Bertram Cope's Year

by Henry Blake Fuller

In 1918, when Henry Blake Fuller was 62 years old, he completed the manuscript of a novel, Bertram Cope's Year. Though Fuller was well known as an accomplished realist and had published twelve previous novels, this work was his first published fiction to address the topic of homosexuality. In the novel Bertram Cope, a handsome young college student, is befriended by Medora Phillips, a wealthy older woman who tries to match him with several eligible young women. However, Bertram is emotionally attached only to his friend and housemate, Arthur Lemoyne. The novel's portrayal of their friendship is subtle, but has clear overtones of sexual attraction.

Genres: Fiction, LGBT, Classics, Gay, Queer, Historical Fiction, Literature

300 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1919

About the author

Henry Blake Fuller (January 9, 1857–July 28, 1929) was a United States novelist and short story writer, born in Chicago, Illinois.

Fuller's earliest works were travel romances set in Italy that featured allegorical characters. Both The Chevalier of Pensieri–Vani (1890) and The Châtelaine of La Trinité (1892) bear some thematic resemblance to the works of Henry James, whose primary interest was in the contrast between American and European ways of life. Fuller's first two books appealed to the genteel tastes of cultivated New Englanders such as Charles Eliot Norton and James Russell Lowell, who took Fuller's work as a promising sign of a burgeoning literary culture in what was then still largely the frontier city of Chicago.

Reviews

[Sketchbook · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bertram Cope is squeezed from all sides. An English instructor, age 24, at NoWestern U - smart, polite with a fine sense of punctilio and too much charm - he arouses the passions of three coeds, a society hostess and a bachelor in his 50s who mentors likely chaps. Can Bertram get through the year, working on his thesis and teaching 18thC Lit, without being compromised?

Written almost 100 years ago, this stylish treatment of an ambiguous situation is fiercely contemporary. Ignored in its day, the reissue sells briskly, I'm told, for - at center - is an anti-hero who casually sets up campus housekeeping with a Significant Buddy while sorting out, presumably, his sexual nature. It's a subtle social comedy that raises a smile of recognition becos it's unheroic and unexultant. Yet "Bertram" defines Wordsworth's line, "The world is too much with us."

Arbitress absolute is widowed richie Medora Phillips, who holds "entertainments" for Arts & Letters celebs. "You shall tell me about yourself," she commands Bertram at her salon. But first : "Make yourself useful. Get me a cup of tea." Who would want him anything but slender, she muses. Nearby, turning gray with paunch, aesthete Basil Randolph sighs hopefully, "If these lads only knew what a friendly hand might do for their future."

Bertram soon tells his special pal, Arthur Lemoyne, "I must cultivate a few of the little arts myself...they seem necessary." To his befuddlement, Bertram finds himself engaged to a young woman who misreads his consideration. "Nip it. Nip it, now," Lemoyne censors.

The wit is consistent as Medora and Basil ponder Bertram's future. She predicts marriage; Basil disagrees. "You have something better to suggest?" she asks. Basil replies, "Nothing better. Something different."

This forgotten novel is also about the seductive power of charm, surely more injurious than sexiness. Having met Bertram's parents, Medora says dismissively, "They add nothing to him." Basil reminds her, "Charm, like guilt, is personal."

--- ---
Lamenting "the many literary reputations buried in America," Carl Van Vechten once asked Fuller, who'd written several books, about further efforts. "Not likely," he said. "Too much effort and too little return."

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in 1919, this novel explores a delicate topic without ever mentioning it. Bertram Cope is a friendly attractive young college instructor, more interested in his musical theatre friend than in the young women he is constantly paired with. An obliging and polite escort, Bertram accidentally becomes engaged. The horror!

There is quiet humour here, such as in the embarrassing female tendency to flatter the male by giving him way too much credit for his accomplishments while downplaying her own.

The footnotes in this volume are intrusive and largely unnecessary (does “Cher professeur” really need translation?). However there are many appendices which add to the novel, including contemporaneous reviews that highlight the delicate theme that cannot be named.

[Shawn Mooney (Shawn Breathes Books) · Rating 5 out of 5]

My full video review is on my BookTube channel: https://youtu.be/mOAnJW6KcZk.

