Francis King

Only Connect

Edward Carpenter: A Life of Liberty and Love

By

Verso 565pp £24.99 order from our bookshop

Like his near-contemporaries Marie Stopes, Havelock Ellis and the Pankhursts, Edward Carpenter (1844–1929) was one of those characters who changed the society of their times far more effectively than people endowed with infinitely more intellectual, creative or political resources. Although he concerned himself with a bewildering variety of good causes, political movements and fads (animal rights, vegetarianism, the emancipation of women, socialism, nude swimming, clean air, oriental mysticism, recycling of clothes, the wearing of sandals), he should, in my view, be chiefly honoured for the way in which he helped heterosexuals to understand and accept homosexuals and, no less importantly, homosexuals to understand and accept themselves.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    • 'We read from left to right and from start to finish. Or do we?' Stuart Hannabus considers the merits of reading i… ,
    • Domestic scandal, sexual abuse and serial killers are on the menu in April's crime round-up. revie… ,
    • What did Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds, James Boswell and Edmund Burke all have in common? Clare Bucknell reveal… ,
    Follow Us