Sicilian Vespers and other writings

MICHAEL DAVIDSON (1897-1975) was an English journalist, who caused a sensation in 1962 when he published an autobiography, The World, The Flesh and Myself, which opened with the sentence “This is the life-history of a lover of boys.” In an England where homosexuality was still illegal and widely reviled, it was incredibly daring, but his patent honesty won people’s hearts and it was well-received then and “the twofold story of a courageous and lovable person's struggle to come to terms with his Grecian heresy and of a brilliant journalist's fight against colonial jingoism” - Arthur Koestler (author of Darkness at Noon), The Observer. One of the books that were “the only salvation and sense in my life” and “reflected my own emotional turmoil and my own circumstances.” - Stephen Fry on himself as a teenager, Moab Is My Washpot.Published now for the first time is Davidson’s last book, left unedited at his death, Sicilian Vespers, a wonderfully evocative account of life on the tiny Sicilian island where Davidson lived in the sixties. To this has been added an unfinished continuation of his memoirs, the best of his correspondence over half a century with a range of colourful characters, reminiscences of him by four of those who knew him, and a brief account of his fascinating life by the editor, Edmund Marlowe.Edmund Marlowe is the author of Alexander’s Choice, a love story set at Eton College (his old school): "Eton's homoerotic whodunnit!... It's great fun and is actually rather well written." - The Daily Mail.