The Publisher Says: Bray explores how men who engaged in sodomy reconciled this behavior with their society's violent loathing for the sodomite, and shows how a social more that had remained stable for centuries changed dramatically toward the end of the seventeenth century.

My Review: I got my copy of this in London in the earlyish 1980s; I've managed to hold onto it for sneaking up on forty years! There is a Columbia University Press edition of the book in paperback...it's hugely expensive no matter whose prices you pay, but it is absolutely worth the money.

There is an entire series of romance novels, of varying levels of steam, in these dry pages. It is fascinating as history and supercalafragilisticexpialadocious as inspiration. Strongly recommended! ( )

Book Description

-- Times Literary Supplement

Alan Bray's Homosexuality in Renaissance England is a milestone work, one of those rare books that can be said to have virtually milestone work, one of those rare books that can be said to have virtually inaugurated a field of study--and one which remains a standard, comprehensive introduction to the subject. Since it was first published in England in 1982, however, it has been difficult to find in America.

Examining the image of the sodomite in sixteenth- and seventeenth- century literature and polemic, Bray demonstrates how widely that image differed from the everyday occurrences of male homosexual behavior in ordinary households and schools.

Homosexuality in Renaissance England explores how men who engaged in sodomy reconciled this behavior with their society's violent loathing for the sodomite, and shows how a social more that had remained stable for centuries changed dramatically toward the end of the seventeenth century.

Widely considered the best study of its kind Homosexuality in Renaissance England clearly shows why the modern image of "the homosexual" cannot be applied to the early modern period, when homosexual behavior was viewed in terms of the sexual act and not an individual's broader identity.

Bray's classic work goes on to show how the early eighteenth century saw the earliest emergence of a "homosexual identity." Finally available to a broad general audience in America, Homosexuality in Renaissance England is a must-read for anyone interested in sexuality during the early modern period.
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

http://www.amazon.com

This book has been on my reading lists for a few years now as I kept coming across references to it in other books and I quite wanted to read one of the earlier studies of homosexuality in that period. However, as I have read other books that touch upon the topic, this book hardly told me anything I didn't know already. But well argued and well written, this slim volume was a pleasure to read. ( )