Man Bites Man: The Scrapbook of an Edwardian Eccentric

by George Ives

Genres: Nonfiction

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

George (Cecil) Ives was a German-English poet, writer, penal reformer and early gay rights campaigner.

Ives was the illegitimate son of an English army officer and a Spanish baroness. He was raised by his paternal grandmother, Emma Ives. They lived between Bentworth in Hampshire and the South of France.

Ives was educated at home and at Magdalene College, Cambridge,[1] where he started to amass 45 volumes of scrapbooks (between 1892 and 1949). These scrapbooks consist of clippings on topics such as murders, punishments, freaks, theories of crime and punishment, transvestism, psychology of gender, homosexuality, cricket scores, and letters he wrote to newspapers.

Ives met Oscar Wilde at the Authors' Club in London in 1892. Oscar Wilde was taken by his boyish looks and persuaded him to shave off his moustache, and once kissed him passionately in the Travellers' Club. Ives was already working for the end of the oppression of homosexuals, what he called the "Cause." He hoped that Wilde would join the "Cause", but was disappointed. In 1893, Lord Alfred Douglas, with whom he had a brief affair, introduced Ives to several Oxford poets whom Ives also tried to recruit.

At his death in 1950, George Ives left a large archive covering his life and work between 1874 and 1949. The papers were bought in 1977 by the Harry Ransom Research Center at the University of Texas at Austin.

Reviews

[Graham · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Edwardian gay rights campaigner George Ives long kept a scrapbook of those newspaper articles which aroused his interest in the early 20th century. Paul Sieveking, of FORTEAN TIMES fame, has long published similar fortean-related articles in the pages of that magazine, so it was only natural that he would edit this collection of the most interesting parts of the Ives scrapbooks. This is a facsimile reproduction of articles covering weird events, murders, transvestism, womanhood, wars, and generally bizarre behaviour. It's a fascinating read for FORTEAN TIMES fans, or indeed for anyone interested in the general foibles of human behaviour. It also works well as a social history of the early 20th century, an exploration of the kind of topics that aroused popular attention and debate during those times.

[Martin Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A excellent 'chew' (read) I have had a tatty paper back copy for some 20 years. I work part time as a book binders assistant and will be trimming my copy to tidy it up a little. I too keep cuttings mainly spaceflight, aviation, military, (odd bits of) history. I started in 1969 and still collect! This book is one of them you can put down and pick up later. It is also addictive reading and pure escapism and makes you want to dig out old copies of Fortean Times, you do have old copies of FT? ;o) It certainly makes you think that we live I a different world to the one that is portraited on the TV news! Perhaps a late 20th cent-early 21st cent version should be published? 6 out of 5 from me!