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If you want to get an excellent biography of Edward Carpenter you can do no better than to obtain Sheila Rowbotham's "Edward Carpenter - A Life of Liberty and Love".

It is a detailed but readable book which captures Carpenter's style and spirit.

The Edward Carpenter Archive
A web-based archive of works by Edward Carpenter, famous for his thoughts on on spirituality, sexuality and socialism.

Books |Pamphlets | Music | Unpublished Works



My New Youtube Channel - switchingview

In March 2023 I launched a new project building up on Edward Carpenter's work. It is a youtube channel called switchingview.

The channel will host videos on the history of homosexuality, especially the history of homosexuality in relation to the Christian Church. I want to push back against Christian patriarchal and heteronormative views, and instead argue that the world, and the Bible, is much more strange, sexual and queer than many people think.

I will not just look at history. I will also ask how we study history, and how do we tell stories from the "underside" of history - stories that have been lost, or suppressed, by those in power.

The first project is called "Intermediate Types", and is very much inspired by Carpenter's ideas in his 1914 book Intermediate Types amongst Primitive Folk. Other projects will follow in due course.

The first video was uploaded in March 2023. This is simply a video-biography of Edward Carpenter himself. Such a video will be a helpful background to my own work. "Intermediate Type" videos will be uploaded through 2023 and 2024.

Go to the switching view channel for more details, or the associated switching view website.


Introduction

Using the Carpenter Archive

Notes about the Archive - how to browse the site and find the document you want

Bibliography

A listing of Carpenter's Writing - Books, pamphlets, music and letters

Video Biography

A Youtube video detailing Carpenter's life and work

Biographical Note

A short guide to Carpenter's life, written by Philip Taylor.

Carpenter Site Search

Search for Key Words in the On-Line Carpenter Archive.




MAIN INDEX

Books |Pamphlets |Music | Unpublished Works

Part 1 - BOOKS

My Days and Dreams - (Edward Carpenter's Autobiography)
Towards Democracy
Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning
Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk
The Intermediate Sex
Anthology of Friendship - Iolaus

My Days and Dreams - (Edward Carpenter's Autobiography)

Text used on website - First Edition - 1916

Title Page and Preface

bibliographic information and list of illustrations

Chapter 1

Brighton

Chapter 2

My Parents

Chapter 3

Cambridge

Chapter 4

University Extension and Northern Towns

Chapter 5

Bradway and Towards Democracy

Chapter 6

Manual Work and Market Gardening

Chapter 7

Sheffield and Socialism

Chapter 8

Trade and Philosophy

Chapter 9

Millthorpe and Household Life

Chapter 10

Millthorpiana

Chapter 11

The Story of My Books

Chapter 12

Personalities - I

Chapter 13

Personalities - II

Chapter 14

London and Lectures

Chapter 15

Translations and Translators

Chapter 16

Rural Conditions

Chapter 17

How the World Looks at Seventy

Appendix 1

Appendix 1 - Congratulatory Letter and Reply

Appendix II

Appendix 2 - Bibliography


Towards Democracy

Text used on website - Complete Edition. 18th Impresion. 5th Edition. Reset with a foreward by Gilbert Beith. London, George Allen and Unwin, 1949.

Title Page, Foreward, and Bibliographic Information

-

Extracts from Towards Democracy

Selected extracts from parts 1 to 4

A Note on "Towards Democracy"

By Edward Carpenter - Reprinted from The Labour Prophet (May 1894)


Pagan and Christian Creeds: Their Origin and Meaning

Text used on website - First Edition - 1920

Title Page

Bibliographic information

Chapter 1

Introductory

Chapter 2

Solar Myths and Christian Festivals

Chapter 3

The Symbolism of the Zodiac

Chapter 4

Totem-Sacraments and Eucharists

Chapter 5

Food and Vegetation Magic

Chapter 6

Magicians, Kings and Gods

Chapter 7

Rites of Expiation and Redemption

Chapter 8

Pagan Initiations and the Second Birth

Chapter 9

Myth of the Golden Age

Chapter 10

The Saviour-God and the Virgin-Mother

Chapter 11

Ritual Dancing

Chapter 12

The Sex-Taboo

Chapter 13

The Genesis of Christianity

Chapter 14

The Meaning of it All

Chapter 15

The Ancient Mysteries

Chapter 16

The Exodus of Christianity

Chapter 17

Conclusion

Appendix I

On the Teaching of the Upanishads, part 1 - Rest

Appendix II

On the Teaching of the Upanishads, part 2 - The Nature of the Self


Intermediate Types among Primitive Folk

Text used on website - American edition. New York, Mitchell Kennerley, 1914.