This 1919 American novel by the now-forgotten Chicagoan writer Henry Blake Fuller portrays gay male life so subtly that few of its contemporary readers and reviewers had the foggiest what it was all about. They weren't outraged, just confused as all get-out. Fuller was so upset he withdrew the novel from circulation and died a decade later.

Now viewed as a classic of queer lit, the novel is set in a university town where a hot young teacher, the titular Bertram, comes to town and turns heads—of men and women alike. His boyfriend follows him there a few months later and—just like the novel's early readers—the straight characters don't know what to make of Bertram and his touchy-feely 'roommate'. Comical misunderstandings, awkward conversations, and plot developments—revealing the social dynamics between different generations of gay men and between queer and straight folk—make this an entertaining, deeply fascinating read.

Unless it all goes over your head, that is.

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Medora shrugged. “The young, at best, only tolerate us. We are but the platform they dance on,- the ladder they climb by.”

Medora Phillips, the Mrs. of a big house with a perilous lake, has Bertram Cope sing for his supper. She’s described early on through the Bertram Cope lens as being about thirty. Cope’s plump friend Arthur says a “dumpy” forty-five. I didn’t know I was waiting for “dumpy” to make its appearance until it did. I don’t accept the hook that older people try to make themselves young again by associating with the young, but assholes only interested in those they can use? The faint ridiculousness of summoned childhood pal Arthur Lemoyne to finger their Cope pie, everything easy breezy on the back of Arthur's chair (a freeloader in reality) made this for me. Here is Cope living off hand-outs from home. Won’t you do something for me and my friend Arthur? They’d walk off arm in arm, laughing and maybe Arthur’s eye is turned towards his own moon in the glass. I bet his plays were all makeup and accents. I can’t stomach dinner party right thing to say as a way of life and each step away from Medora was a relief. Cope is charming to them. Medora says Cope is charming twenty-three times. SHE found him first, dangnabit, he owes her. I didn’t find anything especially so about Cope. He’s genial enough, and why shouldn’t that be enough? Not for the bitter old wheelchair man upstairs, the brother of the not around husband. He’s Cope’s detractor because he’s not dued. Hortense the niece is in made-up love and doesn’t get enough attention. I’m still waiting to be old enough that men won’t tell other men who used to be polite that I was harboring passionate designs on them, resulting in uncomfortable hostility. I was afraid that Cope would turn that route but it is almost as bad as he and Randolph talk about all of the women as if he were their only dream. I wish that at least one of Medora’s menagerie of meek university girls didn’t fancy climbing into the matrimonial noose with Cope. Cope is washed out the first time, the second time the dead deer on your headlights. The third he’s safely away where it’s really all about me Medora entanglements can’t reach. I couldn’t get into amusements over marriage traps, my own issues aside, because too often passerby women are described by Fuller and his men as demeaned in their domesticity. It grossed me out when early on Cope appreciates that Amy is a "little thing" who couldn't be capable of dexterity for marriage. The blind brother-in-law describes hysterical girls and women clinging to a romantic statue in desperation. Like this is really what Randolph, Joe and the rest think all girls are. Yeah, maybe Norway postponed exams due to impending One Direction fervor but not every vagina in those men’s radius can be expected to only behave that way. The girls’ art is only about watered down devotion to Medora’s money and Cope’s profile. I wondered if they hated having to entertain Medora every night of their lives so they could have a place to sleep. The light-heartedness in Cope’s year was great when his students witness his foolish boating accident. Amy is a one-woman Emma and Harriet from Jane Austen ballooning a rescue into a romantic affair. I liked this and I also didn’t when it didn’t allow for much suspicion into that other people do have minds of their own. I had a nagging feeling that Hortense was scorned for living off her aunt while it's a game that Arthur's folks are tired of his shit. I just thought it was worse to piss on them for the basic day to day life stuff when they had no chance to show anything more.

