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The World, The Flesh and Myself
In the heyday of the foreign correspondent, Michael Davidson traveled the globe and campaigned against oppression and injustice. He joined the Berlin communists against Hitler, crossed wartime Morocco in Arab disguise, and opposed the British authorities in Malaya and Cyprus. Twice sent to prison for his sexuality, he bravely wrote in 1962 Life Story Of A Lover Of Boys. This autobiography, praised by Arthur Koestler and James Cameron, is a classic memoir of gay life in the first half of the century.
- GenresLGBTNonfictionGender
355 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
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98 people want to read
About the author
Michael Davidson
3 books3 followersBorn into an upper-middle-class family in Guernsey and educated at Lancing, Davidson joined the army in 1914. Being wounded in 1916, he became a newspaper reporter and a supporter of the Communist Party. He translated a number of anti-Nazi books. After having lived in Berlin in early to mid 1930s, he wrote newspaper articles to warn England against the full implications of Hitler's ideology, which he had seen up-close, but editors showed little interest. After being harassed by the SA for being British, a communist, and presumably a homosexual, Davidson fled Germany. He spent the rest of his life serving as a foreign correspondent for, among other newspapers, The Observer, The News Chronicle and The New York Times.
At age 26, Davidson met W. H. Auden, then 16, and they began a "poetic relationship". Davidson mentored Auden and was the first to publish him.
Davidson's 1962 autobiography "The World, the Flesh and Myself" begins: "This is the life-history of a lover of boys." In the book, he recalls not only his reporting from various war zones, but also his encounters with adolescent boys in those areas. This aspect was the sole focus of his follow-up memoir "Some Boys" (1969).
At age 26, Davidson met W. H. Auden, then 16, and they began a "poetic relationship". Davidson mentored Auden and was the first to publish him.
Davidson's 1962 autobiography "The World, the Flesh and Myself" begins: "This is the life-history of a lover of boys." In the book, he recalls not only his reporting from various war zones, but also his encounters with adolescent boys in those areas. This aspect was the sole focus of his follow-up memoir "Some Boys" (1969).
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
November 27, 2025
Although Michael Davidson described his memoirs as '...the life story of a lover of boys...' they actually are more than this so I am dividing my review into three parts:
1. A review of 'The World, The Flesh and Myself'
2. A discussion of 'boy love' in literature and fact gay liberation
3. A few remarks on boy love vis a vis Michael Davidson
REVIEW:
This is a marvellous and fascinating memoir of a man who began his 'life' in 1914 as a 17 year old schoolboy when he became an officer commanding men older and more experienced than himself simply because of the class he was born into. It was a salutatory lesson in the world's unfairness and stupidity that Davidson never forgot and left him permanently on the side of life's underdogs.
Following the war he was a man-about-town who knew everybody in the world of Soho/Fitzrovia including the 16 year old W.H. Auden who he encouraged in his early poetic efforts. Davidson's memoirs are mine of information, anecdotes and incidents concerning the London demimonde and how it overlapped/intersected/and in some cases was the same as, the literary and artistic movements of the 1920's and 30's. I won't say he knew everyone because it rather depends who you mean by everyone. Davidson rapidly ran through most of whatever family money he had (he was gloriously financial incontinent throughout his life) but family remained on hand to help when he got into scrapes or needed help. Davidson is wonderfully honest about this without in the least pretending that it wasn't shamefully unfair.
Needing to earn a living he went into journalism and was in Berlin until Hitler came to power, inevitably he became a communist (which ensured that he was a person of interest to the security services throughout the rest of his life), tried to make people in England aware of the threat of Hitler and then became a foreign correspondent based in Tangiers before WWII and afterwards events took him everywhere from Korea, Malaysia and Cyprus. His reporting of the hypocritical and dishonest shabbiness of empire was exemplary. He is particularly good on Cypress where he knew and worked with Nikos Samson*.
There is a wealth of fascinating detail and information in these memoirs of places and events that have changed beyond recognition most particularly, although he didn't know it at the time, the world of Fleet Street Newspapers.
