An evening with Peter Parker, celebrating the paperback publication as a Penguin Modern Classic of Some Men in London, his two volume series on postwar queer life in London from 1945 to 1967

Drawing on diaries, letters, memoirs, and firsthand accounts, Parker offers a panoramic portrait of queer life in London from the end of the Second World War to the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1967. Across two volumes, the book captures both the danger and the vitality of a community living under constant threat, yet determined to live and love as they chose.

From well-known figures such as Francis Bacon, Joe Orton, and Kenneth Williams, to the many men whose lives unfolded in pubs, clubs, private rooms, and public spaces of encounter, Some Men in London reveals a world at once precarious and exuberant.