When I was Cope’s age of twenty-four I was friends with a much older woman and it annoyed the ever loving piss out of me when she made constant mentions of the age gap. “My young friend” all the damned time. I don’t believe that people think about one another’s age every moment they are together. I do have some younger coworkers who consider their age to be a virtue rather than their temporary happy accident but I forget entirely about it when they aren’t bringing it up. Cope isn’t always bringing it up. It didn’t occur to Cope that Medora and her brother Randolph wanted to bathe in his aura of youth at all. (Really I think it had more to do with Cope being a good looking person than anything else. Arthur is young too and they don't like him. I was so happy he was kinda fat and no one shares Cope's admiration for him, least not the university Cope tries to shoehorn him into. Anything to contradict the charm this and charm that was good.) I never felt like it was assumed that Cope’s taking for granted of them meant anything about him then an on the surface approach to sociability. If he did anything wrong it was in his spinelessness to tell Amy no. It bothers me that it means so much about everyone else. But then I have never found anything easy with anyone and it probably says a lot about me that I felt uncomfortable in so many dinner parties and tea scenes.

[mark monday]

the year is 2013. Bertram Cope contemplated Goodreads censorship. he threw up. I still fucked him.

[James Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

My favorite novels from late nineteenth-century America include Stephen Crane's The Red Badge of Courage which I first read while I was attending high school, and Harold Frederic's less well-known The Damnation of Theron Ware which deals with personal religious issues of the titular character. It was not until the end of the twentieth century when I was in my reading maturity that I discovered this somewhat similar and equally good novel by Henry Blake Fuller.
Fuller, who was born in Chicago and spent most of his life there wrote many novels , most of which are forgotten today. His novel of Chicago, The Cliff Dwellers, is probably his best known, but late in his life in 1919 at the age of sixty-two he published Bertram Cope's Year about a young (twenty-seven year old) English instructor at a Middle Western university (admittedly modeled after Northwestern University). Cope is good looking and a pleasant companion. Early in the novel he is adopted socially by a local hostess, Medora T. Phillips, and begins regular attendance at her soirees. He also makes another acquaintance, Basil Randolph, who is a collector of object d'art and admirer of handsome young men. Cope's involvement with these characters and their crowd leads him into complicated social situations with young women who are unaware of his attachment to a young man, Arthur Lemoyne. Cope had left Lemoyne in Wisconsin when he moved to Churchton but following some correspondence soon expected him to join him. The natural way that Bertram and Arthur live a life that mimics a young married couple is just one of the surprising aspects of this stylish novel of manners. It also may explain why Fuller had to publish the novel at his own expense in spite of his success with earlier efforts. As a novel of manners the book reminds me somewhat of Aldous Huxley's Point Counter Point, and like that book it does not have any truly likable characters. Cope himself, who is at the center of the novel's social wheel, is pleasant enough, but lacks a spine with which to stand up to those characters (too numerous to mention) who try to direct his life. One aspect of this and the novel as a whole is that of unmet expectations, Cope does not meet the expectations of the other characters and in this he disappointed this reader as well.
However, as Edmund Wilson said in the introduction to the Triangle Classics edition of the novel, "This curious book, which is perhaps Fuller's best, seems never to have had adequate attention." (p. xxxi). That is a shame because it is one of the earliest natural and positive depictions of the life of a young gay man in American society. Both this and the excellence of the writing recommend this novel to all readers who enjoy understated social novels.

[Blake Fraina · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find it hard to believe that this book was written in 1919. More unbelievable still is that the author, Henry Fuller Blake, praised by many of his more illustrious contemporaries such as Thornton Wilder and Booth Tarkington, sank into almost total obscurity.

This novel is an utter delight. It tells the story of Bertram Cope, a blonde, blue-eyed country boy who takes a post as a college English teacher in a moderately large Michigan city and manages to attract the ardent admiration of everyone in town - both female and male. It presents lighthearted social commentary [along the lines of Jane Austen’s work], as young Cope’s continuous mishaps and social blunders only serve to make him more fascinating to everyone he encounters, including a wealthy widow, the three eligible young ladies renting rooms in her stately home and a middle-aged [confirmed bachelor] professor. They all openly compete for his time and affections until he is compelled to summon Arthur Lemoyne, his hometown sweetheart, to extract him from their romantic designs on him.