I would suggest that these memoirs have not received the attention they deserve because of Davidson's reputation as a 'lover of boys' but there is nothing salacious or prurient here, how could they and still gather accolades from Arthur Koestler, Colin Spencer and James Cameron? I am now going to turn away from reviewing these memoirs to discuss:
BOY LOVE
Can I make it absolutely clear that trying to place the proclivities of men like Michael Davidson in some sort of context I am not providing any defence of man-boy love today. But it is equally important not to retrospectively apply current attitudes to the past and it is essential you understand how differently male children or more accurately minors were viewed. Outside of the rarefied atmosphere of the private schools most boys, even boys from respectable homes, would leave school at 14,15 or 16. The age for leaving school would be 14 until 1957. In working class areas (and country areas) there were plenty of exemptions for boys to leave school at 12 or 13 in cases of family hardship (see James Hanley's 'Boy' published 1931**). Boys were everywhere in the workforce, they were not regarded as children (there were boys of 16 on active duty in WWII - one was fortunate to survive the sinking of the Prince of Wales during its disastrous sojourn at Singapore**) they were 'minors' which reflected not a protected status but a lack of adult rights**.
It is worth remembering that when the Titanic was sinking second officer Lightoller tried to stop a 13 year old boy taking a place in a more than empty lifeboat he was lowering. The boy only kept his seat because of the remonstrances of the boy's mother, in the lifeboat, and his father and elder brother, standing on the sinking Titanic barred from entering the empty lifeboat. That his family were first class passengers probably saved the boy because Lightoller let him remain but loudly said 'No more boys' which is part of the reason so many non 1st class under 18 failed to survive. By the way the father and elder brother drowned - quite why Lightoller became such a 'hero' of the Titanic is inexplicable, to me, when he set off half the lifeboats with hardly anyone in them.
It is also important to remember that there was no concept of 'child sexual abuse' if a man had sex with a 15 or 16 year old boy. The only thing that mattered was that it was homosexual sex. In any such case neither age nor social position made any difference. When Lord Alfred Douglas and Robbie Ross were caught in some sordid escapes with boys from very upper middle class families and the fathers of the boys wanted Douglas and Ross prosecuted they were dissuaded by their solicitors who warned them their sons could be prosecuted and even if they weren't their futures would be ruined (there was no anonymity for victims because by law the boys weren't victims). It is only since homosexuality was, not decriminalised, but became (I am referring to countries in parts of Europe and not the USA and elsewhere) seen as behaviourally no different to heterosexuality that retrospective condemnation of how people behaved before it was acceptable to be in homosexual relationship became common.
DAVIDSON AS BOY LOVER
Everything from both this book and other sources tell us that Davidson was very much an old queen who loved fussing over his boys, almost invariably he was in on going relationships, worrying that his boys ate enough and had clean socks. He sounds a perfect poppet but honestly his actions make sense only within the context of Europe before WWII and elsewhere before 1960. England and the world has been transformed so that the life Davidson lives is no longer possible. That doesn't mean he was viscous or bad and it also doesn't mean that Davidson has any justifications to offer any man looking to justify having sexual relations with under 16 year old boys today.
The pity is that this autobiography of a 'lover of boys' is almost fated today to be ignored or dismissed as salacious pornography. The actual 'boy love' mentions are acts of honesty about himself not descriptions of acts.
This is a very fine autobiography/memoir of the first half of the 20th century by a man forged in the Edwardian era, who believed in honesty above all and was determined to be most honest about himself.
*Nikos Samson was someone the British Administration in Cypress tried to execute by some of the most shabby legal chicanery imaginable. He eventually made a career as a former terrorist once Cyprus was independent but whether he always was, or ever was, is open to question. Surprisingly, considering the extensive literature on the end of empire in for example Suez, Malaya and Kenya, there is no decent history of the Cyprus rebellion. Nikos Samson also played a perhaps unwitting, or even unwilling, part in the 1974 coup which overthrew Archbishop Makarios which brought on the Turkish invasion and the division of the island into separate Greek and Turkish states.
**Worth googling.
1. A review of 'The World, The Flesh and Myself'
2. A discussion of 'boy love' in literature and fact gay liberation
3. A few remarks on boy love vis a vis Michael Davidson
REVIEW:
This is a marvellous and fascinating memoir of a man who began his 'life' in 1914 as a 17 year old schoolboy when he became an officer commanding men older and more experienced than himself simply because of the class he was born into. It was a salutatory lesson in the world's unfairness and stupidity that Davidson never forgot and left him permanently on the side of life's underdogs.
