had hitherto been inexplicable.
Charles Warren Stoddard, 1843-1909, American travel writer
Roger Austen, Genteel Pagan: The Double Life of Charles Warren Stoddard, edited by John Crowley, Amherst, Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts, 1991. The title alludes to the subject's liaisons with teenage boys in Pacific islands as well as the USA while hiding their sexual character from his readers.
Abdur Rahman Khan عبدالرحمن خان, Emir of Afghanistan, 1844-1901
Sultan Mohammad Khan, The Life of Abdur Rahman, Amir of Afghanistan, 2 vols. London: John Murray, 1900. A biography of the emir by his secretary, of which the first part is an edited translation of the emir's own autobiography. The great importance to him of his page-boys is made clear, while unsurprisingly the sexual dimension to his fondness for them is not mentioned.
Paul Verlaine, 1844-96, French poet
Jeffrey Meyers, "The Savage Experiment: Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine" in The Kenyon Review, New Series, Vol. 33, No. 3, Summer 2011, pp. 167-180. An account of the tempestuous two-year love affair of Verlaine with the 16-18-year-old fellow poet Rimbaud.
Reginald Baliol Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher, 1852-1930, English historian and politician.
James Lees-Milne, The Enigmatic Edwardian, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1986. A good, well-researched and written biography, thorough on his pederasty.
Peter Jordaan, "Viscount Esher" in his A Secret Between Gentlemen. Volume II: Suspects, strays, and guests, Sydney: Alchemie, 2023, pp. 19-25. A good summary of Esher's life and thinking with emphasis on his pederasty.
Wilhelm Plüschow, 1852-1930, German photographer
Ulrich Pohlmann, Guglielmo Plüschow (1852-1930). Ein Photograph aus Mecklenburg in Italien (William Plüschow (1852-1930). A Photographer from Mecklenburg in Italy), Grevesmühlen: NWM-Verlag, 1995. A lavish collection of Plüschow's photographs of often-naked Italian adolescent boys which makes no secret of their erotic inspiration.
Sir Hector Archibald Macdonald, 1853-1903, British major-general
Trevor Royle, Death Before Dishonour: The True Story of Fighting Mac, Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1982; revised as Fighting Mac: the downfall of Major-General Sir Hector Macdonald, Edinburgh: Mainstream Digital, 2003. A short general biography which does not subscribe to the conspiracy theory that the allegations of sex with boys in Ceylon that brought about the military hero's suicide were an invention of the establishment.
Friedrich Alfred Krupp, 1854-1902, German steel manufacturer
Carlo Knight, Krupp a Capri - Uno scandalo d'altri tempi (e uno dei nostri) (Krupp in Capri - A scandal from other times (and one of ours)), Naples: S. Civita, 1989.
Carlo Knight: Die Capri-Utopie von Krupp - L'utopia caprese di Krupp (Krupp's Caprian Utopia), Capri: La Conchiglia, 2002.
Dieter Richter, "Friedrich Alfred Krupp auf Capri. Ein Skandal und seine Geschichte (Frederick Alfred Krupp on Capri. A Scandal and its History)" in Friedrich Alfred Krupp. Ein Unternehmer im Kaiserreich (Frederick Alfred Krupp. An Entrepreneur during the Empire) edited by Michael Epkenhans & Ralf Stremmel, Munich: C. H. Beck, 2010, pp. 157-178. An essay using largely the arguments convincingly made by Norman Douglas in his memoir Looking Back, qv., to show that the scandal of the great industrialist's orgies with Caprian boys that brought about his downfall was greatly exaggerated due to local feuds, hypocrisy and the rhetoric of class antagonism.
Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer and wit.
The Complete Letters of Oscar Wilde, edited by Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart-Davis, New York: Henry Holt, 2000. Read the Greek love content. A massive tome bringing together from many sources all of Wilde's known correspondence and providing copious evidence that the age range of the males with whom he was sexually involved was (in so far as age was mentioned) 15 to 21.
Merlin Holland, Irish Peacock and Scarlet Marquess: The Real Trial of Oscar Wilde, London: Fourth Estate, 2003.
Neil McKenna, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde: An Intimate Biography, London: Century, 2003. Review. Thorough and lively biography with an extreme gay bias, interpreting everything Wilde thought or did in terms of his homosexuality.
Antony Edmonds, Oscar Wilde's Scandalous Summer, Stroud: Amberley, 2014. Review. The story of Wilde's liaison with Alfonso Conway, a working-class boy just turned sixteen, in Worthing in 1894, well-researched and brought to interesting life.
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud, 1854-91, French poet
Jeffrey Meyers, "The Savage Experiment: Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine" in The Kenyon Review, New Series, Vol. 33, No. 3, Summer 2011, pp. 167-180. An account of the tempestuous two-year love affair of the 16-18-year-old Rimbaud with fellow poet Verlaine, eleven years older.
Baron Wilhelm Iwan Friederich August von Gloeden, 1856-1931, German photographer in Sicily.
Charles Leslie, Wilhelm Von Gloeden Photographer. A Brief Introduction to His Life and Work, New York: Soho Photographic Pubishers, 1977. A biogaphy, lavishly illustrated with the subject's photographs of boys, documenting how he transformed his adoptive Sicilian home into a Mecca for pederast,s and arguing that his chosen vocation was a defiant assertion of his attraction to boys.
Joseph Kiermeier-Debre & Fritz Franz Vogel, Wilhelm von Gloeden – auch ich in Arkadien (William von Gloeden - I too in Arcadia), Cologne: Böhlau, 2007. A lavish catalogue of von Gloeden's photographs of often-naked Sicilian boys, open about their erotic inspiration.
Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron, 1857-1941, British Lieutenant-General and founder of the worldwide scout movement
Tim Jeal, Baden-Powell, London: Hutchinson, 1989. An unrivalledry balanced and thorough biography of the man, presenting compelling evidence that he was a definite but firmly self-repressed boysexual, openly relishing photos of boy nudes, for example.
John Saul, 1857-1904, Irish prostitute
Glenn Chandler, The Sins of Jack Saul: The true story of Dublin Jack and the Cleveland Street Scandal, [no place:] Grosvenor House, 2016. A full, well-written biography, revealing Saul's previously unknown origins and end, and showing much of his famous memoir to be pure fiction.
Henry Scott Tuke, 1858-1929, English painter
Emmanuel Cooper, The Life and Work of Henry Scott Tuke 1858-1929, London: GMP, 1987. A brief account of the artist's life and work, including many color and b&w reproductions of his paintings of nude youths.
David Wainright and Catherine Dinn, Henry Scott Tuke, 1858-1929, Under Canvas, London: Sarema, 1989. Chronicles Tuke’s life and career, including details such as the fees Tuke was paid for some of his paintings, his travels and companions, and the names and backgrounds of many of his young models. Well illustrated with mostly colour and some b&w reproductions of Tuke's paintings (nudes, portraits, nautical paintings) as well as period photographs of Tuke, his friends, and models.
Geoffry Edward Wheatly Cobb, Welsh nautical philanthropist, 1858-1931
Peter Jordaan, "Geoffry Wheatly Cobb" in his A Secret Between Gentlemen. Volume II: Suspects, strays, and guests, Sydney: Alchemie, 2023, pp. 123-8. The life of a man who devoted his family's new wealth to buying old frigates and converting them into training ships for handsome prospective sailors aged 12 to 18, with orgies on board.
Edward Perry Warren, 1860-1928, American art collector.
