Queer Books of Late Victorian Print Culture

Queer books, like LGBTQ+ people, adapt heteronormative structures and institutions to introduce space for discourses of queer desire. Queer Books of Late-Victorian Print Culture explores print culture adaptations of the material book, examining the works of Aubrey Beardsley, Michael Field, John Gray, Charles Ricketts, Charles Shannon and Oscar Wilde. It closely analyses the material book, including the elements of binding, typography, paper, ink and illustration, and brings textual studies and queer theory into conversation with literary experiments in free verse, fairy tales and symbolist drama. King argues that queer authors and artists revised the Revival of Printing’s ideals for their own diverse and unique desires, adapting new technological innovations in print culture. Their books created a community of like-minded aesthetes who challenged legal and representational discourses of same-sex desire with one of aesthetic sensuality.

Frederick D. King is Assistant Professor for the Faculty of Management at Dalhousie University. He earned his PhD at the University of Western Ontario. His research examines Victorian literature and print culture, aestheticism, decadence and queer theory. It has appeared in the Journal of Modern Literature, Contemporary Literature, Victorian Periodicals Review, Cahiers Victoriens et édouardiens and Victorian Review.