The French connection would bring Rimbaud, Verlaine, Mallarme, Baudelaire, plus, a bit later, overlapping Wilde, Gide (autobiography If It Die mostly a bit boring, but with wonderful part about Wilde in North Africa), not all of whom were gay. Anything on these guys would point you in the right direction.
William Butler Yeats overlaps with your period and wrote a fairly entertaining Autobiography (sympathetic toward Wilde). Few in Bohemian circles/artistic circles would have been upset by queerness, whatever their own orientation. Whitman in the US was also connected to them, different style. French bohemians, other than Rimbaud, would have been more dandyish, I think. Peacock males, repudiation of the male business suit. Women who had affairs (George Sand, others). Someone wrote a lesbian novel in the late 19th Century -- one of Gide's friends, if I'm remembering correctly. Gide is like the young guy learning from the older guys (Wilde got Gide his first boy, an Arab flute player), so the relevant sections of If It Die would be useful). Warning, none of these guy were particularly sensitive to colonial issues, though Gide kept in touch more with his former lovers than anyone else apparently did.
Edgar Allen Poe was huge in France (translated by one of the famous French Symbolists (anything on Symbolism would point you in a useful direction). Poe was an influence on ACD. While Holmes doesn't have all Poe's vices (alcoholics were all too common and far less romantic than a cocaine user), Poe seems to have contributed something to the mix.
William Butler Yeats' autobiography, something on Baudelaire, and Gide's If It Die would be a good place to start. Or just start with If It Die and work backwards. I think there's also a good biography of Rimbaud out there, or watch Total Eclipse with Leonardo DiCaprio which appears to be factually accurate enough.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2010-05-18 12:04 pm (UTC)William Butler Yeats overlaps with your period and wrote a fairly entertaining Autobiography (sympathetic toward Wilde). Few in Bohemian circles/artistic circles would have been upset by queerness, whatever their own orientation. Whitman in the US was also connected to them, different style. French bohemians, other than Rimbaud, would have been more dandyish, I think. Peacock males, repudiation of the male business suit. Women who had affairs (George Sand, others). Someone wrote a lesbian novel in the late 19th Century -- one of Gide's friends, if I'm remembering correctly. Gide is like the young guy learning from the older guys (Wilde got Gide his first boy, an Arab flute player), so the relevant sections of If It Die would be useful). Warning, none of these guy were particularly sensitive to colonial issues, though Gide kept in touch more with his former lovers than anyone else apparently did.
Edgar Allen Poe was huge in France (translated by one of the famous French Symbolists (anything on Symbolism would point you in a useful direction). Poe was an influence on ACD. While Holmes doesn't have all Poe's vices (alcoholics were all too common and far less romantic than a cocaine user), Poe seems to have contributed something to the mix.
William Butler Yeats' autobiography, something on Baudelaire, and Gide's If It Die would be a good place to start. Or just start with If It Die and work backwards. I think there's also a good biography of Rimbaud out there, or watch Total Eclipse with Leonardo DiCaprio which appears to be factually accurate enough.