Fanny and Stella: The Young Men Who Shocked Victorian England

by Neil McKenna

28th April 1870. The flamboyantly dressed Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton are causing a stir in the Strand Theatre. All eyes are riveted upon their lascivious oglings of the gentlemen in the stalls. Moments later they are led away by the police.

What followed was a scandal that shocked and titillated Victorian England in equal measure. It turned out that the alluring Miss Fanny Park and Miss Stella Boulton were no ordinary young women. Far from it. In fact, they were young men who liked to dress as women.

When the Metropolitan Police launched a secret campaign to bring about their downfall, they were arrested and subjected to a sensational show trial in Westminster Hall. As the trial of 'the Young Men in Women's Clothes' unfolded, Fanny and Stella's extraordinary lives as wives and daughters, actresses and whores were revealed to an incredulous public.

With a cast of peers, politicians and prostitutes, drag queens, doctors and detectives, "Fanny and Stella" is a Victorian peepshow, exposing the startling underbelly of nineteenth-century London. By turns tragic and comic, meticulously researched and dazzlingly written, "Fanny and Stella" is an enthralling tour-de-force.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Biography, Victorian, LGBT, Queer, Historical

416 pages, Hardcover

First published January 25, 2013

About the author

Neil McKenna is an award-winning journalist who has written for the Independent, the Observer, the Guardian and the New Statesman. He is a former deputy editor of Elle Decoration and worked as an editor for Channel 4. He has also worked extensively in the gay press where he is known for initiating the campaign for gay law reform in the Isle of Man and leading the fight against Clause 25. He is the author of two ground-breaking books about male homosexuality and Aids in the developing world: On the Margins (1996) and The Silent Epidemic (1998). His debut biography, The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde, was published in 2003 to wide acclaim.

Reviews

[Alok Vaid-Menon · Rating 4 out of 5]

There’s this pervasive myth that gender non-conformity is a new “fad,” despite the hundreds of years of evidence we have of people transgressing gender norms. It seems like every decade people are newly shocked by the existence of gender non-conformity. This is why it’s important we learn from history.

Thomas Ernest Boulton and Frederick William Park (also known as Fanny & Stella) were two Victorian cross-dressers and theater performers who were arrested in 1870 while in drag. They were charged with conspiracy to commit sodomy. When they appeared at the Magistrates’ Court the morning after the arrest, “the police struggled to control the excited mob of a thousand or more who had come to…cheer” (88). The case became one of the most popular and sensational new stories in the UK and indeed across the world. The press called them the “Hermaphrodite Gang and the “He-She Ladies.” Although Fanny & Stella were ultimately found not guilty, their case led to the 1885 Labouchere Amendment which made homosexual acts punishable by up to two years of labor.

In 1870 there was no statue in English law which explicitly forbade cross-dressing, so police used several other ways to justify criminalizing gender transgression. Usually people would be charged with a “breach of the Queen’s peace,” or “creating public nuisance,” or sometimes even “outraging public decency” (105). If there was some evidence of sodomy or sex work then the case was treated more seriously. Police would often force cross-dressers to engage in sexual acts with them (institutionalized assault), otherwise be arrested.

In the court medical examiners investigated Fanny and Stella for any signs of sodomy. Their genitals and anuses were examined by a lens and a speculum, a “painful device shaped like a beak of a duck used to force open the vaginas and anuses of [sex workers] suspected of being diseased” (206). Doctors argued that you could spot signs of sodomy on the body by measuring the dilation of the anus, which was often seen “like a female labia” (207). Dr. Henry James Johson – one of the court medical examiners – remarked being startled by the “womanliness” of Fanny & Stella’s bodies, remarking that the “whiteness and smoothness and translucency of their skin, with their slender waists, the gentle curve of their hips and their shapely buttocks, all bespoke womanliness” (210).