Michael Matthew Kaylor, "Introduction" in The Collected Works and Commissioned Biography of Edward Perry Warren, vol. I p. x ff., Brno: Masaryk University Press, 2013. An excellent introduction to Warren which is essentially a biography and, far from evading the importance of Greek love in his life, stresses how shamefully this has usually been done.
Thomas K. Hubbard, "Ned Warren's Passion: The Life and Work of a Uranian Connoisseur" in Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, Vol. 22, No. 3 (Winter 2015), pp. 145-170. A fine summary of Warren's life and writings on Greek love.
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, 1860–1937, Scottish playwright.
Andrew Birkin, J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: the Love Story that Gave Birth to Peter Pan, London: Constable, 1979. Review. An excellent, balanced and thoroughly researched biography with input from the surviving "lost boy", leaving an impression of Barrie as a chaste and probably unconscious but passionate boysexual.
Frederick William Rolfe, 1860-1913, English writer.
Frederick Rolfe, The Venice Letters with Illustrations by the Author edited by Cecil Woolf, London: Cecil Woolf, 1974. Read the Greek love content. Twenty-five letters sent from Venice in the last years of his life to a fellow English boy-lover, about half of which concern their mutual delight in Venetian boys, some quite explicit about what the latter offered.
A. J. A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo, London: Cassell, 1934. An iconically original biography in that it is told as the story of the author's search for knowledge and understanding of his subject, for whom boys were central to his mystery. An unflattering and slightly sensational account of Rolfe that is largely responsible for his lasting fame.
Donald Weeks, Corvo, London: Joseph, 1971. Poorly-written but painstaking reconstruction of every episode in Rolfe's life, well-researched but let down through failure to give sources.
Miriam J. Bencovitz, Frederick Rolfe, Baron Corvo, New York: G. P. Putnam, 1977. The most scholarly of the general biographies of Rolfe, so the best for hard information, but tending to drown his personality in tedious detail.
Robert Scoble, Raven. The Turbulent World of Baron Corvo, London: Strange Attractor, 2013. A fascinating series of well-researched essays on various aspects of Rolfe and some of the interesting characters who came into his life, with plenty about his love of boys.
Revd. Edwin Emmanuel Bradford, 1860-1944, English vicar and poet
C. Caunter, Eyes lit with the light of other skies: The joyful life of Edwin Emmanuel Bradford, first published on this website, 2022. Read here. Expanded version included in My Love Is Like All Lovely Things. Selected Poems of E. E. Bradford edited by C. Caunter (London: Arcadian Dreams, 2023), pp. 191-252. Thoroughly researched account of the life of a Uranian poet who reconciled his Christianity with active boy-love and was surprisingly well-received.
Lewis Vernon Harcourt, 1st Viscount Harcourt, 1863-1922, British Secretary of State for the Colonies
Patrick Johnson, “Harcourt, Lewis Vernon, first Viscount Harcourt” in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2006. Authoritative but short general biography, which analyses the belief widespread in high society that Harcourt killed himself over an exposed attempt to seduce an Eton schoolboy of 13, but ignores all the other contemporary evidence of his pederasty.
Constantine Peter Cavafy, 1863-1933, Alexandrian writer of Greek poetry
Robert Liddell, Cavafy: A Critical Biography, Duckworth, 1974. A general biography which includes as a central theme the subject’s sexual liaisons with Alexandrian youths.
Alexandre Yersin, 1863-1943, Franco-Swiss bacteriologist.
Louis Geschenk [Jean-Claude Féray], "Un savant estimable peut-il être pédophile? Le cas Alexandre Yersin" in L’Élu (online journal), No. 2, 2009, pp. 106-114. Translated for this website as "Can a Worthy Scholar Be a Pedophile? The case of Alexandre Yersin". Read on this website. Argues persuasively on the basis of primary sources quoted in the biography by Henri H. Mollaret and Jacqueline Brossollet, Alexandre Yersin ou le vainqueur de la peste (1985), that the discoverer of the bacillus responsible for the bubonic plague was a boy-lover (conflated with pedophilia), the authors of that otherwise excellent biography having denied the obvious through prejudice.
Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, 1864-92, British prince.
Theo Aronson, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld, London: John Murray, 1994. Review. The only substantial biography of this prince who would have become King but for his premature death, rightly dismissing silly speculation that he was Jack the Ripper, but presenting sound evidence he was involved in the pederastic Cleveland Street scandal of 1889.
John Henry Mackay, 1864-1933, German writer.
Friedrich Dobe, John Henry Mackay als Mensch (John Henry Mackay as a Man), Koblenz: Plato, 1987. A memoir written by a friend of Mackay, testifying that his books were based on his real love affairs with boys, and describing some of them.
Hubert Kennedy, Anarchist of Love: The Secret Life of John Henry Mackay, New York: Mackay Society, 1983; revised & expanded edition, San Francisco: Peremptory, 2002. A sound short biography with emphasis on Mackay's love of boys and writings about Greek love.
Fred Holland Day, 1864-1933, American photographer
James Crump, F. Holland Day: Suffering the Ideal, Santa Fe, New Mexico: Twin Palms, 1995. A beautifully-produced volume presenting most representative work of this photographer best known for his sensual images of nude youths, with a thorough introduction, which explored for the first time, not just the erotic feeling in the photos, but in the man himself.
D. H. Mader, Improper Bostonian, written 1995/2021, and first published on this website, 2023. Read here. A short biography explaining the little known about Day as an active lover of boys.
Vishvanath Singh, Maharaja of Chhatarpur, 1866-1932
Joe Ackerley, Hindoo Holiday: An Indian Journal, expurgated edition, London: Chatto & Windus, 1932; unexpurgated edition, Penguin Modern Classics, 2009. Review. A witty account of the author's five-month stay as his secretary-companion with a boy-loving Indian Maharajah.
Henri-Louis-Achille Bécasse, better known under his nom de plume of Achille Essebac, 1868-1936, French writer.
Jean-Claude Féray, Achille Essebac, romancier du Désir (Achilles Essebac, Novelist of Desire), Paris: Quintes-Feuilles, 2008. Thoroughly researched pioneering study with emphasis on the novelist's attraction to boys, explored through his novels, photography and association with other pederasts.
George Norman Douglas, 1868-1952, Scottish writer.
Norman Douglas, Looking Back: An Autobiographical Excursion, London: Chatto & Windus, 1933. Read the Greek love content. Miscellaneous recollections recounted with typical wit, including some fairly frank ones about his sexual liaisons with boys.
Mark Holloway, Norman Douglas: a Biography, London: Secker & Warburg, 1976. Read the Greek love content. Review. A thorough and fine general biography written in the brief period when it was possible to write both honestly and uncensoriously about a practising pederast, and which availed itself well of that liberty.
Wilhelm Meusburger, Michael Allan and Helmut Swozilek (editors), Introducing Norman Douglas: A Portrait, Capri: Edizioni La Conchiglia, 2004. Extracts from Douglas's works illustrated with many photos recalling his life and loves.
Dear Doug! Letters to Norman Douglas from Eric Wolton, René Mari, Marcel Mercier and Ettore Masciandaro and a selection of letters from Emilio Papa, Graz: W. Neugebauer, 2008. A collection of letters from some of those who were at the time or once had been boys loved by Douglas, and who influenced his work, many of them found upsetting by recent historians for their evidence that Douglas's boys had positive views of their affairs with him.
