Before there could have been a gay political and social movement, with its beginnings in the Stonewall Inn riots of 1969, the very possibility of a gay community had to be imagined. In this anthology of largely underground and little known gay erotic writings from the late Victorian age to the late 1960s, cultural critic Michael Bronski explores the way in which the erotic imagination ultimately led to gay identity and the creation of a gay culture. An entertaining, enlightening and groundbreaking work. 'Ambitious and entertaining' - The Nation