This is an interesting collection from LGBTQ authors of various backgrounds and is something you can easily dip in and out of.

It is an excellent starting place for people who want to read more from Queer people and I particularly enjoyed those translated texts from authors that I have not come across before.

I loved it. What a brilliant collection of people talking about this experience. It was fascinating to see the huge disparities but also the similarities across times and cultures.

Drawing together writing from Catullus to Sappho, from Arthur Rimbaud to Anne Lister and Armistead Maupin, translator Frank Wynne has collected eighty of the finest works representing queer love by LGBTQ authors.

This should be on every LGBTQ person’s shelf.
Brilliant .

Queers are not new, people are not coming out just because it's a trend, we've always been here, never erased. This was an amazing anthology of queer texts, letters, poems, snippets from many centuries, till now. It was so surprising to see it, as if we were always here, fighting and existing.

From William Shakespeare's : "When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state." to
Sappho whose lyrics would have originally been sung in public, but they would privately inspire countless future poets.

An amazing anthology which will not only entertain you but also educate you of queerness from all over the centuries, telling you we've never been alone, we're not new. We were here since always and we will be.

Lots of interesting excerpts from queer writers through history. It's unimaginable how difficult it would have been to be queer in any time besides this one, really.

Started this in January and finally finished it now, I always admire the people who put collections like this together. The amount of reading and research that goes into it is just immense. I am glad this collection exists although I admit that not all pieces worked for me. But such is the life of the anthology, it is always going to be a mixed bag.

This is a lovely anthology, and it's hugely important to keep curating bodies of LGBTQ+ work, but I do wish there was a much higher percentage of earlier writing. Part of what makes me want to read so much LGTQ+ history is discovering examples of queer lives and writing that are new to me, and the period that this book focuses on is an area much more covered by historians and writers.

Still, a lovely collection to flick through and share.

I enjoyed reading this. A brave and powerful of queerness. Highly recommend this.

Thanks to Netgallery for the chance to read this in exchange for an honest review.

I read quite a lot of LGBTQ literature but to be honest it mainly comes from a need to educate. I tend to stick to YA books because I want my students to have an outlet that wasn't necessarily there when I was a student. I picked up Queer because I wanted to make a more informed and mature choice when it came to my reading choices.

What is brilliant about Queer is that it gives you snippets of stories and then you have the option to follow it up with further reading. I did this and bought other books by the contributors. I especially liked the chronology of the book. It showed that LGBTQ isn't new. Its not something that has only been around for a short amount of time. As long as there have been people there has been LGBTQ people. I think that will be a comfort to the readers of this book.

Queer is a fantastic collection and I hope that it is only the start and that further collections will be collated in the future.

Queer - A Collection of LGBTQ Writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday by Frank Wynne is available now.

For more information regarding Frank Wynne (@Terribleman) please visit www.frankwynne.com.

For more information regarding Head of Zeus (@HoZ_Books) please visit www.headofzeus.com.

I really enjoyed parts of this, I loved the author short biographies before their writings and Wynnes writing here is fantastic.
However some extracts where way too long and I kept finding myself skipping. It's so hard to be interested in book extracts when you don't know any of the context before or after the extract. Wish this was just full short stories and poetry.

Thank you sk much to NetGalley and publisher for sending me tjis free eArc, this is my honest review.

Thanks to Head of Zeus and NetGalley for the free e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Queer, edited by Frank Wynne, is a collection of writings from different queer authors through time. They're organized chronologically, and each one has a little bio of the author before the text starts.

I think this is an interesting collection of writings, and as with any collection, your mileage will vary depending on the author/work. I appreciated being able to read some of Alison Bechdel and Juno Dawson's works, as well as some lesser known authors. I appreciated that Wynne made a conscious effort to include translated works by authors not writing in English. That gave the book a wider scope.

This is a good starting point for readers looking into more queer work, and I appreciate it.

This was a really intriguing insight into queer literatures - as a queer, English literature student I was really excited to read this one. There were lots of names that I'd heard of before, prolific queer authors but it gave me a snapshot kind of look at the ones I'd noted as to-be-read and never got around to. Most historical works would be good - I think it was ambitious to collect "from ancient times to yesterday" in one collection, and make sure it was detailed and inclusive. Might have been a good setup for a wider series! Anyway, I enjoyed this celebration of queer works and think it is an eye-opening introductory text useful for anyone who is considering an endeavour into queer work.

