An introduction to the history of sexuality; to the history of homosexuality; to the notion of queer; to the Victorian and Edwardian periods; to the relation of the Edwardian and contemporary ideas of sexuality; to the themes of the book.

This chapter explores how homosexuality as a term and as a particuar culture was transformed around the time of its legalisation. Through the records of Michael Jaffé, Noel Annan, Alan Turing, Frank Adcock and contemporary figures, the contemporary experience of gay men in Cambridge is explored against the post-war generation. It articulates how a particular style of college life, a hidden centre to the British Establishment, has largely passed away.

This chapter explores how the category of homosexuality was invented and disseminated and how it became part of the self-representation of a generation of men. It explores the revelation and concealment of male desire through the archival records of J. K. Stephen, A. C. Benson, Oscar Browning, E. F. Benson, M. R. James and their friends. It analyses how a public life interfaced with a sexual identity in changing ways.