Glances Backward — Glances Forward

Abstract

The first openly gay detective novel, one of the first overtly homosexual fictions published by a British press, and possibly the most popular fiction in the 1950s about male same-sex desire, The Heart in Exile (1953), was written under the pseudonym Rodney Garland. The author’s identity has sparked debates since the very first publication of the novel. Although it seems to be the common consensus that the novel was written by Hungarian journalist Adam de Hegedus, there are disputes about the person of the real author and the authorship of the Garland series. This paper first addresses these questions of authorship. Then, it moves on to argue that the novelty of The Heart in Exile in the early 1950s was the juxtaposition of glancing backward and forward, with emphasis on the novel’s treatment and uses of prior literary discourse.

Keywords

• Gay detective novel
• homosexual fiction
• Garland series