While the homosexuality of Bertram, Arthur and Basil Randolph (the admiring professor) is never stated outright and is presented extremely coyly by modern standards, there is no doubt what these characters are all about. That, in and of itself, might seem surprising, but more thrilling still is the matter-of-factness with which it’s presented. This suggests that, even way back then, certain social groups (academians, artists and the upper classes) displayed a degree of sophistication and even tolerance toward homosexuals. There’s something quite refreshing in reading a story about a gay man without tragedy or sermonizing. All the more so because it is nearly one hundred years old.

That said, I should stress that the language seems only slightly formal and is not at all arduous to read. Quite the contrary in fact, Fuller writes with a breezy facility that makes the story bounce along apace. The dialogue is succinct and sharp, and the characters are beautifully realized and are all "types" that can be easily recognized and appreciated by modern-day readers. I particularly enjoyed Medora Phillips, the widowed socialite, who, in her relentless pursuit of Cope, would certainly be classified as a cougar if she were around today. Equally enchanting are her three lovestruck young boarders - impetuous Amy, somber Carolyn and hot-headed Hortense - a musician, poet and painter, respectively, all straight out of Downton Abbey.

I can’t recommend this one enough. For anyone interested in an alternative to those dour, and better known, early gay standbys Brideshead Revisited and Maurice, this is definitely worth a look.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The company was young, the night was wild, and cheer was the word.”

The novel centers around Bertram Cope, a good-looking, detached, polite-enough college instructor who manages to gain the affection of a slew of characters, some men, some women, due to his air of mystery. Bertram in return doesn’t fully know how to deal with these people, and ultimately only really cares for his “friend” Arthur, who eventually comes to live with him and throws everything out of kilter. The story has been described by others as “a comedy of errors” which I see fitting, but the humor lies in how Henry Blake Fuller writers about the characters and scenarios rather than the characters/scenarios themselves. It’s the author’s voice that stands out the most and that, for me, was a huge part of the novel’s charm. I wasn’t expecting the writing style to be as antiquated (in the best way possible) as it was, almost British in a way, which I thought funny because the novel is Midwestern, set in Evanston, IL, just outside of Chicago. I guess it makes sense though because it was written over a hundred years ago!

“Hortense had succeeded to her little north skylight, and had rearranged the rest to her own taste; it was a mingling of order and disorder, of calculation and of careless chance. She had a Victory of Samthrace and a green-and-gold dalmatic from some Tuscan town - But why go on?”

Bertram Cope’s Year is a quiet book, nothing outrageous happens. There’s some conflict. But mostly there’s a lot of singing at the piano, small dinner parties, gossipy conversations, walking to the lake, taking trips to the Dunes… and all are a joy to read about.

I also love the way Henry Muller handled Cope and Arthur’s relationship, and how he made it so ordinary even when at the time it was anything but.

“Between-times they brought their quarters into better order; and this despite numerous minor disputes. The last new picture did not always find at once its proper place on the wall; and sometimes there were discussions as to whether it should be toast or rolls, and whether there should be eggs or not. Occasionally sharp tones and quivering nostrils, but commonly amity and peace.”

As always, I’ll end my review with me saying I’m not doing this book justice, which I’m not!!

Definitely one of my favorites of the year!

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bertram Cope's Year is a 1919 novel from bachelor (wink wink) author Henry Blake Fuller. Its protagonist is the not very thoroughly closeted Bertram Cope, about 24-25, who is getting his master's degree in literature at a fictionalized Northwestern University in Churchton, Illinois (Evanston). Cope is the campus golden boy, and everyone wants a piece of him. Local busybody widow Medora Phillips involves herself in the doings of all the young people, male and female, and boards a few young females. She often invites co-ed groups of students to her house in the Indiana Dunes. Basil Randolph is around fifty, a bachelor stockbroker, and way too interested in the young men of Churchton. When he gets together with his wheelchair-bound bachelor friend Joseph Foster, the main topic of conversation is Bertram Cope.

Several chapters are epistolary - Cope writes to his best friend Arthur Lemoyne, living in Winnebago, Wisconsin. Soon Arthur will arrive in Churchton, joining the drama department and waving his pinkies - his "fingers (especially the little fingers) displayed certain graceful, slightly affected movements of the kind which may cause a person to be credited - or taxed - with possessing the "artistic temperament"." Arthur moves in to Cope's quarters.

