Better Angel

Better Angel is a novel by Forman Brown first published in 1933 under the pseudonym Richard Meeker. It was republished as Torment in 1951. It is an early novel which describes a gay lifestyle without condemning it.[1] Christopher Carey called it "the first homosexual novel with a truly happy ending".[2]

The novel's title references Shakespeare's Sonnet 144: "the better angel is a man right fair",[3] a poem which has been read as having a homosexual subtext.

  1. ^ Slide, Anthony (2003). Lost Gay Novels: A Reference Guide to Fifty Works from the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Routledge. p. 127. ISBN 9781560234142.
  2. ^ Carey, Christopher (2012). Trials from Classical Athens. Routledge. p. 484.
  3. ^ Hallock, John W.M. (2000). American Byron: Homosexuality & The Fall Of Fitz-Greene Halleck. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 163.