Rachel Hope Cleves, Unspeakable: A Life Beyond Sexual Morality, University of Chicago Press, 2020. Review. A study of Douglas's liaisons with boys (and, to a lesser extent, girls), the main focus of which is the author's relish in what she sees as a successful balancing act between not suppressing the historical evidence that the liaisons were felt to be good by the participants in them and yet maintaining her blind allegiance to the current dogma that makes them taboo.
Mwanga II, King of Buganda, 1868-1903
Samwiri Lwanga-Lunyiigo, Mwanga II: Resistance to Imposition of British Colonial Rule in Buganda, 1884-1899. Kampala: Wavah, 2011. A fierce polemic trying to argue that the historical record on this interesting King is an invented colonial conspiracy, especially the many witness accounts of his sexual liaisons with his pubescent boy pages. The author's objectivity on the topic may be judged by his explanation in an interview that those who practise homosexuality "are no longer human."
William Henry Duckett, 1869-1904, American telegrapher.
Stephanie M. Blalock & Brandon James O'Neil, " 'I am more interested than you know Bill': The Life and Times of William Henry Duckett Jr." in WWQR, Vol. 39 nos. 2 & 3, 2021-22. A thorough scholarly study of all that is known about the boy who, aged 15, met the elderly poet Walt Whitman and became his carriage driver and (possibly, unprovably) his lover.
Robert Baldwin Ross, 1869-1918, Canadian journalist.
Jonathan Fryer, Robbie Ross: Oscar Wilde's True Love, London: Constable, 2000. A hagiography of the one who, at 17, first seduced Wilde into homosexuality and was later blatantly boysexual, though the scandals demonstrating this are rather skimmed over with typical modern dishonesty.
Joseph Vacher, 1869-98, French serial killer.
Alexandre Lacassagne, Vacher l'éventreur et les crimes sadiques (Vacher the Ripper and Sadistic Crimes), Lyon: Storck, 1899. PDF. By the doctor whose conclusions as to his sanity secured his condemnation to the guillotine, a study of the man (often considered the French Jack the Ripper) who raped and murdered five shepherd boys of 14-15 as well as six females.
Marc Renneville, Vacher l’éventreur. Archives d’un tueur en série (Vacher the Ripper. Archives of a Serial Killer), Grenoble: Jérôme Million, 2019. An exhaustive presentation and analysis of all the evidence concerning Vacher's crimes and trial, designed to present the reader with the chance to appraise it for himself, rather than to be a biography.
André Paul Guillaume Gide, 1869-1951, Nobel Laureate French writer
André Gide, Si le grain ne meurt, Paris: Gallimard, 1924 [1926], translated from the French by Dorothy Bussy as If It Die ..., New York: Random House, 1935, unexpurgated edition, London: Penguin, 1977. Read the Greek love content. A frank autobiography down to Gide's engagement in 1895, including details of his sexual initiatement with boys in North Africa in 1893-5.
André Gide, Deux récits. Jeunesse. Aqua Santa (Two Stories. Youth. Aqua Santa), Paris: [Jacques Schiffrin], 1938. Two short autobiographical works, printed in only 21 copies and not for sale. Aqua Santa relates Gide's trip to Italy in 1912 where he became besotted with a young handicapped boy named Bernardino.
André Gide, Égypte 1939 (Egypt 1939). [Paris: 1951]. Gide's unexpurgated diaries, which recount his trip to Egypt in 1939 and his pursuit of sexual encounters with young Egyptian éphèbes, including a much desired young elevator boy. Limited to only 21 copies and published anonymously several months after his death.
André Gide, Journal 1889-1949, 4 vols., 1939-, edited and translated from the French by J. O'Brien, 4 vols., London: Secker & Warburg, 1947-51.
Henri Ghéon & André Gide, Correspondance, 1897-1944, 2 volumes, Paris: Gallimard, 1976. In French only.
Patrick Pollard, Andre Gide: Homosexual Moralist, New Haven, Connecticut, Yale University Press, 1991. A study of pederasty as a central theme in Gide’s writings, which also traces the movements that influenced his thought.
Alan Sheridan, André Gide: A Life in the Present, London: Hamish Hamilton, 1998.
André Gide, Le Ramier (The Woodpigeon), Paris: Gallimard, 2002. In French only. A lyrical account of an amorous night the author spent in 1907 with the 17-year-old son of a farmhand in south-western France.
Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas, 1870-1945, English writer.
Douglas Murray, Bosie: A Biography of Lord Alfred Douglas, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2000.
Henri Jeoffrai, 1873-1915, French brigadier
Georges Hérelle, untitled ms. of 1902-3 [The testimony of Henri Jeoffrai] in Jean-Claude Féray, “Un témoignage sur la pédérastie en Chine recueilli en 1902 et 1903 par Georges Hérelle” in Quintes-Feuilles (online journal), Bulletin trimestriel no. 21, January 2021, pp. 5-9. Translated for this website as "A testimony on pederasty in China collected in 1902 and 1903 by Georges Hérelle". Read on this website. A witness account of boy prostitution in Peking, with particular reference to his own and other French officers' enjoyment of it.
Gustav Wyneken, 1875-1964, German pedagogue
Thijs Maasen, De pedagogische eros in het geding: Gustav Wyneken en de pedagogische vriendschap in de Freie Schulgemeinde Wickersdorf tussen 1906-1931 (Pedagogical Eros at Stake: Gustav Wyneken and Pedagogical Friendship in the Wickersdorf Free School Community between 1906-1931), Utrecht: Publicatiereeks Homostudies, 1988. A scholarly discussion of the public debate in early 20th century Germany over pedagogical eros, focusing on Wyneken, a German educator and youth leader, and then one of the foremost advocates of pedagogical eros and boylove. Particular attention is given to Wyneken's defense of pedagogical friendships between men and boys during his 1921 trial for alleged sexual misconduct at the Wickersdorf Free School Community, which he had co-founded in 1906.
Paul Thomas Mann, 1875-1955, Nobel Laureate German writer.
Thomas Mann, Diaries 1918-1939, translated into English by R. and C. Winston, New York: H. N. Abrams, 1982.
Anthony Heilbut, Thomas Mann: Eros and Literature, London: Macmillan, 1996. Thorough account of Mann's life, making great use of his letters and diaries and stressing the importance for his writing of his attraction to boys.
Gilbert Adair, The Real Tadzio: Thomas Mann's 'Death in Venice' and the Boy Who Inspired It, London: Short, 2001. Review. A short and lively but poorly-researched account of the life of a Pole named Wladyslaw Moes, concentrating on his claim to have been the boy who inspired Mann's famous novella. The claim, though weak, was accepted uncritically and popularised by the author, and despite never being substantiated, has been generally accepted since.
Forrest Reid, 1875-1947, Irish writer
Brian Taylor, The Green Avenue: The Life and Writings of Forrest Reid, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. The definitive study of Reid's life and writings, clear that he "loved boys, wrote about boys, and wanted to write about nothing else. His inclinations, albeit sexual in origin, found expression in all of his opinions and ideas, on literature and on life."
"Charlie Powerscourt",born ca. 1879, English writer
[Charlie Powerscourt], Memoirs of a Voluptuary, "New Orleans" [Paris: Charles Carrington], 1905. Read the Greek love content. The erotic adventures of some boys aged 13 to 16 with each other at their small boarding-school in Devon, and with men and women elsewhere. Its claim to be strictly autobiographical looks exaggerated, but it is nevertheless fascinating and historically important as much the earliest explicit British description of pederastic sex.