But in the interim, Cope has accidentally become engaged to Medora's niece, Amy Leffingwell, with whom he has performed several duets at parties and gone disastrously sailing, ending with a capsized boat. Besides playing the violin, Amy is skilled at walking on sidewalks - "Really, the girl did better here, somehow, than lots of other girls would have done on a wide sidewalk. Most of them walked too close to you, or too far from you, alternating the interval suddenly and arbitrarily, and tending to bump against you when you didn't expect it and didn't want it." On their strolls, Amy has been dropping subtle hints of a future together, and Cope uses the unfortunate word wait, causing her to instantly agree that "she was willing to wait" - and she turns up her face to be kissed, "and he, partly out of pity for the expression that came when he hesitated, and partly out of pure embarrassment and inexpertness, had lightly touched her lips. That had sealed it, possibly." Though there is no engagement ring, they are considered affianced.

Cope mulls with dread all the aspects of having a wife and setting up a household. "For he was conscious of a fundamental repugnance to any such scheme of life and was acutely aware that - for awhile, at least, and perhaps for always - he wanted to live in quite a different mode."

On a trip home, Cope despairs, and his father urges him to get out of the engagement and buckle down for his degree. At a party, Cope is distant and cold to Amy, which infuriates her. She begins to accept the attentions of another student, and before Cope can break the engagement, she breaks it herself.

But two other female boarders of Medora throw themselves at Cope and he must fight them off. At the same time, Arthur is observed at public gatherings "always hanging over [Cope's] chair; always finding a reason to put his hand on his shoulder..." As Joe Foster puts it, "they brought the manners of the bed-chamber into the drawing-room." Arthur would like the fogies to leave them alone - Basil Randolph "was showing himself inclined to "go" with younger men longer than they would welcome him. Why didn't he consort with people of his old age and kind?" Cope and Arthur are embarrassed when Randolph inappropriately compliments Cope's eyes and cheekbones.

After Arthur makes a pass at a heterosexual man in the drama department, he is asked to leave, and Cope gets his degree and heads east to teach.

[Claude · Rating 4 out of 5]

The subtlety with which the novel is written is what really makes the book so exceptional. Nothing is ever directly said or written about Bertram's status and the male friend he lives with. Their entire relationship is written and described as a string of innuendos and very subtle ambiguous physical contacts when the two of them are in public.
There is no attempt to disguise their relationship since they are never fully identified as a same sex couple.
At times the writing is very current especially in the interaction between Randolph and Joe Foster, the wheelchair bound tenant. The two of them spend much time making many bitter catty observations about the male youth (about Bertram in particular) and its many faults and its disregard for the older male generation that they are both part of. Randolph is attracted to and intrigued by Bertram and is always more indulgent in his remarks, whereas, Joe Foster is completely dismissive and finds no redeeming value to Bertram or anyone of his entourage.
Absolutely recommend the book to anyone that might be interested in getting a glimpse of what it might have been like being gay and trying to live with a man in the early 1920's.

[Ronald · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful and beautifully written story from the early 1900s. Clearly a gay story, but very subtly handled.

[John David · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are two kinds of forgotten writer. One is vaguely remembered when perusing a book shelf or in passing conversation. Hamlin Garland – didn’t he write about farmers? Or maybe William Dean Howells – didn’t he used to be considered one of America’s greatest writers? This is a precarious and perhaps the most painful of literary deaths, being half-remembered and half-forgotten. Perhaps more graceful is the obsolescence of the completely and utterly forgotten. These include George Washington Cable, Zitkala-Sa, or, alas, the subject of this review, Henry Flake Fuller and his novel “Bertram Cope’s Year.”

To be quite frank, we need not mourn the cultural loss of every writer who ever set pen to paper and, judging solely from my reading of “Bertram Cope’s Year,” the only novel I’ve read by him, Fuller is one of those writers. My Triangle Classics edition has a very generous introduction full of biographical and literary material written by Edmund Wilson and originally published in the New Yorker in 1970, which hails him as an important American writer of the early twentieth century. Wilson has been known to tend toward the effusive in his praise.

