The New Life

A magnificent and daring novel of unconventional love and new ways to live, set in fin de si cle London

In the summer of 1894, John Addington and Henry Ellis decide to write a revolutionary book. They will argue that homosexuality is not a perversion, and that the law – which makes all sexual activity between men a crime – is wrong and must be changed. Such a book has never been written before, and to publish it will be to wage war on conventional morality. John has been married to Catherine for twenty-five years, and is the father of three daughters, but has spent his life trying to accept and understand his desires for men. John meets and falls in love with Frank, a young working-class printer. Henry is married to Edith, who has recently met and fallen in love with Angelica, a young woman who wants Edith all for herself. These two Victorian marriages, each altered irrevocably by the unanticipated introduction of a third person, are stalked by guilt and shame. They are also shaped and put under pressure by new ideas about sex, social equality, the role of women and the right to deviate from the norm.

When Oscar Wilde is arrested and put on trial for homosexuality in the spring of 1895, John and Henry have to choose whether or not to go ahead with their book. Is now the best or the worst moment to make the argument that sex between men should not be a crime? Faced with the consequences of their choice, they and the people around them are forced to consider another question- what price is worth paying for a new way of living? The New Life – very loosely based on the experiences of John Addington Symonds and Havelock Ellis, co-authors of the first book in English about homosexuality – captures a generation in the process of discovering the nature and limits of personal freedom, struggling to create a better world as the twentieth century comes into view.