Friedrich Heinrich Karl "Fritz" Haarmann, 1879-1925, German serial killer
Theodor Lessing, Haarmann. Die Geschichte eines Werwolfs. Arnstadt, 1925. Translated from the German as "Haarmann, the Story of a Werewolf" in Monsters of Weimar, London: Nemesis, 1993. Reliable account of the man who raped and murdered at least twenty-four mostly teenage boys in Hanover between 1918 and 1924, exposing the fact that he had been a police spy and showing the culpability of various bureaucrats.
Patrick Henry Pearse, 1879-1916, Irish revolutionary
Elaine Sisson, Pearse's Patriots: St. Enda's and the Cult of Boyhood, Cork: Cork University Press, 2004. An examination of Pearse's tenure as headmaster of St Enda's School 1908-16, which he founded with the goal of developing modern nationalist Irish boys educated in the scholarly tradition of the early Celtic Church and the ancient warrior culture of pagan Ireland. His sexual attraction to boys is also thoroughly discussed.
Joost Augusteijn, Patrick Pearse: The Making of a Revolutionary, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. The most authoritative biography of Pearse so far, concluding that "it seems most probable that he was sexually inclined this way [to boys]."
Baron Jacques Adelswärd-Fersen, 1880-1923, French writer
Ogrinc, Will H.L., "Frère Jacques: A Shrine To Love And Sorrow. Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen (1880-1923)" in Paidika, Vol. 3, No. 2, Issue 10, Amsterdam, 1994, pp. 30-58. Fourth, revised edition, online, 2015. PDF. An excellent scholarly biography based on exhaustive research, especially on the subject's sexual involvement with boys.
[Baron Jacques Adelswärd-Fersen,], Amori et Dolori Sacrum. Capri, Un'infinita varietà. 1905-1923: l'isola di Jacques Fersen, edited by Riccardo Esposito, Capri: La Conchiglia, 2018. In Italian only. The boy-loving exile in Capri's poems and documents on his life translated into Italian and lavishly illustrated.
Viveka Adelswärd and Jacques Perot, Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen, l’insoumis de Capri (Jacques d’Adelswärd-Fersen, the Rebel of Capri), Paris: Séguier, 2018. A general autobiography by two of the subject's cousins which purports to shed new light on him through letters and unpublished family archives, but does so only regarding family history, otherwise whitewashing him for current sensibilities and hiding the pederastic character of his homosexuality.
Wintermans, Caspar, Un Scandale Belle Époque, l’affaire d’Adelswärd à travers la presse parisienne (A Belle Époque scandal, the Adelswärd affair seen through the Parisian press), The Hague: Callipyge, 2021. A thoroughly-researched and beautifully produced book enabling the reader to follow the boysexual scandal in which d’Adelswärd was embroiled in 1903 through the contemporary press of all persuasions.
John Moray Stuart-Young, 1881-1939, English palm oil trader in Nigeria
Stephanie Newell, The Forger's Tale: The Search for Odeziaku, Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2006. Thorough and honest biography, especially interesting for what it reveals about sympathetic West African attitudes to a benevolent colonial who lived with a succession of virtual boy wives.
Jacob Israel de Haan, 1881-1924, Dutch writer and settler in Palestine
Ludy Giebels, "Jacob Israel de Haan in Mandate Palestine: was the victim of the first Zionist political assassination a 'Jewish Lawrence of Arabia'? in Jewish Historical Studies, Vol. 46, 2014, pp. 107-129. A summary of de Haan's life showing that he was murdered because he challenged Zionism and including several references to the happiness he found in dalliances with Arab boys.
Edward Mark Slocum, 1882-1945, American chemist
Rosenthal, Donald A., An Arcadian Photographer in Manhattan: Edward Mark Slocum, Portsmouth: Callum James Books, 2011. A brief, well-researched biography focussed on Slocum's photography of young males, with sadly nothing certain to reveal about his sexual involvement with boys.
Karol Maciej Szymanowski, 1882-1937, Polish composer
Hubert Kennedy, "Karol Szymonski, his boy-love novel, and the boy he loved," in Paidika vol. 3, no. 3, 1994, pp. 26-33. A brief biography with emphasis on the composer's love of boys, a dominant theme of his life from his visit to Sicily in 1911, his love affair with 15-year-old Boris Kochno and his mostly lost pederastic novel.
Umberto Saba, 1883-1957, Italian poet and novelist,
Mario Lavagetto, La gallina di Saba (Saba's Hen), Turin: Einaudi, 1974. Freudian analysis of Saba's writings, including hs pederasty.
Gerald Hugh Tyrwhitt, 14th Baron Berners, 1883-1950, English composer
Lord Berners, First Childhood, London: Constable, 1934. Read the Greek love content. An autobiography down to the age of thirteen, including the lengthy story of his passionate romantic attachment, aged nine, to a boy three or four years older at his preparatory school, Cheam.
Arthur Kenneth Searight, 1883-1957, English inventor of the Sona language
Ronald Hyam, "Greek love in British India: Captain Searight's manuscript," being chapter 16 of his Understanding the British Empire, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010. Review.
William Alexander Percy, 1885-1942, American planter and poet
William Armstrong Percy, "William Alexander Percy (1885-1942): His Homosexuality and Why It Matters" in John Howard (ed.), Carryin’ On in the Lesbian and Gay South, New York: New York University Press, 1997, pp. 75-92. An essay by the poet's nephew concentrating on revelations that he had a series of sexual liaisons with adolescent boys, mostly black.
Renaud Icard, 1886-1971, French sculptor and writer
Jean-Loup Salètes, "Renaud Icard" in Amours Secrètes (Secret Loves), edited by Nicole Canet, Paris: Nicole Canet, , pp. 189-264.
Ludvig Leif Sadi Qvist, later Rovsing, 1887-1977, Danish tennis champion
L. Rovsing, I tropesol og måneskin (Under the Sun and the Moon of the Tropics), Hellerup: privately printed, 1959. A first-hand account of the delights to be had in sexual liaisons with adolescent boys in Bali and Ceylon, compared with the drab and restricting conditions for boysexuals in the author's native Denmark.
Willem Eduard Keuning "de Mérode", 1887-1939, Dutch poet
Hans Werkman, De wereld van Willem de Mérode (The World of William de Mérode), Amsterdam: De Arbeiderspers, 1983. Revised edition, Soesterberg: Aspekt, 2011. A prize-winning biography of the poet once imprisoned over his love of boys, later considerably revised with new material, notably on the subject's own view of his pederasty.
Hans Hafkamp, "The Life of a Christian Boy-Lover: The Poet Willem De Mérode (1887-1939)" in Paidika Vol. I, No. 1 (Amsterdam, summer 1987) pp. 42-56. A short biography concentrating on the poet's love of boys.
Hans Werkman, De Mérode en de jongens: Biografische fragmenten (De Mérode and the Boys: Biographical Fragments), Baarn, Utrecht: De Prom, 1991. A sequel and supplement to the same author's earlier biography of de Mérode, drawing its insights from his poems and interviews with the farm-boys he had loved in their early and mid teens.
Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, 1887-1976, British Field Marshal
T. E. B. Howarth (editor), Monty at Close Quarters: Recollections of the Man, London: Leo Cooper, 1985. Read the Greek love content. A series of recollections by twelve close friends and associates of the widowered "Monty", of whom two had as boys had chaste but special friendships with the widowed national hero, one more obviously "Greek" in character than the other.
Hans Blüher, 1888-1955, German philosopher
Hans Blüher, Werke und Tage (Works and Days), Munich: List, 1953. Memoir of the first historian of the Wandervogel movement in which he described approvingly the prevalent Greek love affairs of the oldest boys at his school (implicitly including himself) with the youngest (pubescent) boys.