The novel tells the story of Bertram Cope, fresh from undergraduate school, who has decided that pursing a Master’s degree might further his career prospects. He soon falls under the heavy-handed charms of the grande dame of local literary society, Medora Phillips and the three young ingénues, including a poet and a composer, whom she supports with her independent wealth. Somehow, magically – by his ravishing good looks, his innocence newness to the place? – all of these women are attracted to him, inviting him to endless teas and evening soirees. There’s even an older man named Basil Randolph who frequents these get-togethers looking for young men from the university to “mentor,” and is frustrated by Bertram’s constant passive-aggressive rebuffs.

At home, however, Bertram writes to his friend Arthur Lemoyne, telling him how much he misses him and wants to see him. Eventually, Arthur discusses moving to live with Bertram in order to see if he can get a role in the local musical productions at the university. Locals are a little surprised when Arthur is cast in the role of a woman in the musical, but they naively don’t read much into it. The novel ends with Bertram graduating with his degree and going back home without Arthur, who made an overt pass at one of the male members of the musical cast.

This is a novel of manners, particularly highly stylized because the subject matter demands a cloak of ambiguity. Fuller never mentions the word the word “homosexual,” and the entire book is completely devoid of sexual behavior of any kind beyond a little heterosexual flirtation here and there. The ambiguity seemed a little too much for even some of its more literary readership. The American Library Association’s publication Booklist described it “a story of superficial social university life in a suburb of Chicago, with live enough people and a sense of humor hovering near the surface." “New Outlook” said that “the study of this weak but agreeable man is subtle but far from exciting." The cluelessness of these reactions and their lack of ability to interpret social situations is a credit to Flake’s subtlety, even a century later when what we sometimes identify as “gay fiction” is anything but subtle or stylized.

This novel struck me very much as Radclyffe Hall’s “Well of Loneliness” or Virgilio Pinera’s “Le carne de Rene” did – full of historical interest, but ultimately failing short of being the timeless LGBT fiction they’re often vaunted to be. The manneristic writing, roughly contemporary with the later novels of Henry James, hasn’t aged nearly as well. The criticism of small, bourgeois minds is nothing new and isn’t handled particularly deftly. However, as a “gay novel,” it stands out as more than just a bizarre curio of literary history. It is, probably accurately, called the first gay novel published in the United States, in 1919. This alone should earn it some attention, even if Bertram and his worldly sprezzatura don’t brashly shove more contemporary expectations in our face.

[Jonathan Bogart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the selling-point for all post-1960s revaluations of Bertram Cope's Year is "the first American gay novel" (which isn't necessarily the case: Joseph and His Friend and Imre both antedate it, the former by a generation), I was delighted to find that on a purely surface level it's a superb comedy of manners, a genre not notably excelled in by US writers of the period (H. L. Mencken's review expressed not entirely sarcastic astonishment at the revelation of an American writer who is also "a gentleman"). It was Fuller's last novel: his early books, late in the nineteenth century, were divided between flowery Italianate romance (shades of Baron Corvo) and closely-observed Chicago realism (after the model of Henry James), and although it was printed by a private press, there's precious little for a censor to cavil at, even in the Comstock era of U.S. publishing.

There's certainly a sublimated camp sensibility which anyone raised on the rapacious widows and fussy bachelors of classic Hollywood (or of British fiction) can spot a mile away: but half the humor is that Fuller sets it all in a prosaic, self-satisfied suburban university town, so that the small-town inarticulacy about emotional intimacy which a writer like Sherwood Anderson was so brutally diagnosing at the same time flares up in the middle of a glittering intricate social dance. Cope, the socially inexpert but intensely good-looking scholar from downstate, is in over his head from practically the first page, and although he does eventually appear to escape the clutches of compulsory heterosexuality (as well as a more wistful May-December gay romance), it is not due to any emotional adroitness on his part.

The decoding of Cope's sexuality (or, perhaps, romantic affinity; it seems practically impossible that any of these people have ever had sex) seems to have defeated many readers at the time, although of course Carl Van Vechten blabbed about it; it seems screamingly obvious today, but you have to know what you're looking for: gaydar is mostly just remembering that gay people exist.

The suburban university town, by the way, is a few blocks north of where I live. Being set in the north Chicagoland area, with a couple of trips down to the Indiana dunes, made the book even more charming to me: at last, the geography of a place I know firsthand, instead of the exhaustingly omnipresent pseudo-universalities of New York or London, turns up in a century-old book.