Ultimately, the examiners could find no signs of sodomy. Yet, their case fueled a sex panic with newspapers like The Saturday Review proclaiming that it was “certain that the numbers [of sodomites] were far more numerous than it is pleasant to imagine” (279). In this way, it was actually sodomy that was on trial. Or rather, “England’s manhood and England’s morality” were on trial (292).

This is perhaps why the trial took such a theatrical turn: with Fanny & Stella’s women’s clothes displayed as evidence in the court to the “thrill [and] horror” of the jury (303). Fanny’s mother came to testify and proclaimed that she did not object to her child dressing up in women’s clothes. This was a deciding factor for the jury: “if she could not see the harm in this play, then was it not reasonable to assume that there was no real harm in the behavior of these young men?” (329). Fanny’s mother even admitted to keeping a photo album of all of the portraits her child took in drag!

After being set free, Fanny and Stella continued a successful life touring (even internationally) as performance artists. Photographers of Stella were largely coveted by gentlemen. When she walked outside, “hats were doffed. Bows were made. Arms were proffered and eager invitations to luncheon, to tea, and to dinner felt like confetti at her feet” (157).

[Nicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

Despite the claims of meticulous research, Fanny & Stella seems to be mostly a sensational recounting of some admittedly quite sensational events. On the one hand, I felt that there was a lot of delight taken in talking about the "sordid" details -- pretty thorough accounts of physical examinations for sodomy, and also a bit of an obsession with the sex as well. It's also written in many places as if it's nothing but a story, and it certainly doesn't keep in mind that for Stella and Fanny, this trial was potentially a death sentence.

On the other hand, from the descriptions here (admittedly this could be the author's work rather than reality), the two would have loved the attention, the tell-all details, outside the context of, you know, being in great danger. And I certainly learnt about the LGBT community in the Victorian period, and some of it rather surprised me.

The fact that Fanny and Stella were referred to by those names, more or less consistently, and by female pronouns... I couldn't decide if that was meant to be respectful to them (what were their gender identities? Would they even have had a concept of that as we do?) or if it was meant to drive home at every point the whole "He-She Women" thing going on. Adding to that was the way the author presumed to know what was going on in their minds...

All in all, it's entertaining but I wouldn't trust it as solid scholarship, and I'm a bit leery of the author's motives in writing it. Certainly it felt like there was a lot of prurient interest going on.

[Gerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fanny and Stella were actually Frederick Park and Ernest Boulfort but they indulged in a little cross-dressing, and not only in private, for they enjoyed flaunting their wares around the metropolis and elsewhere.

Eventually their behaviour brought them to the notice of the police and they were arrested and examined by a police surgeon, who incidentally had no right whatsoever to undertake such a task. This revealed that they had been up to a little more than cross-dressing and subsequently led to their being detained at Her Majesty's pleasure for a while.

Once out and about they continued their activities but once again there was police intervention. They had affairs with various others, both male and female, and many high profile gentlemen were involved. Eventually a number of them were indicted along with Fanny and Stella when they all faced charges of indecency.

However, because six doctors could not agree on the nature of the beast, as it were, they were eventually acquitted and went on to continue their lives, mostly performing as female impersonators both in the United Kingdom and America.

The book seemed a fascinating subject, and indeed it was, but it was sometimes difficult to keep up with who they were as they went under so many different names. Were they male or female? Well, the best that can be said is that they were, as they were known, He-She Ladies. At one point Stella is described as 'Lais and Antinous in one. An amalgam of Lais the Corinthian, the most famous, the most beautiful and the most expensive courtesan of the Ancient World, the muse of Demosthenes, and Antinous, the most beautiful and most beloved boy of the Emperor Hadrian.' There were even questions asked about whether the pair of them were 'a species of hermaphrodite'.

The book contains plenty of contemporary comment, with quotes from various letters, but also plenty of anatomical detail, some of which can be rather off-putting and perhaps too plentiful! But overall it is an interesting period piece, being both tragic and somewhat comic in turn.

