Secret Historian

Reviews

“Samuel Steward, secret sexual historian, is a secret no longer…A major achievement.”

“Astonishing…The probity and expansive vision of Spring’s work is a reminder that a great, outspread terrain of gay history remains to be mapped.”

“This is a rich and exuberant biography of a man who deserves to be better known.”

“Justin Spring’s jaw-dropping Secret Historian reads like a novel probing a lifelong rebel’s courage, creativity, and ultimate sadness…Spring has reconstituted Steward, as Phil Andros might say, in flesh and blood and all sorts of bodily fluids.”

“Life in the closet proves boisterous indeed in this biography of an iconic figure of the pre-Stonewall gay demimonde…Spring’s sympathetic and entertaining story of a life registers the limitations imposed on homosexuals by a repressive society, but also celebrates the creativity and daring with which Steward tested them.”

“Can a secret sex diary furnish an artistic legacy as meaningful as Emily Dickinson’s sewn-up bundles of poems, or the piles of paintings Theo van Gogh inherited after his brother’s premature demise? Samuel Steward may never have imagined it, but his erotic history raises the question…[This] extensive documentation—and the miraculous rescue of that documentation, recounted in the book’s preface—left his biographer material to reconstruct an emblematic homosexual life.”

“A fascinating biography…[Steward] tackled life with awe-inspiring abandon.”

“Justin Spring documents the extraordinary life of one of Kinsey’s crucial gay witnesses, and reading Secret Historian is like reading Kinsey dramatized…A brave, fly-on-the-wall account of American homosexual subculture and persecution.”

“A true page-turner—and a memorable act of historical reclamation. Sammy Steward is all but unknown except by a handful of historians, but Justin Spring’s lively biography…should put Sammy on the map, which is where he decidedly belongs.”

“Secret Historian is a startlingly, unforgettably vivid glimpse into a life—and a world—that few of us can imagine.” 

 “This is a rare and important book. Secret Historian is a genuinely captivating combination of clear writing, a clean conscience, and more dirty stories than I ever imagined one life could hold.”

“[A] provocative biography…Generous excerpts from Steward’s journals and unpublished memoirs fortify an already comprehensive examination of a life lived with unabashed independence and homoerotic expression during the sexual rebellion of the pre-Stonewall era…A vivid, candid portrait.”

“This sophisticated biography will appeal to both general and academic readers with an interest in LGBT issues.”

“Sympathetic and entertaining.”

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