GLR March-April 2026

wide great world of America whom I love and honour so much.” Not much is known about what happened when Whitman and Wilde reunited on May 10, 1882. A Philadelphia humorist of the time, Charles Godfrey Leland, wrote that before Wilde came to visit with him, he had come back “fresh from Camden” and had spent “an hour at the feet of Walt Whitman” (imagining Wilde at Whitman’s feet is quite a queer image indeed). The ar ticle accurately captures the reverence that Wilde displayed when in Whitman’s presence and emphasizes Wilde’s desire to learn and gain private knowledge from him. Since Wilde had been reading about Whitman’s male comrades from boyhood, perhaps he desired to learn more from Whitman about the beauty of manly love, a theme that the older poet expressed in Leaves of Grass . Although neither man explicitly discussed this with the press, Wilde provided a clue when he noticed the ancient

Greek aspects of Whitman’s poetry. Wilde had not yet published his most homoerotically charged novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), but Whitman recognized a similarity in their liter ary themes and personalities. The influence of the Narcissus myth and ancient Greek male homoerotic culture and literature on Whitman’s 1855 and 1860 editions of Leaves of Grass provides a new way of exploring male homoerotic themes in his poetry. Queer male writers who followed in Whitman’s footsteps, like Wilde and Symonds, were influenced by the Narcissus myth’s male homoerotic implica tions and also by Whitman’s representation of same-sex desire and his vision of comradeship. In my forthcoming book on Whitman, I argue that he creates a procreative poetics that al lows for both contemporary and future queer male readers and writers to continue Whitman’s homoerotic legacy.

when they get big it is different. Then they appeal in another & still more irresistible way.” Amongst Cobb’s favorites, he considered his soulmates to be two Welsh youths he’d taken on as trainees and who re mained as crew. The first was John “Jack” Ruddick. In the diary, Cobb writes: “Jack is my own heart,” and confesses to being so overcome by the sight of him that he fantasizes about giving up Caldicot Castle and his other Welsh residence and living with Ruddick, then 24, on Foudroyant . The second,

propriate person to bring this about. A transcription of the diaries was graciously pro vided to me. Besides many prosaic pas sages, Cobb’s diaries contain fine and evocative ones, in cluding eloquent defenses of homosexual desire. As his im passioned letters to newspa pers pleading for the preservation of historic ships also demonstrate, nothing brought out the romantic in him like an old battleship or a comely lad. Additionally, the diaries feature unintentionally

Foudroyant trainees, 1922. Joe Parker, Cobb’s longtime mate, stands center.

later trainee was one Joseph “Joe” Parker. However, Cobb despaired over what he well knew: Their engagement with him constituted favors on their part—he was a patron, not a passion. They were but two in a constant tide of youths; Cobb never wanted for company. He commissioned portraits of his favorite trainees from his friend, the painter of sun-dappled naked youths Henry Scott Tuke, which were hung like icons in the Foudroyant ’s wardroom. All this was vastly expensive. Operating the Foudroyant cost more than £5,000 a year, and Cobb eventually spent £120,000 on his “hobby,” straining his finances. In December 1921, he succumbed to the be seeching of the Anglo-American heiress Anna Beach and married her to keep the ship and its trainees in his possession. It was an unconsummated mariage blanc , but the 54-year-old Anna was, as a relation put it, “crackers” about her 63-year-old beau. With the patience of Job, she’d pursued Cobb for years—possibly decades—before landing him. Anna was aware of her hus band’s homosexuality and financially sup ported some of his lovers when they aged out of their roles and after his death: Jack Ruddick and his wife became housekeepers

comic notes, bald statements that are laugh or gasp-worthy today—beguiling glimpses of a privileged yesteryear. As for Cobb’s name being held, as was once written, “in remembrance for genera tions to come,” he has become little more than a historical footnote. Yet while ac knowledging his failings, ironically, never was the nation more in need of those with the will and means to lift up working-class boys and enable them to enjoy, as Cobb wrote: “strenuous work and play which shall not only harden their muscles and quicken brain and hand, but shall do so under conditions and surroundings calcu lated to fire their imaginations and inspire them with those ideals of duty and service which are the foundations of the character we wish to develop.” I hope Cobb’s still-missing volumes will come to light. The surviving back-of-enve lope notes he made for his diary suggest the care he put into its composition, and that he didn’t just write for himself but also in the hope they would be read by others in a more understanding time. Peter Jordaan is the editor of Days of Youth: The Lost Diaries of Geoffry Wheatly Cobb.

for her London residence, and Joe Parker her butler at Caldicot. In 1927, the Falmouth Harbour Commis sioners issued the Foudroyant an eviction notice, claiming its inner-harbor mooring was needed for more important vessels. Al though other ships were issued notices to quit, Cobb’s circle believed there had been an official desire to push the Foudroyant out of Falmouth because of local gossip about the activities occurring aboard. Cobb died in 1931, and the fate of most of his diaries—like many historic docu ments touching on homosexuality—is un known. In 2009, three volumes turned up, allegedly in a box of junk. They are now held by the National Museum of the Royal Navy at Hartlepool, where Cobb’s frigate, restored to its original name Trincomalee , is permanently moored. While Cobb’s ownership of the frigate is not strictly Royal Navy history, and there fore not the museum’s remit, it wanted to make the diaries accessible. The publica tion of my nonfiction historical trilogy A Secret Between Gentlemen , which detailed dozens of Edwardian upper-class gay lives, including that of Cobb, convinced the mu seum’s chief curator that I might be the ap

March–April 2026

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