[K.J. Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

The tremendous true story of two Victorian cross-dressers, Boulton and Park, or Fanny and Stella as they were known. You really didn't know the Victorians lived like that. They were arrested for public indecency and the trial was a spectacular scandal (especially with their high-life connections). This is brilliantly told, bringing a whole subculture to life. A must for anyone interested in the Victorians and/or LGBT history.

[Nocturnalux]

The subject matter of Fanny and Stella is absolutely fascinating. The titular Fanny and Stella did more than just 'shock' Victorian England, their engagement in crossdressing and posing as women raises all sorts of highly interesting considerations about gender, performativity, sexual orientation, so much so that what was a bizarre episode of the 19th century is rife with critical potential to a 21st century audience.

Unfortunately, the tone and overall approach of this book does not do them justie. This title presents itself as an historical account but it hardly one. For the most part it is a quasi-novel, the author having apparently direct access to the actors' very thoughts, that never quite steps into the realm of historical fiction. Instead it hovers in this limbo of sorts that does a great disservice to shedding light on what is a most obscure tidbit of history.

This ability to read the mind of the people involved in itself already displaces the book from historical research; but the content of these mental states is also highly debatable. The worst offender is a chapter dedicated to Stella's mother in which she gleefully gushes about her son's many admirers while playing matchmaker by picking the most gallant and best connected man from the lot. This is utterly absurd. Unless she was mentally challenged she would know that men could not legally marry other men in the late 1860's. This was not a viable option. Regardless of how open minded she might have been-and one wonders about this as well- she would never plan a marriage that could not possibly happen.

Perhaps in order to make the book more entertaining (which it is, and a very easy read that can be consumed almost in one go) the author adopted a jocuse tone that while fun on occasion becomes increasingly distasteful as events unfold in a decidedly grim direction.

It has been already been mentioned but once Fanny and Stella are arrested and charged with what amounted to conspiracy to incite others to commit 'sodomy' they are fighting for their very survival. Conviction would amount to a death sentence. Occasionally the book seems to remember this and pull back on the jollity but only to relapse into it a few paragraphs later.

Despite all this, the book does a decent job at describing Stella and Fanny as actual people. When not projecting actual mental states into them, there is a lively depiction of two young men who went quite beyond the mold set for their demographic. The sheer gumption of it all takes one's breath away and the borderline way in which the text encroaches on fiction can lend some life to their characters.

It is a sad fact that the very good moments do much to highlight of how everything off the bulk of it is. Those rare moments when the book rises above its cheap pseudo mock irony are all the more frustrating. It is at its best when it tackles the forensics of homosexuality, how it was categorized through a surprising vast body of medical literature; or the notions of a fluidity of gender framed in this time period were seen as liberating for what we now call budding lgbt groupings while triggering nothing short of a panic in much of the population and in particular with the authorities. These vectors are dealt with at some lenght and are a glimpse into what this book could have been. Veering almost on queer theory but with less of a theoretical apparatus to scare readers away, the author unveils an almost forgotten subculture whose claims to sexual liberation have been vindicated, at least to some extent, in our own time.

Had Fanny and Stella kept this approach throughout it would have been truly amazing. As it is, it is an interest read that unfortunately cannot live up to its potential.

[Meghna Jayanth · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm about 70% of the way through. Rather magnificent so far - McKenna's theatrical style suits the subject matter. It's hardly a perfectly pure work of non-fiction biography, but the lavish prose, invention & liberal use of personal letters & documentation create a vivid sense of the characters of both Fanny and Stella, and - through the lens of the extraordinary show trial that they were submitted to (for *conspiracy* to commit buggery no less) - the often unacknowledged but most certainly very real lives of queer, genderfluid people who flouted the commonly held social norms but nonetheless were *a part of society*. This is the great strength of the book. From buying dresses in their own size, to scouring theatrical shops for shoes in male sizes, to promenading in Scarborough "dragged up" - Fanny, Stella, and their many sisters, admirers, families, friends, lovers, landladies, neighbours etc. are figures firmly entrenched within Victorian society, even if they are at odds with it.

