Modern Editions

Love’s
Coming‑of‑Age

Edward Carpenter
Edited & introduced by Tomas Figueroa

First published in 1896, Love’s Coming-of-Age is Carpenter’s bold, lyrical argument for reimagining how people love, written openly about same-sex love when almost no one dared. It cost him: in the fear that followed the Oscar Wilde trials, his publisher cancelled the contract, and his most daring work on the subject, the essay “Homogenic Love and Its Place in a Free Society,” was too dangerous to print openly and passed for years from hand to hand in private.

More than a century later the hope still burns. This Modern Edition restores the text, adds a new introduction, and brings that once-suppressed essay back to general readers alongside it.