In the eighteenth century, the concept of the romantic friendship—a close, nonsexual relationship between two friends of the same gender that often involved holding hands, cuddling, kissing, and sharing a bed—flourished. Though the term wasn’t coined until the twentieth century, it is used by modern historians to express close same-gender relationships before homosexuality existed as a recognized identity. There’s no way to know how many of these romantic friendships were truly nonsexual, and how many were those of queer couples covering their relationship with the guise of friendship—though the concept is distinct from homosexuality, the two may have overlapped. Close physical relationships between friends of the same gender like Monty and Percy were common, though taking it further than friendship would have required secrecy and discretion, and in most places would have been unacceptable.
Which begs the question—would a long-term romantic relationship between two upper-class English men during the eighteenth century have been a real possibility? I don’t know. They likely would not have been able to be open about it. But the optimist in me likes to believe that the twenty-first century is not the first time in history that queer people have been able to live full romantic and sexual lives with the people they love.
And if that makes me anachronistic, so be it.
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About the Author
Photo by Mariah Manley and the Boston Metropolitan Waterworks Museum
MACKENZI LEE earned a BA in history (in the middle of which she took her own Grand Tour of Europe) and an MFA from Simmons College in writing for children and young adults. She loves Diet Coke, sweater weather, and Star Wars. On a perfect day, she can be found enjoying all three. You can spot her on Twitter @themackenzilee, where she curates a weekly story time about badass women from history you probably don’t know about but should. She currently calls Boston home.
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Books by Mackenzi Lee
This Monstrous Thing
The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue
Credits
Cover photographs by Liz McAulay / Getty Images and Gallery Stock
Photo composite by Travis Commeau
Cover design by David Curtis
Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
THE GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO VICE AND VIRTUE. Copyright © 2017 by Mackenzie Van Engelenhoven. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2016949692
ISBN 978-0-06-238280-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-0-06-269311-2 (special edition)
EPub Edition © June 2017 ISBN 9780062382825
Map by David Curtis
17 18 19 20 21 PC/LSCH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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