The Shelley-Byron Men: Lost angels of a ruined paradise

In this book, gay historian John Lauritsen tells a story that will not be found in standard biographies. In 1822, two great poets Percy Bysshe Shelley and George Gordon, Lord Byron lived in Pisa, Italy, together with three friends. They met daily in Byron's palazzo. Although these men had wives and children, male love was an important part of their lives. They thought of themselves as pariahs in exile , and for good reason. Men and boys in their home country, England, were being hanged for having sex with each other, whereas Italy had no such laws. All of them were ardent Hellenists, who knew that male love had flourished in Ancient Greece the same male love that was persecuted in their own time. Despite the censorious efforts of friends and family, ample evidence survives that they loved other males. Homoeroticism in their works was usually coded for the initiated , but was sometimes amazingly candid. John Lauritsen de-codes homoerotic references, reinterprets major works of English Romanticism, and places all in historical context. He states: Love and sex between males is an ordinary, healthy part of the human sexual repertoire. For too long, biographers have falsified the love lives of the Shelley-Byron men. The time has come to bring them into the light of day.


I am especially taken by your reading of Epipsychidion, for I am entirely convinced that Emily is indeed Edward Williams. Your reading makes Shelley's poem one of the grandest and most beautiful outpourings in any poetry I have read of one man's love for another. -- Beert Verstraete, Emeritus Professor of Classics. Editor: Same-Sex Desire and Love in Greco-Roman Antiquity and in the Classical Tradition of the West. Author: Homosexuality in Ancient Greek and Roman Civilization: A critical bibliography.

I enjoyed your book on Shelley and Byron very much. It is an imperative and necessary book. I read it in one swoop one evening and was so enlivened that I could not sleep. ... I found everything to admire. I knew much of the Shelley stuff and was substituting the gender in Epipsychidion and reflecting on Shelley's homoerotic feelings many years ago, but you fill in the evidential detail excellently. ... Byron I knew less about. He was obviously very close to Shelley, but I think their attitude to sexuality was very different: Shelley wanted a soul mate with deep feelings while Byron was a rover who sought sexual relationships wherever possible. -- Jim Herrick, former Editor of The Freethinker (London) and The New Humanist (London). Author of Humanism: An Introduction.

Well reasoned and persuasive. -- Andrew Calimach, author: Lovers' Legends: The Gay Greek Myths.