“We can begin with a kiss, though this will not turn out to be a love story, at least not a love story of anything like the usual kind.” So begins A Very Queer Family Indeed, which introduces us to the extraordinary Benson family. Edward White Benson became Archbishop of Canterbury at the height of Queen Victoria’s reign, while his wife, Mary, was renowned for her wit and charm—the prime minister once wondered whether she was “the cleverest woman in England or in Europe.” The couple’s six precocious children included E. F. Benson, celebrated creator of the Mapp and Lucia novels, and Margaret Benson, the first published female Egyptologist. What interests Simon Goldhill most, however, is what went on behind the scenes, which was even more unusual than anyone could imagine. Inveterate writers, the Benson family spun out novels, essays, and thousands of letters that open stunning new perspectives—including what it might mean for an adult to kiss and propose marriage to a twelve-year-old girl, how religion in a family could support or destroy relationships, or how the death of a child could be celebrated. No other family has left such detailed records about their most intimate moments, and in these remarkable accounts, we see how family life and a family’s understanding of itself took shape during a time when psychoanalysis, scientific and historical challenges to religion, and new ways of thinking about society were developing. This is the story of the Bensons, but it is also more than that—it is the story of how society transitioned from the high Victorian period into modernity.
Simon Goldhill is professor of Greek and the director of the Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities at the University of Cambridge. A fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, he is the author of many books, including Freud’s Couch, Scott’s Buttocks, Brontë’s Grave; How to Stage Greek Tragedy Today; and Love, Sex & Tragedy: How the Ancient World Shapes Our Lives, all also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Part I: The Family That Wrote Itself 1 Sensation! 2 Wooing Mother 3 Bringing Up the Subject 4 Fifty Ways to Say I Hate My Father 5 Tell the Truth, My Boy 6 A Map of Biographical Urges 7 To Write a Life 8 Women in Love 9 Graphomania Part II: Being Queer 10 What’s in a Name? 11 Though Wholly Pure and Good 12 He Never Married 13 All London Is Agog 14 Carnal Affections 15 Be a Man, My Boy 16 “It’s Not Unusual . . .” Part III: The God of Our Fathers 17 It Will Be Worth Dying 18 The Deeper Self That Can’t Decide 19 Our Father 20 Secret History 21 Writing the History of the Church 22 Building History 23 Forms of Worship 24 Capturing the Bensons Part IV: Not I . . . 25 Not I . . . Bibliography and Notes Acknowledgments
