A Room in Chelsea Square

Last updated

A Room in Chelsea Square
A Room In Chelsea Square (Anchor 1959) Gorey.jpg
1959 US Anchor Books cover, illustrated by Edward Gorey
Author Michael Nelson
LanguageEnglish
Genre Gay literature
Published1958
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardcover & paperback)

A Room in Chelsea Square is a 1958 British gay novel by Michael Nelson, originally published anonymously due to its homosexual content and "thinly veiled portrayals of prominent London literary figures." [1] [2] It is about a wealthy gentleman who lures an attractive younger man to London with the promise of an upper crust lifestyle. [3]

Contents

Publishing

A "camp" novel about "bitchy queens in 1950s London", A Room in Chelsea Square is semi-autobiographical. [2] [3] It was published anonymously because of its explicit gay content at a time when homosexuality was still illegal, and since its characters were thinly disguised portraits of prominent literary figures in London. The character 'Patrick' is based on arts philanthropist Peter Watson; 'Ronnie' is based on Cyril Connolly, editor of the literary magazine Horizon ; and 'Christopher' is based on the poet Stephen Spender. [2] The cover of the 1959 US Anchor Books edition was illustrated by Edward Gorey, who was then on staff at Doubleday. Sphere Books republished A Room in Chelsea Square in 1969, and it was reprinted again in 1986 by the now-defunct Gay Men's Press in their Gay Modern Classics series. [1] [3] The 2013 Valancourt Books edition features a new introduction by Gregory Woods. [1] [4]

Plot summary

Wealthy middle-aged gentleman Patrick lures handsome provincial journalist Nicholas to London with the promise of a job, and puts the younger man up at his hotel suite. Nicholas soon becomes accustomed to Patrick's gifts, luxurious lifestyle and interesting friends, but realizing that Patrick is interested in more than friendship, Nicholas finds that he will have to either give in, or give up everything Patrick can provide. [2]

Critical reception

A Room in Chelsea Square received several positive reviews at its initial publication. Malcolm Bradbury called the novel "sharp, witty, malicious ... wonderfully developed in the best Machiavellian tradition" in The New York Times Book Review . [2] Julian MacLaren-Ross wrote in Punch that the author's style "is swift and straightforward, his narrative gift considerable ... Consistently diverting, this may be the novel about homosexuality to end all novels on the subject", adding that the novel would "make many a reader’s day". [2] John Betjeman was equally complimentary in The Daily Telegraph , writing that "the story is told with sustained suspense: the various men in it are not merely types, but flesh and blood, even if one wishes that Patrick had never been born." [2] Books and Bookmen declared the novel "classic high camp", and The Sunday Times called it "odiously funny and delightfully unwholesome ... a distinct relief after the ponderous treatment homosexuality has tended to get in some recent novels." [2]

In his introduction for the 2013 edition, Woods notes that the novel gets opposing responses: to some, it is "a camp tour de force”, and to others, "especially in the decade or so after its publication, it is a parade of negative representations of homosexual men." [1] [4] He argues that, though the novel's characters are not sympathetic and it makes no effort to promote tolerance or law reform:

Its main virtue is that it takes homosexuality completely for granted. There is anguish aplenty, but not about being gay. Most is about being unloved or unmoneyed. Perhaps that is the point: there are more important things to worry about—a poorly cooked meal, an ill-chosen tie—than the trivial matter of being queer. [1] [4]

James Jenkins of Valancourt said in 2014 that the novel "elicits some really strong reactions from today's readers—people either think the novel is hilarious fun, or else they view the main character, Patrick, as a reprehensible predator. I think it's great that a gay novel from 1958 can still inspire such interest and passionate responses." [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">T. H. White</span> English author (1906–1964)

Terence Hanbury "Tim" White was an English writer. He is best known for his Arthurian novels, which were published together in 1958 as The Once and Future King. One of his most memorable is the first of the series, The Sword in the Stone, which was published as a stand-alone book in 1938.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">E. M. Forster</span> English novelist and writer (1879–1970)

Edward Morgan Forster was an English author, best known for his novels, particularly A Room with a View (1908), Howards End (1910) and A Passage to India (1924).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mary Renault</span> British novelist (1905–1983)

Eileen Mary Challans, known by her pen name Mary Renault, was a British writer best known for her historical novels set in ancient Greece.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Braine</span> English writer

John Gerard Braine was an English novelist. Braine is usually listed among the angry young men, a loosely defined group of English writers who emerged on the literary scene in the 1950s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT themes in speculative fiction</span>

LGBT themes in speculative fiction include lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) themes in science fiction, fantasy, horror fiction and related genres.[a] Such elements may include an LGBT character as the protagonist or a major character, or explorations of sexuality or gender that deviate from the heteronormative.