Fanny and Stella themselves are fascinatingly drawn and compelling protagonists. Brazen, courageous, petty, vain, loyal and silly by turns. In many ways a terrifying story of the machinery of the state turning against two of its citizens in a deliberately humiliating, chilling show trial based on ideological pressures and largely trumped-up evidence. What's surprising is how very modern some of the elements of the story are - apart from the harsh penalty for the "crime" of sodomy. The press sensation, scandal, political pressures, sexual misadventure, corrupt police force and overreaching prosecution, widespread misreporting, breathless public response, all of these feel very familiar, and help McKenna draw you into Fanny and Stella's story.

Recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in queer history/culture, but more generally to anyone intrigued by the period, or historical fiction in general. It's a pretty rollicking tale of love, sex, scandal and theatre, and full of delight, charm and gloriously frank descriptions of anal sex.

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a "Franken-book" that could have been much better if the author had chosen to write either a scholarly account of the trial (and what led up to it and followed) OR a historical novel and not tried to do an amalgam of both. I get what he's going for--a theatrical, campy account of a campy, theatrical incident in history--but I don't think it's successful for a number of reasons, first and foremost that, for Fanny and Stella, this was not just a drag ball: their lives hung in the balance, and not only theirs but the lives of their friends, one of whom apparently faked his own death and escaped and the other of whom disappeared into the continent and was last heard of discovered in women's clothing by the German police. I hate to think of what probably happened to him.

And I wonder about the evidence for some elements of the account. For instance, we get a chapter in free indirect discourse from Stella's mother in which she ponders marriage prospects for her "daughter" and hopes to see her as the future Lady Stella Clinton. Did Mrs. Boulton really hope to see her son "married" to a man? That's pretty progressive for a Victorian matron! Is that artistic license, or is there evidence?

As far as I know, this is the only book about this case or these men, and it benefits from the lack of competition. I hope it inspires someone else to write a scholarly account or a novel.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It wasn't what I expected, but I thought McKenna's "novelization" of Fanny and Stella and his camp prose were effective means to interpret his subject matter. It would have been better if not so cliche-ridden and a tic of using three synonyms where one word would have sufficed irritated, but it was an entertaining and even thought-provoking read.

[Stella Keller · Rating 3 out of 5]

enjoyed the niche topic, and the very detailed information surrounding the trail. thought it was a bit drawn out, and written more as a novel than non-fiction.

[Leslie · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story this book tells is enormously important and interesting. Gender categories have always been contested and complicated. Strict gender binaries serve an awful lot of people badly, despite what some consider their supposed naturalness. Now, Stella and Fanny could live their lives, at least in some places, as genderfluid or nonbinary or trans, or they could live as gay men who do drag—they would have options. Their options were narrower in nineteenth-century London, but they did their best to find a way to live the way they needed and wanted to do. So this is, as I said, an important and interesting story. But McKenna’s writing drove me crazy. The prose is astonishingly overblown. He describes Stella and Fanny’s drag wardrobe, largely purchased second-hand, as “fusty and frowsy, and there was that decidedly unpleasant smell that always pervades shops dealing in second-, third- and fourth-hand clothing, a smell of unwashed bodies and unwashed linen, of dirt and want and overcrowding, of cheap scent and cheap sex, of unfulfilled dreams, disappointments and death.” What exactly do unfulfilled dreams smell like? No idea. He describes a lawyer like this: “He lacked that rotund gentleman’s vulgar quality of showmanship and his ability to lubriciously underscore and point up certain phrases in the letters, which had added greatly to the gaiety of nations.” “The gaiety of nations”? What on earth does that mean? He seems to mean simply that lots of people were paying attention to the court proceedings and that another lawyer had a more crowd-pleasing delivery. So why not say that?