[France-Andrée · Rating 5 out of 5]

Now, I know some of you will be attracted to this book for the same reason I was, the fact that it is historically very significant in gay literature. I do hope you'll be as delighted with it as I was for what it is : a charming story.

Bertram Cope is an instructor in a university next to the fictional town of Churchton, he gives himself a year to better his prospects and finish his thesis and that's the year we spend with him. Cope is flawed and that's one of his charms and it is hard not to be frustrated by him, he just is not mature enough to make the right decisions, people seems to bully him in situations he really doesn't want... He has two patrons in Mrs Medora Phillips and M. Basil Randolph which are completely exploited by Cope though they use him too in their way; those two characters are the most well realized in the book and the ones my heart went too first and foremost maybe because I'm closer in age to them than to Cope? Maybe also because a lot of the story is seen through their eyes.

The homosexuality angle here is "obviously subtle", there is nothing plainly said, but it isn't unsaid to the point one guesses... the words chosen by the author makes it understood. I know at the time of publishing this was bold, but in a modern point of view it makes the story sweet and, to repeat myself, subtle.

This is a beautiful piece of literature and I loved it dearly.

[Bryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is one of my favorites. It immediately involves the reader into a world long since past. It is as much a cutural primer as it is a narrative. What capitivates a modern reader is the ageless psychological struggles that we face today - and will, no doubt - tomorrow. Young, old; talented, beautiful; straight-laced, artistic - just a few of the dichotomies found within its pages. The book was self-published in 1919 - the author was 62 at the time. This is an easy read and if you like "period" settings - then this is definately the book for you.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mostly forgotten text now dubbed as the “first homosexual novel” - very dry/discrete in its rendering of queerness but does have some interesting / witty moments & scenes that are similar to a comedy of errors

[Cody · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written in a dual narrative structure (at first glance a bland society novel, but through a queer lens opens up a whole different narrative), it was entertaining but I couldn't seem to bring myself to enjoy it all that much. Fuller was compared to EF Benson for this, but I'd argue that Benson does a much better job (even if his stories are less queer in subject matter).

RTC!

[Gavin Stephenson-Jackman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bertram, a graduate student, is pursued by two of three young ladies and an older man in the university town as he completes his studies all the time missing his companion from home. The ladies live with the matron Medora Phillips who engineers many of the encounters between Bertram, the young ladies and Basil Randolf, the older man.

This is written in a very different style of writing than I'm accustomed to from modern fiction. I read this for its historical significance, as the first published gay themed novel in North America. The relationship of Bertram and Arthur Lemoyne is treated in a very matter of fact way. The relationship is not seen favourably by Medora and her crew. Basil on the other had was hoping to attract Bertram to his own cause.

It never got to the point where I lost myself in the story and felt that I could not put the book down as I often get with more modern novels.

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hopefully, within our lifetimes, the scenarios that play out due to closeting within this book will become to be seen as improbable and unrealistic. I love the line between humor and seriousness that has to be used to show the constrictions of the society these characters inhabit.

[José Khôra Berroa-Sáro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm surprise I never came across this masterpiece.

[Lindsay Heller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a good book. It was also enjoyable to read. Those two things are not necessarily mutually exclusive. My best friend lent me a copy of this several summers ago while I was reading Brideshead Revisited because there are some... similar themes.

Bertram Cope is writing his thesis at a university closing resembling Northwestern when he meets Medora Phillips, who takes a great interest in the young man and begins inviting him to her lavish home where three young women are in residence. But while the ladies seem to take interest in Cope he has eyes only for his friend and housemate, Arthur Lemoyne.

Published in 1919, well, I guess self published since the back of the book tells me no publishing house would have it, this was one of the first novels to deal with homosexuality so candidly. Which is kind of funny since it's written with great care to never say what is being said. But unlike other books that allude to what would be considered unsavory elements this book is clear on it's subject matter.

Read it because of it's statement or read it because there are fellows in boating hats jaunting around a campus, but I would recommend you read it.