Following the war he was a man-about-town who knew everybody in the world of Soho/Fitzrovia including the 16 year old W.H. Auden who he encouraged in his early poetic efforts. Davidson's memoirs are mine of information, anecdotes and incidents concerning the London demimonde and how it overlapped/intersected/and in some cases was the same as, the literary and artistic movements of the 1920's and 30's. I won't say he knew everyone because it rather depends who you mean by everyone. Davidson rapidly ran through most of whatever family money he had (he was gloriously financial incontinent throughout his life) but family remained on hand to help when he got into scrapes or needed help. Davidson is wonderfully honest about this without in the least pretending that it wasn't shamefully unfair.
Needing to earn a living he went into journalism and was in Berlin until Hitler came to power, inevitably he became a communist (which ensured that he was a person of interest to the security services throughout the rest of his life), tried to make people in England aware of the threat of Hitler and then became a foreign correspondent based in Tangiers before WWII and afterwards events took him everywhere from Korea, Malaysia and Cyprus. His reporting of the hypocritical and dishonest shabbiness of empire was exemplary. He is particularly good on Cypress where he knew and worked with Nikos Samson*.
There is a wealth of fascinating detail and information in these memoirs of places and events that have changed beyond recognition most particularly, although he didn't know it at the time, the world of Fleet Street Newspapers.
I would suggest that these memoirs have not received the attention they deserve because of Davidson's reputation as a 'lover of boys' but there is nothing salacious or prurient here, how could they and still gather accolades from Arthur Koestler, Colin Spencer and James Cameron? I am now going to turn away from reviewing these memoirs to discuss:
BOY LOVE
Can I make it absolutely clear that trying to place the proclivities of men like Michael Davidson in some sort of context I am not providing any defence of man-boy love today. But it is equally important not to retrospectively apply current attitudes to the past and it is essential you understand how differently male children or more accurately minors were viewed. Outside of the rarefied atmosphere of the private schools most boys, even boys from respectable homes, would leave school at 14,15 or 16. The age for leaving school would be 14 until 1957. In working class areas (and country areas) there were plenty of exemptions for boys to leave school at 12 or 13 in cases of family hardship (see James Hanley's 'Boy' published 1931**). Boys were everywhere in the workforce, they were not regarded as children (there were boys of 16 on active duty in WWII - one was fortunate to survive the sinking of the Prince of Wales during its disastrous sojourn at Singapore**) they were 'minors' which reflected not a protected status but a lack of adult rights**.
It is worth remembering that when the Titanic was sinking second officer Lightoller tried to stop a 13 year old boy taking a place in a more than empty lifeboat he was lowering. The boy only kept his seat because of the remonstrances of the boy's mother, in the lifeboat, and his father and elder brother, standing on the sinking Titanic barred from entering the empty lifeboat. That his family were first class passengers probably saved the boy because Lightoller let him remain but loudly said 'No more boys' which is part of the reason so many non 1st class under 18 failed to survive. By the way the father and elder brother drowned - quite why Lightoller became such a 'hero' of the Titanic is inexplicable, to me, when he set off half the lifeboats with hardly anyone in them.
It is also important to remember that there was no concept of 'child sexual abuse' if a man had sex with a 15 or 16 year old boy. The only thing that mattered was that it was homosexual sex. In any such case neither age nor social position made any difference. When Lord Alfred Douglas and Robbie Ross were caught in some sordid escapes with boys from very upper middle class families and the fathers of the boys wanted Douglas and Ross prosecuted they were dissuaded by their solicitors who warned them their sons could be prosecuted and even if they weren't their futures would be ruined (there was no anonymity for victims because by law the boys weren't victims). It is only since homosexuality was, not decriminalised, but became (I am referring to countries in parts of Europe and not the USA and elsewhere) seen as behaviourally no different to heterosexuality that retrospective condemnation of how people behaved before it was acceptable to be in homosexual relationship became common.
