Queer Domesticities

Matt Cook is Senior Lecturer in History and Gender Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London, UK, and Co-director of the Raphael Samuel History Centre. He works on the history of sexuality and on urban history and is author of London and the Culture of Homosexuality (2003) and editor of A Gay History of Britain (2007) and Queer 1950s (2012, with Heike Bauer).

"In this scholarly but immensely readable book Matt Cook explores the domestic interiors of homosexual men at various times from the end of the 19th century to the onset of AIDS and the acceptance of gay parenting. ... Cook has managed to capture the heart of the home of these gay men and brings a new insight into gendered domestic interiors, making a firm contribution to the history of homosexuality." (Julie Peakman, History Today, Vol. 64 (12), December, 2014)

• Introduction PART I: BEAUTIFUL HOMES Introduction 1. Domestic Passions: Unpacking the Homes of Charles Shannon and Charles Ricketts 2. Queer Interiors: from C.R.Ashbee to Oliver Ford Epilogue: Neil Bartlett and the Queer 'Comfort of Things' PART II: QUEER FAMILIES Introduction 3. George Ives, Queer Lives and the Family 4. Joe Randolph Ackerley's 'Family Values' Epilogue: Queer Fathers: Peter McGraith PART III OUTSIDERS INSIDE Introduction 5. Remembering Bedsitterland: Rex Batten, Carl Marshall and Alan Louis 6. Homes Fit for Homos: Joe Orton's Queer Domestic PART IV: TAKING SEXUAL POLITICS HOME Introduction 7. 'Gay Times': The Brixton Squatters 8. Derek Jarman's Domestic Politics