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bertram is a young collegiate who becomes the object of attention of several older and younger women and some men too. He came across to me as very naive and clueless to the motivations of those around him. I'm not even sure he fully grasped the hidden desires of his closest friend Arthur. There are several humorous scenes and conversations among the characters, and some wonderful scenes; I especially felt the electricity under the surface as Bertram & Randolph walked along the deserted beach; as well as the observations of the wheelchair bound Foster.

I did have to keep reminding myself that the novel was written at a time when this theme was forbidden, and as a result relationships and some acts could only be hinted at. Other then Arthur's flamboyance at the play's performance I could see how some readers might even miss what was going on, though there were words and phrases scattered throughout if you picked up on them. Overall it was an interesting read for historical purposes, maybe to see how much things have and haven't changed in society as well as in certain circles.

[Rachel Eliason · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bertram Cope's Year is one of the first gay novels ever written by a gay man. For that historical significance it rates three stars at least.
However the modern reader should be aware they will be exposed to "a liberal exhibition of perfect teeth" from a character who has "a high degree of self-possession, even of insouciance." If you like the flowery 'literary' style of the time period you find "a beaming affalbility"...your "happy allotment". However most modern readers will probably find the style off-putting, stilted or even unreadable. Modern readers should also be aware that homosexuality was illegal and highly taboo at that time and the novel contains only the most circumstantial references to it. You have to wade through a lot of literary phrases and vague innuendo to decipher what is really going on. In short it's a remarkable book best left to literary majors and historians.

[Brooke]

I did not technically finish this book, but Goodreads won't let it only be in my "gave-up-on" folder. This is one of the most boring books about college life I've ever read. Very little actually happens. I read half of it, I gave it a good chance. Was a snoozer.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating, subtle story about two men living together in an early 20th-century American college. Then as now, partners of faculty must suffer many fools.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this forgotten gem would appeal to fans of EF Benson. There is the same gentle humour with a sting in the tail and the same social posturing.

[Jack · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved it. Though Bertram is not always clearly defined and the ending a bit unclear, I loved the book as a whole and its depiction of life in that time period.

[Drianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing that this exists -- and it's nice to read. As explicit as Maurice (with which it is roughly contemporary), no, but remarkably obvious to the eyes of hindsight.

[Frank Duke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never heard of this book until a few months ago. Supposedly the earliest American novel by an established author about a gay man, Fuller wrote it in 1918 after a succession of well-received books. this one was largely ignored on its publication -- primarily due to its subject manner.

Bertram Cope is a graduate student/instructor at a small Midwestern college. A physically attractive man, thin and blonde, he misses his friend, Arthur Lemoyne, a young man he met while teaching school in Wisconsin. Cope longs for him to join him as his roommate in the college town.

Lonely, Cope is invited to the home of a wealthy middle-aged widow, Medora Phillips, for a meal. Mrs. Phillips lives with three college age women, each of whom find themselves attracted to Cope, who is blissfully unaware. At the same time, Mrs. Phillips is also attracted to Cope, as is a businessman in the town who is a few years older than the hero. Each of these five pursue Cope, seeking either a sexual or social relationship if not both.

Cope remains oblivious of all this until he finds himself engaged to one of the younger women, at which time he is joined by Lemoyne. Lemoyne persuades Cope to end the engagement, only to have the young women end it due to Cope's ignoring her. This frees the other women to go after our hero, who continues to find his only real attachment is to Lemoyne.

It is a good book, though a bit hard to read due to the language of the time in which it was written. I am glad to have found this classic of gay American literature.

[Jeff Stookey · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We ground our general life on theories, and then the facts come up and slap us in the face.”

While trying to learn about gay life in the 1920s, I was delighted to find this novel, “privately” published in 1919. One soon learns that Bertram Cope, who comes to teach at an undergraduate college as he works on an advanced degree, has a relationship with another young male with whom he plans to cohabit—interesting that two men could openly set up housekeeping together, even back then. Meanwhile an older matron, an aging homosexual man, and various young women hope to attract Cope’s attentions. Though seen by some as a trivial social satire, Fuller’s light touch and subtle wit masks an undertone of eroticism and homosexual associations. His anonymous, authorial, third-person narrative voice is humorous and incisive, revealing his penetrating observations of social niceties and the layers of his characters’ maneuverings. Clever and understated, the book implies much that is never declared.