The Uranians were a late-19th-century and early-20th-century clandestine group of up to several dozen male homosexual poets and prose writers who principally wrote on the subject of the love of adolescent boys. In a strict definition they were an English literary and cultural movement; in a broader definition there were also American Uranians. The movement reached its peak between the late 1880s and mid 1890s, but has been regarded as stretching between 1858, when William Johnson Cory's poetry collection Ionica appeared, and 1930, the year of publication of Samuel Elsworth Cottam's Cameos of Boyhood and Other Poems and of E. E. Bradford's last collection, Boyhood.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gerald Kersh</span> British-American writer (1912–1968)

Gerald Kersh was a British and later also American writer of novels and short stories.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gay literature</span> Literary genre

Gay literature is a collective term for literature produced by or for the gay community which involves characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying male homosexual behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minerva Press</span> A publishing house of London in UK

Minerva Press was a publishing house, notable for creating a lucrative market in sentimental and Gothic fiction, active in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It was established by William Lane at No 33 Leadenhall Street, London, when he moved his circulating library there in about 1790.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael McDowell (author)</span> American novelist and screenwriter

Michael McEachern McDowell was an American novelist and screenwriter described by author Stephen King as "the finest writer of paperback originals in America today". His best-known work is the screenplay for the Tim Burton film Beetlejuice.

Teleny, or, The Reverse of the Medal, is a pornographic novel, first published in London in 1893. The authorship of the work is unknown. There is a consensus that it was an ensemble effort, but it has often been attributed to Oscar Wilde. Set in fin-de-siècle Paris, its concerns are the magnetic attraction and passionate though ultimately tragic affair between a young Frenchman named Camille Des Grieux and the Hungarian pianist René Teleny. The novel is one of the earliest pieces of English-language pornography that focuses explicitly and near-exclusively on homosexuality. Its lush and literate, though variable, prose style and the relative complexity and depth of character and plot development share as much with the aesthetic fiction of the period as with its typical pornography.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">LGBT themes in horror fiction</span>

LGBT themes in horror fiction refers to sexuality in horror fiction that can often focus on LGBTQ+ characters and themes within various forms of media. It may deal with characters who are coded as or who are openly LGBTQ+, or it may deal with themes or plots that are specific to gender and sexual minorities.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gay pulp fiction</span> Genre of pulp fiction literature

Gay pulp fiction, or gay pulps, refers to printed works, primarily fiction, that include references to male homosexuality, specifically male gay sex, and that are cheaply produced, typically in paperback books made of wood pulp paper; lesbian pulp fiction is similar work about women. Michael Bronski, the editor of an anthology of gay pulp writing, notes in his introduction, "Gay pulp is not an exact term, and it is used somewhat loosely to refer to a variety of books that had very different origins and markets". People often use the term to refer to the "classic" gay pulps that were produced before about 1970, but it may also be used to refer to the gay erotica or pornography in paperback book or digest magazine form produced since that date.

Francis Lathom was a British gothic novelist and playwright.

Gregory Woods is a British poet. He was the Chair in Gay and Lesbian Studies at Nottingham Trent University from 1998 to 2013. He is the author of five books of literary and LGBT studies criticism, and seven poetry collections.

The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism, by the pseudonymous "Jack Saul", is one of the first exclusively homosexual works of pornographic literature published in English. The book was first published in 1881 by William Lazenby, who printed 250 copies. A second edition was published by Leonard Smithers in 1902. It sold for an expensive four guineas.

Valancourt Books is an independent American publishing house founded by James Jenkins and Ryan Cagle in 2005. The company specializes in "the rediscovery of rare, neglected, and out-of-print fiction," in particular gay titles and Gothic and horror novels from the 18th century to the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Nelson (novelist)</span> British novelist

Michael Harrington Nelson (1921–1990) was a British novelist best known for his 1958 gay novel A Room in Chelsea Square, originally published anonymously.

Bisexual literature is a subgenre of LGBT literature that includes literary works and authors that address the topic of bisexuality or biromanticism. This includes characters, plot lines, and/or themes portraying bisexual behavior in both men and women.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Peyton Cooke</span> American novelist

John Peyton Cooke is an American novelist. He is most notable as a short story writer known for thrillers, often with gay male protagonists and including themes of male homosexuality and psychological suspense.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Cordova, Steven (26 June 2014). "A Room in Chelsea Square by Michael Nelson". Lambda Literary . Retrieved 7 September 2014.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Book Description: A Room in Chelsea Square (1958) by Michael Nelson". Valancourt Books. Archived from the original on 7 September 2014. Retrieved 7 September 2014.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Healey, Trebor (28 May 2014). "Early Gay Literature Rediscovered". Huffington Post . Retrieved 7 September 2014.
  4. 1 2 3 Woods, Gregory (29 January 2014). "Introduction to A Room in Chelsea Square" . Retrieved 7 September 2014.