Thomas Edward Lawrence, 1888-1935, English officer instrumental in the Arab revolt, and Selim Ahmed "Dahoum", ca. 1897-1918, Syrian water boy
Daniel Wolfe, T. E. Lawrence, New York: Chelsea House, 1995.
Ralph Nicholas Chubb, 1892-1960, English poet, printer and artist
Ralph Chubb, The Sun Spirit: a Visionary Phantasy, privately printed, Aldermaston, 1931. Includes an account of the author's boyhood, especially his early sexual longings and of his passionate friendship at 18 with a boy three years his younger.
Oliver Drummond, "Ralph Nicholas Chubb: Prophet and Paiderast" in the International Journal of Greek Love I (New York, 1965), pp. 5-17. Read on this website.
Anthony Reid, "Ralph Chubb, the Unknown: a Checklist and extensively expurgated Biography" in The Private Library, 2nd Series, vol. III pp. 141-156 & 193-213. Similar to the preceding article by Drummond, but longer and more thorough in both its account of Chubb's life (including his sexual liaisons with local boys) and its catalogue of his works.
William "Bill" Tatem Tilden, 1893-1953, American tennis champion
Frank Deford, Big Bill Tilden: The Triumphs and the Tragedy, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1976. The sad story of the world's top tennis player for six years, subsequently shunned and ruined due to two convictions for sex with willing boys of 14 and 16.
Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 1893-1918, English poet
Dominic Hibberd, Owen the Poet, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1986) and Wilfred Owen: A New Biography, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2002. Fine comprehensive biographies of the great war poet which include brief mention of his special friendships with boys and Greek love poems without addressing them as a significant topic.
Jon Stallworthy, Wilfred Owen, London: Vintage Digital, 2013. More cautious than Hibberd in his conclusions, but similarly comprehensive, all three biographies of Owen are similarly excellent and the best there is on his attraction to boys in the absence of any special study.
Henry Marie Joseph Frédéric Expedite Millon de Montherlant, 1895–1972, French writer
Pierre Sipriot, Montherlant sans masque (Montherlant without Mask), 2 volumes, Paris: Robert Laffont: Vol. 1, L'Enfant prodigue (The Prodigal Son), 1982; Vol. 2, Écris avec ton sang (Write with your Blood), 1990. A thorough and personal biography which revealed that the subject was embroiled in liaisons with pubescent boys throughout his adult life.
Henri de Montherlant & Roger Peyrefitte, Correspondance (1938-41) (Correspondence (1938-41)), presentation and notes by R. Peyrefitte and Pierre Sipriot, Paris: R. Laffont, 1983. The earliest of the frank letters about their liaisons exchanged between two friends who were the most prominent literary French boy-lovers of their generation.
Alméras, Philippe, Montherlant: une vie en double (Montherlant: A Double Life), Versailles: Via Romana, 2009. Thorough, though poorly produced, biography with new sources found to give a more complete picture of Montherlant, and with interesting reflections on why society since his time had become far more hostile to pederasty and thus him.
Patricia O'Flaherty, Henry de Montherlant (1895-1972): A Philosophy of Failure, Oxford: Peter Lang, 2013. Biography and literary analysis of his writings, including full acknowledgement that the boy "of 13 or 14 is [his] ideal human being."
Walter Spies, 1895-1942, German artist
Hans Rhodius and John Darling, Walter Spies and Balinese Art, Amsterdam: Terra Zutphen, 1980. The story of the painter most instrumental in drawing European attention to Balinese art, imprisoned for nine months during a Dutch crackdown on homosexuality in their East Indies and soon after drowned during a deportation of German nationals.
Joe Randolph Ackerley, 1896-1967, English writer
Joe Ackerley, My Father and Myself, London: The Bodley Head, 1968. Read the Greek love content. A joint biography of his father and himself, including an account of his schooldays at Rossall, where a much older boy tried to seduce him when he was 11, and he, at 17, fell in love with a much younger boy he dared not touch.
Michael Childers Davidson, 1897-1975, English journalist
Michael Davidson, The World, the Flesh and Myself, London: Arthur Barker, 1962. Article linking to Greek love content. Contemporary press reviews. The full autobiography of an international reporter with a generally interesting life, but principally fascinating for the prominence he accords it as the story of a lover of boys.
Michael Davidson, Some Boys, London: David Bruce & Watson, 1969. Article linking to Greek love content. Sixteen independent short stories about the itinerant journalist's liaisons with boys in different locales in three continents, combining first-rate travel writing with brilliant evocation of the experience of loving boys.
Michael Davidson, Sicilian Vespers and other writings by Michael Davidson, edited with notes and a brief biography by Edmund Marlowe, London: Arcadian Dreams, 2021. Review. A biography, a travel book about a little Sicilian island, an unfinished contiunuation of his above-mentioned memoir, The World, ..., Davidson's correspondence with friends 1926-75, and reminiscences of him.
Heinz Rutha, 1897-1937, Sudeten Bohemian furniture maker
Mark Cornwall, The Devil's Wall: The Nationalist Youth Mission of Heinz Rutha, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2012. Meticulously researched life of a Sudetenland German nationalist who killed himself while remanded in prison for his liaisons with teenage boys.
Rewi Alley, 1897-1987, New Zealander writer and political activist
Anne-Marie Brady, Friend of China – The Myth of Rewi Alley, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003. An academic study of the life and works of Alley, who lived in China from 1927 and until his death, including discussion of his publicly unacknowledged homosexuality as well as his sexual liaisons with boys during his headmastership of the Bailie School in Shandan in the 1940s.
Jef Last, 1898-1972, Dutch writer
Rudi Wester, Bestaat er een raarder leven dan het mijne? (Is There a Stranger Life Than Mine?), Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2021. A sympathetic full biography of this radical leftist adventurer, open about his love of adolescent boys and travels with his friend André Gide in search of them.
Albert Wainwright, 1898-1943, English artist, and Otto Jübermann, ca. 1912-?, German
Albert Wainwright, Albert & Otto. Albert Wainwright's visual diary of love in the 1920s, edited by Nick Elm and Callum James, Portsmouth: Callum James, 2013. Sketchbooks 1927-9 with a little text from diaries depicting the artist's visits to Germany and reciprocal visit to England of the mid-teen boy with whom he had a love affair.
Colin Carhart McPhee, 1900-64, Canadian composer
Colin McPhee, A House in Bali, New York: The Asia Press, 1944. A finely-observed memoir of the author's life in Bali in the 1930s, the principal characters described being the house-boys and boy dancers and musicians with whom he was close, though the sexual character of his relationships with them is unsurprisingly not mentioned.
Carol J. Oja, Colin McPhee: Composer in Two Worlds, Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institute, 1990. A brief, well-researched biography, which fills in from correspondence what was missing from McPhee's memoir: his openly flaunted pederasty in 1930s Bali.
Prince Louis Francis Albert Victor Nicholas of Battenberg, later surnamed Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, 1900-79
Andrew Lownie, “Chapter 28. Rumours” in his The Mountbattens, London: Blink, 2019. A chapter in a general well-balanced, joint biography of Mountbatten and his wife that is devoted to credible but unprovable claims that Mountbatten had homosexual liaisons, with a preference for boys of 13 to 14.
James Milton Parker Dooley, 1902-55+, American dr. of medicine
[Anon.] "The Strange Case of Dr. Dooley" in National Review. A weekly journal of opinion 7 Dec. 1955, Vol. 1 Issue 3, pp. 9-15. An article about a doctor convicted on his own confession of consensual sex with troubled boys as a successful means of therapy, written with a view to excoriating "liberals" through describing their remarkable support for him.
