This book scrutinises the production and transnational distribution of sexological knowledge at the turn of the century. The works of three transnationally mobile authors are in the focus: The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890/1891) and Teleny (1893) by, and attributed to, Oscar Wilde; The True Story of a Vampire (1894) by Count Stanislaus Eric Stenbock; and Imre: A Memorandum (1906) by Edward Prime-Stevenson. The textual analysis is governed by references in all four works to Hungarian culture to demonstrate how they conceptualised Hungarianness and same-sex desire simultaneously in the light of the new classificatory science of sexualities coming from German-speaking Central Europe. By foregrounding a timely literary angle and a culturalist approach, this book offers non-Anglocentric insights, not bound by either language or nationality, to shed new light on the interdisciplinary reading practices of late-Victorian subjects and the ways they contributed to the emergence of fin-de-sičcle queer fiction.
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Homophilia and Hungarophilia
Chapter 1: (Con)texts of Same-Sex Desire: Medico-Legal Discourses and
Literature
Chapter 2: Literary Snares in Oscar Wildes The Picture of Dorian Gray and
Teleny
Chapter 3: Gothic Performance: Homophile Conceptual Muddle in Eric Stenbocks
The True Story of a Vampire
Chapter 4: False Snares and Sexology in Edward Prime-Stevensons Homosexual
Romance
Conclusions and Afterword: Whatever Happened to Reading Hungarophilia
Anthologically
Bibliography
Index
Zsolt Bojti is a senior lecturer in the Department of English Studies of ELTE Eötvös Lorįnd University (Budapest, Hungary) and is the editor-in-chief of the Departments scholarly journal, The AnaChronisT. His research focuses on the intersection of nineteenth-century German sexology and the English literary history of sexuality at the turn of the century.
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