A Gay History of Britain, the new standard history of love and desire between men in Britain, is a landmark achievement. Covering nearly a thousand years from the Norman Conquest to the internet age, it is a history rich in personalities, not only public figures like Richard the Lionheart or Derek Jarman, but also little-known individuals such as 'Eleanor', a cross-dresser in Chaucer's England, and Mark Partridge, branded a 'mollying bitch' in eighteenth-century London. A Gay History of Britain tells their stories against a shifting historical background of changing laws, fluctuations of popular prejudice, and unexpectedly influential events, such as the coming of the railways.

It also poses some intriguing and crucial questions. Did Richard Lionheart, Eleanor, Mark Partridge and Derek Jarman share a sense of sexual identity? How differently did the mollies of the eighteenth century and the twentieth-century activists Outrage! think of themselves? What links - and divides - the vivid expression of homosexuality in the playhouses of Renaissance London and the secrets and scandals of Victorian England.

Drawing on a fabulous wealth of research, the authors - each an expert in his field - have worked closely together to deliver a constantly absorbing, highly-readable narrative. Broad in its coverage but nuanced in its detail - including never-before-seen illustrations - it is a compelling and eye-opening exploration of the many different ways in which British men have expressed their love and desire for one another.