[Anon.] "Strange Case of Dr. Dooley" in Unbound, vol. 1, no. 1, San Francisco, 1986, pp. 9-19. Read on this website. An article on the same subject, but focussed on the well-witnessed success of the doctor's therapy.
Gaston Goor, 1902-77, French illustrator
Jean-Claude Féray, "L’histoire de Mon page, de ses illustrations et de l’amitié Goor-Icard", in Mon page (My Page) by Renaud Icard (Quintes-Feuilles, Paris, 2009) pp. 157-195.
Hans-Joachim Oertel known as Hajo Ortil, 1905-83, German photographer and writer
"Interview with Hajo Ortil" in Pan: a magazine about boy-love no. 9 (Amsterdam, March 1981) pp. 18-26. Read on this website. A discussion with Ortil about his life only two years before his death, with emphasis on the love of boys that dominated his life.
Edward Brongersma, "Herinneringen aan Hajo Ortil" in Martijn no. 20 (Netherlands, June-July 1984). Translated from Dutch to French and slightly shortened as "Un pionnier. Hajo Ortil" in: L’Espoir 16 (Jan.-Feb. 1985).
Puyi 溥儀, Emperor of China and later Manchukuo, 1906-67
Edward Behr, The Last Emperor, London: Macdonald, 1987. Read the Greek love content. A prize-winning general biography which did all that practically could be done to reveal the hitherto-concealed evidence for the Emperor's sexual antics with his adolescent page-boys.
Terence Hanbury White, 1906-64, English novelist
Sylvia Townsend Warner, T. H. White: A Biography, London: Jonathan Cape, 1967. Read the Greek love content. The general biography of a tormented and apparently chaste boy-lover, celebrated for his best-selling Arthurian novels, revealing and compelling for its willingness to rely on White's witings to describe his sexual dilemma.
Sandro Penna, 1906-77, Italian poet
Elio Pecora, Sandro Penna. Una cheta follia (Sandro Penna. A Calm Madness), Milan: Frassinelli, 1984. A thorough biography of this boy-lover ("not homosexual but pederast" in his own words) by a close friend partly responsible for fostering his reputation as one of the greatest Italian poets.
Gordon Stewart Northcott, 1906-30, Canadian serial killer
James Jeffrey Paul, Nothing is Strange with You: The Life and Crimes of Gordon Stewart Northcott, Bloomington, Indiana: Xlibris, 2008. Biography of the psychopathic young Canadian chicken farmer who raped or seduced countless boys aged 9 to 15 and murdered a few who knew too much, concentrating heavily on the court testimony.
Edward William Frank James, 1907-84, English poet
Edward James, Swans reflecting Elephants: my Early Years, edited by George Melly, London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1982. Read the Greek love content. A memoir of his youth including the attempted seduction of him, aged 12, by Lord Harcourt, a former Cabinet minister, whose suicide soon after was believed to have been in consequence.
Roger Peyrefitte, 1907–2000, French writer
Henry de Montherlant & Roger Peyrefitte, Correspondance (1938-41) (Correspondence (1938-41)), presentation and notes by R. Peyrefitte and Pierre Sipriot, Paris: R. Laffont, 1983. The earliest of the frank letters between these two friends about their mutual interest in pubescent boys, some of it in coded language.
Roger Peyrefitte, Notre Amour, Paris: Flammarion, 1967, translated from the French by John Stefan as Our Love, online only. PDF[1]. Review. The author's sixteen-month-long tempestuous love affair with the boy, aged 13 to 15, whom he had met during the filming of his greatest novel and was to remain the most important person in his life. Faithfully recounted, except for a few details changed to protect the boy.
Paul Xavier Gianolli, Roger Peyrefitte ou les clés du scandale (Roger Peyrefitte or the Keys to the Scandal), Paris: Fayard, 1970. Interesting, short, but misleadingly-titled book on diverse aspects of Peyrefitte's life, writings and beliefs, including a chapter devoted to pederasty and his memoir, Notre Amour.
Roger Peyrefitte, Propos Secrets (Secret Talk) Paris: Albin Michel, 1977. Memoirs, including explicit accounts of his affairs with a few women and many boys, and revelations about others which involved him in libel actions.
Roger Peyrefitte, Propos Secrets 2 (Secret Talk 2) Paris Albin Michel, 1980. More witty and scandalous memoirs, including accounts of his affairs with boys as a young diplomat in Athens and later in Italy; also a chapter on André Gide.
Antoine Deléry, Roger Peyrefitte, le sulfureux, (Roger Peyrefitte, the Sulphorous) Montpellier: H&O, 2011. A well-balanced general biography with interesting revelations, and which gives the role of Greek love in Peyrefitte's life the importance it deserves.
Thomas Cuthbert Worsley, 1907-77, English teacher & writer
T. C. Worsley, Flannelled Fool: a slice of life in the Thirties, London: Ross, 1967. Read the Greek love content. A memoir concentrated on the author's five years from 1929 as a schoolmaster at Wellington College.
George James “Jim” Henry Lees-Milne, 1908-97, English writer
Michael Bloch, James Lees-Milne: The Life, London: John Murray, 2009. Read the Greek Love content. A biography by the subject's close friend and literary executor, including his seduction at 15 by an older boy at Eton and subsequent affairs with other boys there.
Lewis Levien Thompson, 1909-49, English poet & wanderer
Lewis Thompson, Mirror to the Light: Reflections on Consciousness and Experience, edited by Richard Lannoy, London: Coventure, 1984. Includes Thompson's journals from childhood onwards with copious reflections on the responsive boys of India.
Brian Otto Drexel, 1909-88, American writer
Casimir Dukahz [Brian Otto Drexel], The Asbestos Diary, New York: Oliver Layton, 1966. PDF. A very witty account of the author's numerous amorous encounters with boys. His disclaimer that "all characters and incidents in this Diary are impurely imaginary" is a fine introduction to his typical wit. It is always hard to draw the line between fiction and biography, but here we believe the grapevine that this book and its three sequels are the latter.
Casimir Dukahz [Brian Otto Drexel], Vice Versa, New York: Coltsfoot, 1976. Original PDF. Improved PDF. The first of three sequels to the preceding, with more connected narrative but less acute wit.
Casimir Dukahz [Brian Otto Drexel], It's a Boy, Amsterdam: Coltsfoot, 1984. PDF. The second of three sequels, similar to the last.
Casimir Dukahz [Brian Otto Drexel], Growing Old Disgracefully, Amsterdam: Acolyte, 1986. PDF. The last and worst of this series of four, which had progressively disappointed after its superb beginning, the humour becoming much cruder, the now-decrepit author more narrowly sex-obsessed and less principled, and the emotional rapports much rarer.
Soetjipto, born 1910, living 1933, Javanese
Soetjipto, "First Love: The Opening of Soetjipto's Djalan Sampoerna" translated by Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, in Indonesia 82 (Oct. 2006) pp. 39-74. PDF. The first part of a manuscript written by a young Javanese between 1930 and 1932, mostly recounting his passionate love affair at 13 with a youth of 20 in a small town in 1923-4.
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams, 1911-83, American playwright
Tennessee William's Letters to Donald Windham, 1940–1965, edited and with comments by Donald Windham, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1977. Read the Greek love content. The Greek love content of these letters amounts to one letter of 1943, in which Williams described a sexual orgy he had with a "Ganymede of 15 years".
