A Gay History of Britain edited by Matt Cook et al.

A Gay History of Britain: Love and Sex Between Men Since the Middle Ages
Edited by Matt Cook with Robert Mills, Randolph Trumbach and H.G. Cocks.
 
A fantastically informative and engaging overview of British gay history complied by four expert queer historians. 
 
The book explores the changing ways in which male-male sex and love have been perceived and experienced from the late Anglo-Saxon period to the present. Celebrated figures, such as Richard Lionheart, whose love for Philip Augustus of France was so well-documented, Oscar Wilde, gubject of the most explosive scandal of the Victorian period, and Derek Jarman, the great artist and chronicler of the age of AIDS, are examined alongside little-known figures: Eleanor/John Rykener, a cross-dresser in Chaucer's England, the mollies of eighteenth-century London, the habituants of underground gay bars and cafes in 1930s Manchester and Brighton, and the newly-confident gays of contemporary Britain, who marry, adopt children and command the increasingly powerful 'pink pound'. Drawing on a fabulous wealth of research, the authors - each an expert in his field - have worked closely together to deliver a powerful, highly-readable and eye-opening history of love and desire between men in Britain.
 
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'A valuable, long-overdue addition to the canon of gay history.' - Gay Times

'[A] substantial, moving and significant [story], well captured in an impressive book...' - The Independent

'[A] thorough and fascinating glimpse back at gay life in the UK over the last 1,000 years... a landmark achievement, shedding light on a section of history too often ignored or overlooked.' -Out in the City