Freak to Chic

Dominic Janes is Professor of Modern History at Keele University, UK. He is a cultural historian whose specialism is the study of texts and visual images relating to Britain in its local and international contexts since the eighteenth century. He also teaches and researches on the wider histories of gender, sexuality and religion and is Professorial Fellow in the School of Fine Art and Photography, University for the Creative Arts, UK.

Clearly the product of long hours in the archives, Dominic Janes’ Freak to Chic offers a rich array of queer images and texts from the popular press of the first half of the twentieth century to document the creative variety of non-normative embodiments of sex and gender in an era before now-accepted identity labels.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgments1. Introduction: In Search of Lost Times2. Freak ShowsDecline and Fall3. Freaks in VogueGeorge, Georgie, Georgino Mio4. Bright Young ThingsFreak PartiesThe Uprise of Cecil Beaton5. DivasMariegold in Society6. The Floral ClosetPansiesOpen for Trade7. ConclusionsOscar Wilde RevampedBibliographyIndex