Edward Brongersma, 1911-98, Dutch senator and lawyer
"Farewell to the Dutchman" in the NAMBLA Bulletin, XIX no. 1 (August 1998) pp. 11-14. Read on this website. Summaries of Brongersma's life and personality by Adrian Marlowe, Robin Sharpe and Mark, all of whom knew him, and all addressing his love of boys.
Jan Shuijer, "In Memoriam" in Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 37, no. 4 (1999), pp. xxi-xxv. The most factually revealing published account of Brongersma's life, including his love of boys, but not as insightful as others into his personalty and slightly marred by political correctness.
Anon., "A Reminiscence of Dr. Brongersma by an overseas prisoner" in the NAMBLA Bulletin, XXI no. 3 (2001) p. 18. Read on this website. A belated and admiring addition to the reminiscences in vol. XIX of the same bulletin, cited above.
Joseph Ubanyionwu Etukokwu, ca. 1911-90+, Nigerian chief
Joseph U. Etukokwu, Life between Two Shrines: An Autobiography, Onitsha, Nigeria: Etukokwu Publishers Ltd. 1990. An autobiography, including the author's adolescent memories of the boysexual English palm oli trader J. M. Stuart-Moray, whom he revered and was close to for many years from the mid-1920s, despite saying he did not like his sexual advances.
Paul Goodman, 1911-72, American writer
Parker Rossman, "Response to Adolescence: An Educator’s Story", being the sixth chapter of his Sexual Experience Between Men and Boys, New York: Association Press, 1976. Read on this website. A biography told in the first person from Goodman's own writings with emphasis on his love of boys.
Heinz Dörmer, 1912-98, German youth leader
Andreas Sternweiler, Und alles wegen der Jungs: Pfadfinderführer und KZ-Häftling: Heinz Dörmer (And all because of Boys: Scout Leader and Concentration Camp Prisoner Heinz Dörmer), Berlin: R. Winkel, 1994. The story of one repeatedly imprisoned over three decades (including five years in concentration camps) for sexual liaisons with boys, the first time, aged 23, concerning boys in his scout troop.
Henry "Harry" Hay, 1912-2002, American homosexual and communist activist
Stuart, Timmons, Stuart (1990). The Trouble with Harry Hay: Founder of the Modern Gay Movement, Boston, Massachusetts: Alyson, 1990. A general biography including Hay's account of how, aged 14, he "molested" a merchant-seaman of about 25, to whom he felt lifelong gratitude for his introduction to homosex.
Johannes "Jan" Bernardus Maria Raphael Hanlo, 1912-69, Dutch writer
Jan Hanlo, Go to the Mosk: Brieven uit Morokko (Go to the Mosque: Letters from Morocco), Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1971. A book of letters focussed on the author's sexual adventures with boys in Morocco.
Jan Hanlo, Brieven (Letters), 2 vols., 1931–1962 and 1963–1969, both Amsterdam: Van Oorschot, 1989. Posthumously published correspondence, often frank about his sexual adventures with boys.
Hans Renders, Zo meen ik dat ook jij bent. Biografie van Jan Hanlo (So do I think you too are. Biography of Jan Hanlo) Amsterdam: Arbeiderspers, 1998. A general biography with much to say about Hanlo's pederasty.
Alan Mathison Turing, 1912-57, English mathematician
Andrew Hodges, The Enigma, London: Burnett, 1983. Read the Greek love content. A thorough general biography, including Turing's love life focussed on males between their early teens and early twenties.
Sanford Wesley Clark, 1913-91, Canadian postman
Anthony Flacco, The Road out of Hell, New York: Union Square, 2009. A biography, much based on information from the subject's adopted son, of the serial killer Stewart Northcott's nephew, who lived with him aged 13 to 15, was raped by him and forced to help cover-up his rape and murder of other boys.
Heinz Kohut, 1913-81, Austrian, later American, psychoanalayst
Charles Strozier, "The Tutor", being Chapter 3 of his Heinz Kohut: The making of a psychoanalyst, New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2001, pp. 21-26. Read on this website. An account, closely based on Kohut wings about himself as "Mr. Z." of his love affair in Vienna, for a few years from the age of 11, with his tutor, in his early 20s, and which he looked back on as his spiritual salvation.
Edward Benjamin Britten, Baron Britten, 1913–1976, English composer
Humphrey Carpenter, Benjamin Britten, London: Faber, 1992. A thoroughly-researched general biography that assigns great importance in his life to Britten’s love of boys, and includes some additional material on it not repeated in Bridcut’s more specialist study.
John Bridcut, Britten’s Children, London: Faber & Faber, 2006. On the many special friendships with pubescent boys, believed by the author to be chaste though erotically-inspired, that enriched Britten's life and were felt to be highly beneficial by the boys.
Gavin Maxwell, 1914-69, Scottish naturalist and author
Douglas Bottig, Gavin Maxwell: A Life, London: Harper Collins, 1993. An authorised biography, in which the author says he was not allowed to say much about his subject's homosexuality and barely admitted its pederastic character. This is a sad example of the hitherto-successful suppression of knowledge of an interesting boysexual life.
Donald Stuart Leslie Friend, 1915–1989, Australian artist.
Donald Friend, The Diaries, vol. IV only, Canberra: National Library of Australia, 2006. Read the Greek love content. The last volume of the much-respected painter's diaries, covering his time in Bali and Australia between 1966 and 1980, including mention of his liaisons with pubescent Balinese boys later exploited by a sensationalist journalist to demonise him.
Robert Cecil Romer Maugham, 2nd Viscount Maugham, 1916–1981, English writer.
Robin Maugham, Escape from the Shadows, London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1972. Read the Greek love content in three parts: Taming Mr. Rudge; Robin Maugham at Eton; and Somerset Maugham's Lesson on Sexual Naivety. A fourth story of Greek love interest was recounted slightly more fully in "Peter Burton interviews Robin Maugham", qv. below. The evocative and interesting general autobiography of a man clearly but uncomfortably drawn towards youth and including the clearly pederastic experiences of others; an account slightly undermined by dishonest hypocrisy.
Robin Maugham, Search for Nirvana, London: W. H. Allen, 1975. Read the Greek love content in three parts: Dieter, a Viennese Boy on the Game; The Oasis of Siwa; and The Tea Planter. Though a sequel to the preceding autobiography, this memoir is expressly stated to be less constrained by fear of adverse reaction and includes two previously omitted and much more interesting stories about his involvement with boys.
"Peter Burton interviews Robin Maugham" in Gay Sunshine, San Francisco: Gay Sunshine, No. 33/34, Summer/Fall 1977. Republished with revised notes in Robin Maugham, The Boy from Beirut and Other Stories, ed. Peter Burton, San Francisco: Gay Sunshine, 1982. A long interview covering Maugham's life and writings and people he had known, with some fascinating revelations.
Clarence Henry Howard-Osborne, 1918-79, Australian court supervisor.
Paul Wilson, The Man They Called a Monster: Sexual experiences between men and boys, Cassell Australia, 1981. PDF. Review. A sociologist’s study of a Brisbane man who kept meticulous records over twenty years of the roughly 2500 mostly adolescent boys of varied social background he made love to (not one of whom every complained to anyone). Based on these records and interviews conducted with both Osborne and some of his former boys, the book offers priceless insight into how pederasty could be practised in the already fairly-repressive climate of Australia in the 1960s and 1970s.
Hans Hermann Groër, 1919-2003, Cardinal & Archbishop of Vienna
Hubertus Czernin, Das Buch Groer: Eine Kirchenchronik. Dokumentation (The Book of Groer: A Church Chronicle. Documentation) Klagenfurt: Wieser, 1998. In German only.