Title Page and Introduction

Including bibliographic information

Part 1 - The Intermediate in the Service of Religion

Chapter 1

As Prophet or Priest

Chapter 2

As Wizard or Witch

Chapter 3

As Inventors of the Arts and Crafts

Chapter 4

Hermaphrodism

Part 2 - The Intermediate as Warrior

Chapter 5

Military Comradeship among the Dorian Greeks

Chapter 6

The Dorian Comradeship in Relation to the Status of Woman

Chapter 7

It's Relation to Civic Life and Religion

Chapter 8

The Samurai of Japan: and Their Ideal

Chapter 9

Conclusion


The Intermediate Sex

Text used on website - London, George Allen & Unwin, 1930 reprint.

Title Page and Introduction

-

Chapter 1

Introductory

Chapter 2

The Intermediate Sex

Chapter 3

The Homogenic Attachment

Chapter 4

Affection in Education

Chapter 5

The Place of the Uranian in Society

Appendix

-


Anthology of Friendship - Iolaus

Text used on website - Third edition. Title changed to Anthology of Friendship (Iolaus). Published by George Allen & Unwin, 1915.

Title Page and Preface

Including bibliographic information

Chapter 1

Friendship Customs in the Pagan and Early World

Chapter 2

The Place of Friendship in Greek Life and Thought

Chapter 3

Poetry of Friendship among Greeks and Romans

Chapter 4

Friendship in Christian and early mediaeval times

Chapter 5

The Renaissance and Modern Times

Additions [1906]

Supplements to earlier chapters, added in the enlarged Third Edition - 1906




Part 2 - PAMPHLETS

Towards Industrial Freedom

My next project is a few chapters from "Towards Industrial Freedom", a book collecting various Carpenter pamphlets together. Carpenter's thoughts on British Aristocracy and the financial structure of British agricultural life seem strangely relevant.

This is a sample

BRITISH ARISTOCRACY AND THE HOUSE OF LORDS

IT has often been said that our victory at Waterloo was a great misfortune to England; and in general terms the truth of this remark can hardly be gainsaid. Our successes as against the armies of the French Revolution certainly kept the current of new human forces and ideas associated with that movement at a distance, and warded it off from our shores. The feudal system, broken down and disorganised all over the Continent by Napoleon, preserved its old tradition in these islands. And one consequence has been that, in the matters of our Land-system and our Aristocracy, we are now a hundred years behind the rest of Western Europe.

Our land-system, with its large estates breeding a servile and poor-spirited population of tenantry and farm laborers, has had the effect of clogging and depressing British agriculture-to such a degree, indeed, that the latter has become a thing despised and neglected by our-selves and derided by our neighbors. And our Aristocracy has developed to so monstrous and importunate a form that, like some huge parasite, it threatens disease and ruin to the organism upon which it has fastened. It is with the latter trouble that I am at this moment concerned.

What has changed??




Part 3 - MUSIC

Edward Carpenter is best known today for his writings, and for his courageously honest gay lifestyle.

Carpenter is rarely thought of as a musician or composer, yet a search through the Carpenter Archive in Sheffield, or a quick glance through the bibliography, will show that Carpenter left behind a quantity of both published and unpublished music.



MEDITATION - Composed by Carpenter


The Carpenter's Music web-page attempts to bring Carpenter's music to wider notice, initially as downloadable soundfiles, and hopefully later in downloadable sheet music for your own performance.

If you are interested in Carpenter's music please get in touch.



Part 4 - UNPUBLISHED WORKS

Through this website I am occasionally made aware of various interesting but unpublished documents by or about Edward Carpenter. The most important document in this section is probably Carpenter's biography of his partner and lover George Merril. Other letters and texts may also be of interest, however, and fill small gaps in what we know about the man and his life.

If you are aware of any document that could be put on-line in this section then please get in touch.

George Merrill -
a true history, & study in psychology

Carpenter's own biography and pen-portrait of George Merrill - the story of how they met, a description of Merrill's early life, and a good source document for social historians keen to learn about life for a young and attractive gay man in the slums of a Victorian northern town.


A letter from Alfred Carpenter

A letter to Edward Carpenter from his younger brother Alfred - written in 1916 and containing Alfred's thoughts and comments after reading My Days and Dreams. The letter was found inside a copy of My Days and Dreams which appears to have been owned by Gilbert Beith.




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