This was an interesting collection overall but there was an imbalance in the time periods the writing came from as less than 20% came from pre 1900s and the other 80% came from after. It would have been nice if the author had found more early and pre 20th century sources.

I did like the sources picked though and liked how they were presented in this with the brief description of each author.

This collection of writing from various LGBTQ authors is a really nice collaboration of pieces from writers that I've read individually. The range of works is vast and had me wanting to read more as often the short pieces felt incomplete alone. It was nice to read work from some authors I hadn't encountered before I will be seeking out more work from their collections.

Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy.

This is an interesting collection of writing from LGBTQ authors of various backgrounds from throughout history and is something you can easily dip in and out of.

It is an excellent starting place for people who want to read more from Queer people and I particularly enjoyed those translated texts from authors that I have not come across before.

Thank you to Head of Zeus and Netgalley who gave me an eARC edition of this book in return for a fair review

DNF

I really wanted to love this antholgy of queer ficiton, especially since I am queer myself and always love learning more about my history and the queer poeple who have helped forge the path for the rights we have now. However I think this was far too pretenious for me, maybe it gets better as the short stories get more modern, but I just could not get through it and wasn't really comprehending what I was reading.

I do think this is a great resource to have out there though, especially as something maybe people who are more literary than me (I think this book would lend itself well to being studied in english class) might enjoy dissecting!

Queer is an anthology of, as its subtitle states, 'LGBTQ writing from Ancient Times to Yesterday', with a range of poetry and prose starting with Homer and Sappho and ending with current writers. Frank Wynne has collected together works from authors with various experiences and identities, originally written in different languages, and these are complete or in extract, with short biographical notes about the author before each one. In the introduction Wynne gives the criteria for inclusion: the authors had to be LGBTQ and the texts had to be addressing gender and/or sexuality in some way.

The anthology is an impressive endeavour, particularly in the range of (mostly post-20th century) translated texts alongside those written in English. As Wynne discusses in the introduction, there's no way of being definitive, but the range given by the translations was refreshing. The book starts with a lot of familiar touchstones (Homer on Achilles, Sappho, David and Jonathan, Shakespeare's sonnets, Anne Lister's diaries), which are useful for people exploring LGBTQ literature from a more introductory viewpoint but not so exciting otherwise, so it was good that it quickly moved into a more diverse range of writers. It was a chance to read some writers I'd heard of but not read, and discover others for the first time.

My main issue with the anthology is the context given for the authors and their works. I found the biographical notes gave some useful details, but there was no context given for the piece(s) in the book. The contents notes when the given text is 'from' a larger work, but the section for the author does even use the word 'from', never mind giving context about what is happening in the wider work or how the poems or short story might fit into the author's writing more generally. For example, I went into reading the Radclyffe Hall story assuming it was an excerpt from The Well of Loneliness (which I've read) as that was the only text mentioned in the biographical note, but then realised it wasn't. Maybe some people prefer texts out of context, but personally, I needed to know if I was reading a short story or an except from when I started reading, to know if I needed to 'catch up' or not.

One thing I would've liked (other than more context) would've been some excerpts from plays; Wynne states in the introduction that these aren't included because they're meant to be spoken (as song lyrics aren't because they should be sung), but I think that reading plays can be very important, especially for getting to experience the works of LGBTQ writers regardless of your circumstances for getting to the theatre. However, the anthology already has a lot in it, so I suppose space was an issue as well.

This collection is a really useful way to experience a lot of LGBTQ writing at once, and it's nice to have a range of more recent writers in there. It's particularly useful for discovering new writers and I can see how it would be good to flick through, see what you felt like reading, and then go away to discover more of that writer's work. As someone who doesn't often feel like reading short stories I enjoyed the chance to read some by authors I've read novels by, and to discover some new poets as well, though the earlier (mostly pre-20th century) part is perhaps more useful to people who've not already tried to read as much of the classic literature that isn't so straight and cis already.

An incredible and extensive collection! I found myself wishing for more history and information about the authots/writers/humans/dreamers. and people presented. I endlessly enjoyed this and I cannot wait to own a hard copy~

An interesting and comprehensible collection of queer writings. I think many readers will be surprised to learn how far back queer writing has been a thing. I enjoyed the biographical overview before each text but also wished they had been longer and maybe contextualized more.

This book is lovely. Well present and offering a insight into the remarkable lives of Queer writers. Each example is accompanied by a short but detailed biography of the author.
A perfect book to dip in and out of.