"Wulff" Karl Hermann Scherchen, 1920-2016, German poet
Tony Scotland, Wulff – Britten’s Young Apollo, Shelf Lives, 2021. The life of a German composer's son, mutually smitten at the age of 13 with the British composer Benjamin Britten, then 20, and his lover when they were 18 and 25.
Revd. Peter John Gamble, 1920-97, English schoolmaster
Peter Gamble, The More We Are Together: Memoirs of a Wayward Life, Stamford: Paul Watkins, 1993. The autobiography of a retired teacher in preparatory and public schools, frank about his love of boys having been the mainspring of his personal life, but not revealing anything more legally dangerous than kissing them.
George Hayim, 1920-2011, cosmopolitan Jewish novelist
George Hayim, Thou Shalt Not Uncover Thy Mother’s Nakedness. An Autobiography, London: Quartet, 1988. Read the Greek love content. Autobiography of his first 50 years, including anecdotes of his attraction in his early teens to older schoolfellows and his near pedication by a young man.
Jack Robinson, born 1921, English soldier
Jack Robinson, Teardrops on My Drum, London: GMP, 1986. PDF. Review. The eye-opening autobiography down to the age of fourteen of a poor but high-spirited boy sexually involved with men and other boys from the age of eleven. Set mostly in Liverpool in the early 1930s.
Jack Robinson, Jack and Jamie Go to War, London: GMP, 1988. PDF. A continuation of Robinson's story as a soldier and lover from 1937 until the end of the 2nd World War, aged 15 to 24, during which time he made the classical Greek transition from beloved to lover of adolescent boys. Not nearly as remarkable a story as its predecessor.
Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1922-75, Italian film director and writer
Enzo Siciliano, Vita di Pasolini, Milan: Rizzoli, 1978. Translated from the Italian by John Shepley as Pasolini: A Biography, New York: Random House, 1982. A general biography infomative about Pasolini's sexual affairs with the poor mid-teen boys to whom he was most drawn, but unfortunately written well before the recantation of his supposed murderer exculpated him of sado-masochism.
René Schérer, 1922-2023, French philosopher
René Schérer and Geoffroy de Lagasnerie, Après tout : entretiens sur une vie intellectuelle (After All: Interviews on an Intellectual Life), Paris: Cartouche, 2007. Reflections on Schérer's philosophy, love-life and poltics, including an account of his love affair with 15-year-old Guy Hocquenghem.
Gerhard "Gad" Beck, 1923-2012, German educator
Gad Beck & Frank Heibert, Und Gad ging zu David: Die Erinnerungen des Gad Beck, 1923 bis 1945, Berlin: diá, 1995. Translated from the German by Allison Brown as An Underground Life: Memoirs of a Gay Jew in Nazi Berlin, Madison,Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1999. Read the Greek love content. A memoir of Beck's first 22 years, including his "first real sexual experience" aged 12 with his gym teacher, aged 22.
George Albert Bowers, 1923-2019, American Marine
Scotty Bowers, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, New York City: Grove, 2012. Read the Greek love content. Review. The autobiography of a Hollywood petrol-pump attendant and bartender, with much to reveal about the sex lives of many later 20th-century celebrities he slept with or arranged trysts for. Chapters 3, 5 and 7 are of Greek love interest, being mostly about his experiences of it as a boy.
Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, 1923-2008, American Nobel Laureate medical researcher
M. P. Alpers, "Daniel Carleton Gajdusek, 1923-2008: an appreciation of his life and his love for Papua New Guinea" in Papua New Guinea Medical Journal, volume 53, no. 1-2, March-June 2010, pp. 54-64. A revealing biography by a professional colleague, including frank discussion of Gajdusek's love of boys (sexual and otherwise) and legal entrapment over it.
Guy Anthony Hills-Ray, 1925-2004, British schoolmaster, and Donald William Robertson Boyd, born 1948, Scottish film director
Don Boyd, "A Suitable Boy" in The Observer, London, 19 August 2001. Read online. One of the most explicit accounts of a Greek love affair in which the boy-that-was describes how he radically revised his view of it under pressure from society to adopt its negative assumptions; Boyd, patently willing aged 12-16, had a lasting bond with his lover which he broke only after years of pressure to do so.
François Augiéras, 1925-71, French writer
Serge Sanchez, François Augiéras, le dernier primitif (Francis Augiéras, the Last Primitive), Paris: Grasset, 2006. A detailed study of his life and writings, including his love of boys, and a passionate vindication of his literary importance.
Simon Arthur Noël Raven, 1927-2001, English novelist and dramatist
Simon Raven, Shadows on the Grass, London: Blond & Briggs, 1982. A witty general autobiography of his youth down to 1960, including fond reminiscences of his and other boys' sex with a prep school master.
Michael Barber, The Captain. The Life and Times of Simon Raven, London: Duckworth, 1996. Read the Greek love content. A good general biography written with Raven's co-operation and including a slightly revised but still insistently positive version of his schoolmaster's sexual antics with him and other boys aged 9 to 13.
Anthony Bernard Blond, 1928-2008, English publisher
Danny Danziger, "Anthony Blond" in his Eton Voices, London: Viking, 1988. Read the Greek love content. An account of his time as a schoolboy at Eton, where as, a younger boy, he had crushes on older ones, and vice versa, besides an older boy trying to seduce him.
Peter Schult, 1928-84, German anarchist writer
Peter Schult, Besuche in Sackgassen – Aufzeichnungen eines homosexuellen Anarchisten (Visits to Dead Ends - Notes of a Homosexual Anarchist), Munich: Trikont Verlag, 1978. In German only. The autobiography of a radical frequently imprisoned as a result of being an open and active boy-lover combined with his political stance.
Peter Schult, Gefallene Engel (Fallen Angels), Berlin: Bruno Gmünder, 1982. In German only. A collection of short stories and essays describing the author's sexual experiences with boys and his anarchist views.
Sir Cyril Smith, 1928-2010, British Member of Parliament
Simon Danczuk & Matthew Baker, Smile for the Camera: The Double Life of Cyril Smith, London: Biteback, 2014. A biography concentrating on uncritical presentation of populist allegations that Smith unscrupulously seduced countless vulnerable boys.
Iain Mackenzie-Blair, born ca. 1928, English.
Iain Mackenzie-Blair, School Story, Aultgrishan, Wester Ross: Three Cars Press, 2005.
Tashi Tsering, 1929-2014, Tibetan professor
Tashi Tsering assisted by Melvyn C. Goldstein and William R. Siebenschuh, The Struggle for Modern Tibet: The Autobiography of Tashi Tsering, Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1997. Read the Greek love content. A general autobiography offering fascinating insight into the pederasty commonly practised by Tibetan monks as a cultural adaptation, non-penetrative sex with boys being excepted from otherwise compulsory celibacy. The author decided at 14 that it would be beneficial to him to accept becoming the loved-boy of a fairly important monk in Lhasa, which he was for some six years in the 1940s, and thereafter remained adamant that he had been right.
Claude Jutra, 1930-86, Canadian filmmaker
Yves Lever, Claude Jutra, Montreal: Le Boréal, 2016. In French only. Biography of the legendary Québécois filmmaker containing claims that he had relationships with teenage boys, publication of which led to his swift cancellation.
Fernando Karadima Fariña, 1930-2021, Chilean priest
María Olivia Monckeberg, Karadima, el señor de los infiernos (Karadima, th