Secret Historian
The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade

Quotes

“Astonishing…The probity and expansive vision of Spring’s work is a reminder that a great, outspread terrain of gay history remains to be mapped.” New York Times Book Review

“This is a rich and exuberant biography of a man who deserves to be better known.” Economist

“Justin Spring’s jaw-dropping Secret Historian reads like a novel probing a lifelong rebel’s courage, creativity, and ultimate sadness…Spring has reconstituted Steward, as Phil Andros might say, in flesh and blood and all sorts of bodily fluids.” San Francisco Chronicle

“Life in the closet proves boisterous indeed in this biography of an iconic figure of the pre-Stonewall gay demimonde…Spring’s sympathetic and entertaining story of a life registers the limitations imposed on homosexuals by a repressive society, but also celebrates the creativity and daring with which Steward tested them.” Publishers Weekly 

“Can a secret sex diary furnish an artistic legacy as meaningful as Emily Dickinson’s sewn-up bundles of poems, or the piles of paintings Theo van Gogh inherited after his brother’s premature demise? Samuel Steward may never have imagined it, but his erotic history raises the question…[This] extensive documentation—and the miraculous rescue of that documentation, recounted in the book’s preface—left his biographer material to reconstruct an emblematic homosexual life.” Harper’s

“A fascinating biography…[Steward] tackled life with awe-inspiring abandon.” Details

“Justin Spring documents the extraordinary life of one of Kinsey’s crucial gay witnesses, and reading Secret Historian is like reading Kinsey dramatized…A brave, fly-on-the-wall account of American homosexual subculture and persecution.” Martin Stannard, author of Evelyn Waugh and Muriel Spark: The Biography 

“A true page-turner—and a memorable act of historical reclamation. Sammy Steward is all but unknown except by a handful of historians, but Justin Spring’s lively biography…should put Sammy on the map, which is where he decidedly belongs.” Martin Duberman, author of Cures: A Gay Man’s Odyssey 

“Secret Historian is a startlingly, unforgettably vivid glimpse into a life—and a world—that few of us can imagine.”  Terry Teachout, author of Pops: A Life of Louis Armstrong 

“Samuel Steward, secret sexual historian, is a secret no longer…A major achievement.” Langdon Hammer, author of Hart Crane and Allen Tate 

Awards

• Amazon Best Books of the Year
• New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books
• Lambda Literary Award
• National Book Award