The verbosity grates. At one point, describing how Fanny and Stella had seemed to disappear from public view for a bit, he speculates at length, supposedly ventriloquizing the public voice (though who exactly constitutes that public is never clear): “It was, perhaps, too much to hope that they were dead. Too much to hope that they had done the decent thing and died by their own hand. Or that they were dead from natural—or rather, unnnatural—causes, from the foul contagions that their course of life must necessarily have inflicted upon them. Or—vain hope—that they had died from shame and remorse (though neither of them had yet exhibited the least bit—not a morsel, not a scrap, not a crumb—of these worthy Christian virtues).” Whose perspective is this melodramatic outburst coming from? And it just keeps going and going: “All that might be said by way of mitigation and by way of compassion was that the families of Boulton and Park had exercised and demonstrated the most Christian charity and forbearance in giving these hunted and cornered beasts shelter and food, though a sound birching and a fatal dose of prussic acid might have been more to the point.”

This sort of overwritten melodrama, speaking for nobody and an undefined everybody at the same time, gets old really fast. And when it goes on for over 300 pages, it makes for a very sludgey reading experience. I just wanted McKenna to shut up with all the nonsense and get on with telling this story and making some thoughtful comments on how to think about it. He never did.

[Thijs Werkman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is definitely interesting and fascinating. I’m not sure if i like the combination of the history (facts) and the more theatrical part (not only facts).
In the middle of the book i was thinking of a lower rating (2stars). After reading the rest and using some background information to read i’m somewhere between 3-4 stars in terms of the rating.

[Jayne Taylor · Rating 3 out of 5]

To start with I was disappointed that it wasn't a story - a nice narrative from start to finish.... But after a couple of chapters I realised it was easy enough to read despite the (slightly odd) format - it's neither storytelling nor fact. Hard to describe, but it goes in easier than a factual account alone. It does jump around a little and I didn't always try hard enough to remember who's who as there were so many characters in and out.

It's really rather rude (crude?) in places, yet I'm sure it probably is a reasonable estimate of how people would have described things and spoken in those days. Slight tangent but not so long ago my work book group read A House of Silk, and somebody asked whether 'that type of thing really went on then?' - well apparently yes according to some of the additional info in this book!

I have chosen this book for a reading group who are set to read it for our January meeting, half way through I began questioning whether I should withdraw it - but I've come round now. At least it'll give people something to talk about, even if they hate it.

I did find the end rather disappointing as it seems to fizzle out a bit.... I found myself just wanting to get to the end so I could return it to the library and get onto my next book. However, I'm glad that I've read it - I did learn a lot about that period of time that I hadn't been aware of..... How things have changed hey?(-ish).

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful and fascinating account of one of the first great Victorian sex scandals, or maybe hysteria is the best way to describe it, but also a very funny book - which if you know anything about the facts is not in the least surprising. Mr. McKenna is exactly the right author to bring light, and enlightenment onto this subject - anyone who knows his splendid biography of Wilde will not be surprised by the sharp insights and knowledge he displays. A great book that has brought to light and given this pair of young men and the attempts of society to stamp on their fun a proper place in history and new a fresh examination that it needed and deserved. Moreover he has told their story properly, with dignity and given voice to what is worth being proud about and what calls out for tears.

And again let me stress it is very readable and very fun.

[Gin Oliver · Rating 5 out of 5]

Completely unique kind of book. Present from my sister to help me research the history of drag, Fanny & Stella is beautiful as a historical piece which, at times, tells you far more than you were expecting (and perhaps wanted to know) about the history of sodomy.

Thoroughly researched and well written, it focusses on Fanny and Stella's trial for the crime of engaging in homosexual acts, but in turn highlights the attitudes of Victorian England towards homosexuality, cross-dressing and indeed anything unbecoming of a lady . . . or a man.

Illuminating, it wraps the story of these gentlemen around you like a fine, elegant stole.

