The Boy Problem, Chivalric Same-Sex Love, and Uranian Children's Literature

Late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century English writings on the “boy problem” expressed the sense that parents and educators were failing both working-class and upper-class boys, and this concern with the state of boyhood provides a critical context for understanding Uranian children’s literature. Several of the central figures in the early gay movement in England wrote fiction specifically for and about youth and offered commentary on how intimate or romantic friendships between boys could foster good character and social improvement. Major statements by thinkers affiliated with the early gay movement about how chivalric same-sex bonds between men and boys or between youths could resolve the boy problem are surveyed, and Uranian children’s literature is situated in the broader context of late-Victorian and Edwardian boys’ adventure and school fiction as genres designed to inspire and influence readers .