Queering the Underworld: Slumming, Literature, and the Undoing of Lesbian and Gay History

Tales of "how the other half lives" experienced a surge in popularity. People looking to go slumming without leaving home turned to these narratives for revelations of underworld and sordid details about the deviants who populated it. This book explores how a group of authors manipulated this genre to evade the confines of sexual identification.