[Sally · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having read rave reviews of this book, I was expecting a piece of lively, well-researched Victorian social history. What I found was a homoerotic peepshow. Was it really necessary for the author to dwell on details of intimate medical examinations and sexual encounters? Perhaps, yes, for the benefit of his intended target audience, but NOT one for me (middle-aged, female heterosexual)! I have given my (unfinished) copy to a gay male friend.

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1870 two young ladies were arrested at the theatre in London. And so begins the extraordinary tale of Ernest and Frederick aka Stella and Fanny. McKenna shows the other side of the Victorian era and writes in a wonderful style that brings all the main characters to life.

[Aleksandr Voinov · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting look into Victorian genderbending and drag, though not a "history" in the strict sense - too much soeculation re thoughts and feelings of the protagonist. That said, definitely interesting and quite mind-bending in places.

[Christopher Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historical non-fiction at its very very finest, based in the greatest city on this planet, beautifully written, hugely enjoyable, go on, you know you want to ! And you’d be a fool if you didn’t.❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

[Angela Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was interesting to read how the men/women were treated back in the Victorian times. Now it would be as "simple" as gender reassignment surgery.

However these young men or as they would have preferred to be referred to, young women, were put through terrible and humiliating physical examinations just because they didn't conform to society.

Both were flamboyant and unapologetic as they lived their lives. However, they seemed to become an interest to the police who appeared to want nothing more than build a show case against them. There was even a bit of mystery thrown in where Stella's husband Lord Arthur Clinton made a bit of a disappearing act right before their trial.

What also interested me was that these young ladies had appeared in my home city. Both Stella and Fanny endured in the face of hardship in a time when daring to be different could land you in prison.

[Orlok · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found the subject matter of Fanny and Stella interesting, as it's not a world I knew much about, apart from the infamous Oscar Wilde case, so was looking forward to reading Fanny and Stella. I wasn't disappointed either, in terms of learning a lot more about the London gay scene in Victorian times. I was surprised by how brazen the men were, given that until recently sodomy had been a hanging offence, and was still effectively a life sentence if successfully convicted, given that ten years of hard labour was likely to kill most people.

What I was disappointed about was the style in which it was written. I found McKenna's approach was less than scholarly, and often suspected he was embellishing (read "making it up") rather than relying on research and writings from the time. This was particularly true of the personal interactions between the key players. Fine if you want to write an acknowledged fictionalised version of true events, but not so for a book purporting to be historical fact. I also found the swapping between the he/she pronouns a bit distracting, and would rather McKenna had settled on one approach and stuck with it.

I did find the parallels between their case and some more modern examples enlightening, in as much as even in the face of overwhelming evidence, they were acquitted (anyone remember OJ?) due to the mess the prosecution made of things, and the creativeness of the defence in spreading doubt and uncertainty.

All in all, I'm glad I read it, and was glad to see justice done, even if ultimately it was sad that their ambitions were not fully realised.

[Thom · Rating 4 out of 5]

In most books on Victorian England, the drama is to be found in the discontinuity between public morality and private debauchery. Mrs Fanny Park and Mrs Stella Graham (or Frederick Park and Ernest Boulton as they were known on their birth certificates) held no truck with this double-standard, bringing their private proclivities into the open; their arrest at the Strand Theatre, in full drag, scandalised society and led to a trial on trumped up conspiracy charges, where their co-defendants would include the American Consul and a lord of the realm. Despite their apparent openness, they still generated confusion, with some of their former suitors refusing to believe the truth - surely their effeminacy was a sign that they were hermaphrodites, or some other species of 'he-she creatures'?

Mr McKenna is lucky to have a remarkably well-preserved set of records to fall back on (unlike Kate Summerscale in her latest, Mrs Robinson's Disgrace), but he is equally happy to fall back on less official sources such as pamphlets, street poems and gossip. His ability to empathise with his protagonists, adopting their language and sympathising with their desires, gives the book a unique voice, and makes for an extremely enjoyable read. At times, you feel he could make more of the cultural impact of the trial, but that would have taken away from the focus on the psychological make-up of his subjects - this is as much an emotional biography as a social study, which has its own value.

