Richard Hudson Library of Gay Literature and History Guide: Guide to Manuscript Collections

Richard Hudson letters (emails), Ronald Firbank, other miscellaneous correspondence

Dr. Richard Hudson (1960-2022):

• Family medicine specialist and book collector originally from Michigan who settled in Atlanta, Georgia
• Focused on patients from under-served minority communities like the AIDS, transgender, and Deaf and blind communities

Ronald Firbank (1886-1926):

• English novelist
• Novels were inspired by other London aesthetes of the 1890s, like Oscar Wilde
  • Dealt with religion, social climbing, and sexuality

Cyril Conolly papers (criticism and reviews), Ralph Chubb ephemera (manuscripts/poems/art), Anthony Reid correspondence

Ralph Chubb (1892-1960):

• English poet and artist
• Woodcuttings, photography, and poetry celebrating male youth and beauty
• Anti-materialist, fond of nature

Anthony Reid & Muriel Chubb:

• Ralph Chubb’s biographers
• Muriel was Ralph’s sister
• Worked closely in order to collect and preserve Ralph’s work

Paul Mariah poetry and correspondence, Manroot publications and apocrypha, scripts & manuscripts including “No Son of Mine Is Gonna Be An Ingrid Bergman!”, Eugen Sandow newspaper clippings

Paul Mariah (1937-1996):

• American poet and anti war activist, prison abolitionist
• Pioneer of gay literary scene in San Francisco
• Founder and editor of Manroot, a literary magazine and publishing house

Manroot (1969-1981):

• Cofounded by Paul Mariah and Richard Tagett in 1969
• Published many notable writers of the San Francisco Renaissance and the Stonewall era
• Issued bilingual editions of influential French writers like Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) and Jean Genet (1910-1986)
• Published Gwendolyn McEwen (1941-1987) (The Drunken Clock)

Eugen Sandow (1867-1925):

• German bodybuilder from Prussia
• Father of modern bodybuilding, inspired by the Greek physique
• Married British citizen Blanche Brooks in 1894, had 2 daughters
• When he died, Blanche buried him in an unmarked grave (although eventually in 2008 his grandchildren got him a headstone)
• "The truth is that Sandow was definitely a womanizer. The truth is also that his tastes ran in other directions too. Crossing the Atlantic with him was Martinus Sieveking, described as Sandow’s 'great and inseparable friend'." Chapman, David L. Sandow the Magnificent: Eugen Sandow and the Beginnings of Body Culture, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1998. (Held at the Main Library)

More Anthony Reid (research into Chubb, correspondence with Muriel), John Gambril Nicholson, sheet music/theatre programs, advertisements for "female impersonators," informational booklets on homosexuality (How To Come Out To Your Parents, etc), information about transgender support groups, novelties like Wake Up to Whitman and the Gay Desk Calendar

John Gambril Nicholson (1866-1931):

• English school teacher and poet
• Was a Uranian: general historical term for gay men, but also referred to a group of British men who wrote poetry idealizing the beauty and romance of adolescent boys
• May have pioneered using “earnest” as a coded term for homosexuality with his poetry collection Love in Earnest (1892)

Karyl Norman/George Francis Peduzzi (1897-1947):

• American "female impersonator"
• Billed himself as “The Creole Fashion Plate” and was known for his gowns (made by his mother who traveled with him)
• Performed in vaudeville acts, theatre productions, and at nightclubs; helped instigate the “Pansy Craze” for drag acts in 1930s NY

Lionel (Mike) Ames:

• American actor and female impersonator
• Played leading lady in University of Michigan touring opera
• Reportedly insured his limbs for $25,000
• Wife helped make his costumes

Tom Martell/Tommy Farrell (1894-1956):

• Also an American female impersonator
• In 1923 popularity skyrocketed with his musical “The Gay Young Bride”

Donald Weeks (Frederick Rolfe's biographer), Cyril Conolly's unfinished Shade Those Laurels manuscript (completed by Peter Levi), various manuscripts (biography on Marquis de Sade, etc)

Cyril Conolly (1903-1974):

• English literary critic and writer
• Founder and editor of Horizon magazine, a highly praised British literary journal during the 1940s
• Theory of permanent adolescence: his excuse for why he could never write a masterpiece
• Corresponded with many British, Irish, and American authors
  • Friends with Edith Wharton. Aldous Huxley, Evelyn Waugh, James Joyce, enemies with Virginia Woolf

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