Before the Word was Queer
"This book uncovers how same-sex acts, desires, and identities have been represented in English dictionaries in Britain from the early modern to the interwar period. In doing so, it responds and contributes to established traditions and new trends in linguistics, queer theory, literary criticism, and the history of sexuality"--
Stephen Turton is a Research Fellow in English at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge. He writes and teaches on the history of English, lexicography, literature, and gender and sexuality. He is the co-editor of an ongoing project to digitize the letters of James A. H. Murray, the ?rst chief editor of the Oxford English Dictionary (www.MurrayScriptorium.org).
This book uncovers how same-sex acts, desires, and identities have been represented in English dictionaries in Britain from the early modern to the interwar period. In doing so, it responds and contributes to established traditions and new trends in linguistics, queer theory, literary criticism, and the history of sexuality.