Delving into three hundred years of Chinese literature, from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-nineteenth, "The Libertine s Friend" uncovers the complex and fascinating history of male homosexual and homosocial relations in the late imperial era. Drawing particularly on overlooked works of pornographic fiction, Giovanni Vitiello offers a frank exploration of the importance of same-sex love and eroticism to the evolution of masculinity in China.
Vitiello s story unfolds chronologically, beginning with the earliest sources on homoeroticism in pre-imperial China and concluding with a...