5PS Archives - Duckworth Books

David Bowie Made Me Gay

‘Lovingly detailed and exhaustively researched – easily the most readable and comprehensive guide I’ve seen to this fascinating hidden history’ Tom Robinson, musician, broadcaster and long-time LGBT rights activist

From Sia to Elton John, Dusty Springfield to Little Richard, LGBT voices have changed the course of modern music. But in a world before they gained understanding and a place in the mainstream, how did the queer musicians of yesteryear fight to build foundations for those who came after?

Pulling back the curtain on the colourful world that shaped our musical and cultural landscape, Darryl W. Bullock reveals the inspiring and often heartbreaking stories of internationally renowned stars, as well as lesser-known names, who have led the revolution from all corners of the globe. David Bowie Made Me Gay is a treasure trove of moving and provocative stories that emphasise the right to be heard and the need to keep up the fight for equality in the spotlight.

Wilde’s Last Stand

‘A shocking tale of heroes and villains.’ Sir Ian McKellen

In 1918, the Imperialist newspaper made a startling claim. The German Secret Service had the names of 47,000 members of the British establishment who were sexual deviants and Britain was losing the war because Germany was blackmailing them. In the sensational libel trial that followed, the main target was Maud Allan, the Salome dancer with high society connections and a dark secret. Meanwhile, Oscar Wilde’s closest friends were drawn into the affair in a bitter battle for his reputation. It was the greatest scandal of the early twentieth century.

This is a story of judges and prejudice, of aesthetes and admirals, of MPs and dancing girls, of sex and conspiracy; ingredients for a modern tabloid, yet in a decade that still seems a Victorian legacy. Philip Hoare has produced a revolutionary new portrait of British society, as nineteenth century morality and Edwardian opulence met the modern age.

Wilde’s Last Stand tells of transvestites in the trenches, of drug clubs in London, and of the man who sought to be Britain’s first fascist leader. Both revealing and chilling, this is a vital story about the birth of a troubled century.

Philip Hoare is an acclaimed author whose works include biographies of Stephen Tennant and Noël Coward, Spike Island and England’s Lost Eden. His book, Leviathan: or, The Whale won the BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-fiction.

‘Documented with dazzling brilliance.’ The Sunday Times

‘A valuable addition to the alternative history of our century.’ Peter Parker, Observer

‘A thrashing good read.’ Independent on Sunday

Iris and the Friends

Novelist and thinker Iris Murdoch died on 8 February 1999 after living for three years with Alzheimer’s disease. Her husband, novelist and academic John Bayley, had previously written movingly of the impact of her illness in Iris: A Memoir. Iris and the Friends tells of the final year of Murdoch’s life, when she was visited more by her own imaginary "friends" than by the exigencies of real life. It brings the story through Bayley’s increasingly precarious hold on present reality, to his own breakdown, Murdoch’s final happy weeks in a home for the terminally ill and finally her quiet death. Although ostensibly a sequel, it is more an exploration of Bayley’s new friends: the memories that were sparked off precisely as Murdoch lost her own–of his childhood, army years, first loves and, of course, their marriage. But there are other "friends". At one point Bayley writes: "The old Eng. Lit. again. I taught it for nearly fifty years and feel detached from it now." Yet literature emerges here as the one remaining constant in his life. Scarcely two pages go by without a reference, almost involuntary, to Hardy, Coleridge, Austen, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Thurber, James, Lawrence, Woolf or Murdoch. Sometimes Iris appears to respond to the shared literary in-jokes, but more often the pair become "two animals pushing together, nudging and grooming each other, grunting together as they bask in a mutual doze."

Widower’s House

Since the death in 1998 of his wife, the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch, John Bayley has given much thought to adjusting to his new, single status. As the carer of a victim of Alzheimer’s, his was in many ways a double-bereavement as Iris, in the sense of the person who John Bayley met and married, very slowly departed this world some years before her physical death. A meditation on bereavement and loss written in John Bayley’s inimitably sensitive and amusing style of reminiscence, Widower’s House reads like despatches from another, gentler era.

Siegfried Sassoon

The definitive biography of one of the twentieth century’s finest poets, Siegfried Sassoon combines material from The Making of a War Poet and The Journey from the Trenches, the two bestselling volumes on Sassoon from his biographer and foremost scholar, Jean Moorcroft Wilson.

Encompassing the poet’s complete life and works, from his patriotic youth that led him to the frontline, to the formation of his anti-war convictions, great literary friendships and flamboyant love affairs, this single-volume opus also includes new poems only just come to light. With over a decade’s research, and unparalleled access to Sassoon’s private correspondence, Wilson presents the complete portrait, both elegant and heartfelt, of an extraordinary man, and an extraordinary poet.

Iris

In 1998 John Bayley wrote a best-selling, critically acclaimed memoir of his wife, the great philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch, who had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease since 1996. At times unbearably moving, at times poignantly comical, this memoir provides a fitting memorial to Dame Iris. It is an enchanting portrait of a remarkable marriage and an inspiration for anyone whose life is affected by Alzheimer’s.

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