DAVIDSON AS BOY LOVER
Everything from both this book and other sources tell us that Davidson was very much an old queen who loved fussing over his boys, almost invariably he was in on going relationships, worrying that his boys ate enough and had clean socks. He sounds a perfect poppet but honestly his actions make sense only within the context of Europe before WWII and elsewhere before 1960. England and the world has been transformed so that the life Davidson lives is no longer possible. That doesn't mean he was viscous or bad and it also doesn't mean that Davidson has any justifications to offer any man looking to justify having sexual relations with under 16 year old boys today.
The pity is that this autobiography of a 'lover of boys' is almost fated today to be ignored or dismissed as salacious pornography. The actual 'boy love' mentions are acts of honesty about himself not descriptions of acts.
This is a very fine autobiography/memoir of the first half of the 20th century by a man forged in the Edwardian era, who believed in honesty above all and was determined to be most honest about himself.
*Nikos Samson was someone the British Administration in Cypress tried to execute by some of the most shabby legal chicanery imaginable. He eventually made a career as a former terrorist once Cyprus was independent but whether he always was, or ever was, is open to question. Surprisingly, considering the extensive literature on the end of empire in for example Suez, Malaya and Kenya, there is no decent history of the Cyprus rebellion. Nikos Samson also played a perhaps unwitting, or even unwilling, part in the 1974 coup which overthrew Archbishop Makarios which brought on the Turkish invasion and the division of the island into separate Greek and Turkish states.
**Worth googling.
February 26, 2024
The author was active (as it were) during the period between Wilde and Orton, and where he gives an account of the homosexual subculture that existed then... this book was a five star for me. However, when his family's inherited "old money" dwindled to zero he made a living from journalism, predominately as a foreign correspondent. Much of this book is padded out with material culled from this activity. Tediously detailed account of the Cyprus Emergency etc. To be fair he does acknowledge that he found the book length format a struggle and he was in need of funds at the time. Perhaps those interested in the love that dares not speak its name can enjoy those sections and skim through the reportage concerning the last days of empire.
July 12, 2022
One advantage of reading books written by journalists is that they are usually crisp, fluent and precise. This one is no exception. It begins "This is the life history of a lover of boys" and then proceeds to tell that story. But it is about far more than boys. Davidson lived and worked in a good many different lands and cities and observed at first hand history being made. The book is also very honest; the author recounts not only his successes but his failures and the times when he let other people down.
So if you want a book giving interesting side-lights on the mid-twentieth century from the point of view of an expatriate Englishman, or a book about a variety of relationships between a man and a teen-age boy (which can be warm, loving and mutually supportive), this is the book for you. I recommend also his book about Sicily.
So if you want a book giving interesting side-lights on the mid-twentieth century from the point of view of an expatriate Englishman, or a book about a variety of relationships between a man and a teen-age boy (which can be warm, loving and mutually supportive), this is the book for you. I recommend also his book about Sicily.
August 12, 2010
A curious history of gay life from the 1920's onwards, I love the details, its not all about sex but life and living and the struggles. This guy though was a very much a happy go lucky type person and everything seems to be an eye opener to him but there is sadness, tragedy, alot of laughs and a whole lot of drinking.
May 29, 2020
A good journalist memoir book even with cloudy events.
Michael Davidson tell his trips and some of his important interviews in a very heartfull manner.
I think the places where he have worked should be proud, its hard to find people with so much sense of humanity in the words like he had
Michael Davidson tell his trips and some of his important interviews in a very heartfull manner.
I think the places where he have worked should be proud, its hard to find people with so much sense of humanity in the words like he had
January 7, 2016
An unbelievably good journalist and stylist. The man can write! ... you'll be looking up new words every ten pages.
December 27, 2023
Though this is indeed a daringly frank account of a lifetime spent adoring adolescent boys in less intolerant days, it is much more than that: an astute journalist's observations of many lands in age when relatively very few travelled, much enrichened by the author's unfailing sympathy for underdogs.
July 10, 2019
Tiresome chronicle of a fan of empire.
November 3, 2018
a very honest view from the author in regards for his love for boys but I wasn't over excited by this book To many times I felt it drifted off the main topic where he would go on about family and friends sorry to say it didn't make that much sense to me
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews