GLR March-April 2026

pulsion, but the boy has already left for the train station. The story has understandably been read as the young Scott Mon crieff’s condemnation of adult hypocrisy, which it no doubt was, but reading the story in the context of Uranian boys’ lit erature foregrounds Scott Moncrieff’s criticism of fellow youths as well. § I N THE JUVENILE STORIES of Uranian poet and Anglican priest Edwin Emmanuel Bradford, mostly published in the popular The Boy’s Own Paper between about 1890 and 1910, same-sex love between boys appears as an ideal that takes the form of chivalric romantic friendship. Bradford’s collections of Uranian verse for adults, beginning with Sonnets, Songs and Ballads in 1908, explicitly celebrated the love of youth, which reviewers recognized. On the occasion of his 1923 publication of a verse novel titled Ralph Rawdon: A Story in Verse , The Poetry Re view observed: “Mr. Bradford is a lover of boys and he has sought for his inspiration amongst them with great success. He exalts the love of man and man or man and boy over that of man and woman.” Bradford’s stories for boys and youth prove sim ilarly explicit. In his juvenile magazine fiction, Bradford’s boys often un dertake adventures together in imperial Russia or colonial North Africa or face everyday challenges at English public schools, demonstrate pluck and courage by defending their companions from thieves or bullies, and commit to the highest ideals of virtue, honesty, and love. In his story “Deo Dante Dedi: A Story of Charterhouse School,” co-authored with a Charterhouse stu dent named E. Gascoigne Hogg, Bradford writes about the pas sionate friendship of Rawdon Currell, described as so beautiful he appears like a Greek god, and a delicate youth named Sin clair, who falls ill from pneumonia. Though a successful and popular athlete and son of a famous cricketer, Currell decides not to play in an important cricket match to keep vigil at his friend’s sickbed, which Bradford represents as a tremendous sacrifice. Currell risks the threat of shame and social ostracism for his romantic friend and chooses loyalty and love over self interest. Scott Moncrieff’s depiction of young Carruthers in “Even song and Morwe Song” proves at odds with the self-sacrificing boy-friends of Bradford’s stories. Carruthers, with “forced non chalance,” callously admits to the terrified Maurice that they might be expelled if caught. Carruthers’ failure to demonstrate care for the younger boy, his guilt in actively seducing him, and his smug judgment of Maurice for later developing a “reputa tion” for sexual activity with other boys indicate that Carruthers is already corrupt as a boy long before he becomes a hypocrit ical adult. Uranian boys’ literature instead emphasizes chivalric care for other boys and intimate bonds between chums, not fleeting sexual encounters marked by shame or cruelty. The nar rator in “Evensong and Morwe Song” indicates that this is the first offense for Hilary, Maurice’s son, who bravely remains silent in the face of the headmaster’s harsh condemnation. With his younger companion escaping with just a severe scolding, Hilary bears his much harsher punishment and quickly leaves school as commanded. What adds to the adult Carruthers’ shame is that Hilary does what he did not: accept the punishment on behalf of the boy he seduced.

The existence of these works by Prime-Stevenson, Brad ford, and Scott Moncrieff depicting love or sex between ado lescent boys does not diminish the importance of Donovan’s I’ll Get There as a milestone in gay YA literature. It does, however, indicate a longer chronology for explicit works of homosexual juvenile fiction than has generally been acknowledged. Revis iting these earlier books and stories can reveal how they navi gated a time of intense anti-gay hostility and evaded censors while still offering representations of sympathetic, courageous, and empowered gay youths. Not merely fun reads from gay lit erary history, these precursors to contemporary queer YA may hold valuable insights for the present. R EFERENCES Cart, Michael and Christine A. Jenkins. The Heart Has Its Reasons: Young Adult Literature with Gay/Lesbian/Queer Content, 1969 2004 . The Scarecrow Press Inc., 2006. D’Arch Smith, Timothy. Love in Earnest: Some Notes on the Lives and Writings of English “Uranian” Poets, 1880 to 1930 . Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970. Findlay, Jean. Chasing Lost Time: The Life of C.K. Scott Moncrieff: Soldier, Spy, and Translator . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. Gifford, James. “Left to Themselves: The Subversive Boy Books of Edward Prime-Stevenson (1858-1942).” The Journal of American Culture , vol. 24, no. 3-4, Fall-Winter 2001. Prime-Stevenson, Edward [as Xavier Mayne]. The Intersexes: A His tory of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life . 1908. “Summary Judgment and Other Short Reviews [Review of E.E. Brad ford’s Ralph Rawdon: A Story in Verse ].” The Poetry Review , vol. 14, no. 2, March/April 1923.

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