[Graeme Aitken · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some readers will remember Neil McKenna for his biography of Oscar Wilde published ten years ago, 'The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde'. In this new book, he illuminates a fascinating incident in gay history, the arrest and sensational show trial of Ernest Boulton and Frederick Park, aka Stella Boulton and Fanny Park. These two young men who liked to dress as women were arrested after an evening out at the notorious Strand Theatre. They had held court from a private box, carrying on and provoking the gentlemen in the stalls below. However, unbeknownst to them, the police had been investigating them for a lengthy period and arrested them with the intention of making an example of them. Impersonating a woman in public was merely a misdemeanour and could have been dealt with by a fine and a good dressing down. Sodomy, however, if it could be proved, was an extremely serious crime which would result in a sentence of horrific hard labour. And this is what the police were determined to accomplish. Neil McKenna has used the court records from the two trials, together with the associated evidence – mainly letters between the accused and their friends − to bring this fascinating story to life. Be assured that this is no dry history, but is an intriguing story written in a most lively, modern and enthralling style.

[Emily Moon · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite my rating, I would say with all honesty that this was a thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining read that introduced me to a completely different side of a period of history that I thought I knew quite well. My criticism, however, is that our author should really have decided whether this was to be a history book or a work of fiction. It was a times frustratingly matter-of-fact about ‘truths’ and at others, graphic to the point of being quite inappropriate. I think I would have enjoyed it more had I started it with the knowledge that it is a ‘novelisation’ as opposed to a factual account of history. But, for enjoyment value, queer representation and for telling the stories of a throughly fascinating group of people, this book is well recommended.

[Larry-bob Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

Using court records, letters, and contemporary newspaper reports, McKenna limns the lives of Stella, aka Ernest Boulton, and Fanny, aka Frederick Park. They were arrested in 1870 and charged with buggery, conspiracy, and outraging public decency and corrupting public morals through cross-dressing.

There is a sardonic wit in McKenna's presentation of unreliable witness testimony and Victorian willful blindness to reality.

The trial is a precursor to the Cleveland Street scandal and Oscar Wilde's trial; some people involved with the Boulton and Park case were also involved in those cases.

The book includes photos of Fanny and Stella both in and out of drag.

[Donald · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a quite fascinating true story that I'd never heard of until now. It is, as other's have pointed out, quite purple in it's prose, but that only adds to the overall story, rather than detracts. It's a chatty book, but the facts are not exactly meaty and although the sum of it's parts don't quite seem to add up to the whole, it's a glimpse into a hidden bygone underworld that underlines how far things have now come, (or not come in some cases!)

[Andy Cooper · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good insight into the hypocrisy of Victorian England with regard to sex, sexuality and class. Whilst drawing on all the factual evidence available as the basis of this book it never appears dry and reads like a good court/legal drama.

[Jessica · Rating 3 out of 5]

An enjoyable story, though I think the best bit was learning all the now outmoded Victorian slang. I plan to bring "gamahuche" into my regular vocabulary...at least, as regularly as one has a need for that sort of terminology.

[Eleanor · Rating 3 out of 5]

A light and interesting read, faction rather than non-fiction, with a lot on how people felt, what they thought and so on. McKenna could well be quite accurate on these things, but he doesn't actually know it.

[Daisy Goodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating account of the trial of two young transvestites in 1870. If you want to know about the homosexual subculture of Victorian England, this is the place to start. A great story, entertainingly written .

[Jemma Bartholomew · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up out of curiosity, and a love of RuPauls Drag Race UK. I felt it was quite different from what was written on the back of the book, and much more of a treatise on Victorian homophobia.