My Love Is Like All Lovely Things (book)
My Love Is Like All Lovely Things is a 2022 anthology by C. Caunter of the work of one of history's major boy-love poets, Edwin Emmanuel Bradford, which includes exhaustive analysis of his life and work.
Bradford’s poetry is exhilaratingly fresh, original, joyful and touching. It is a self-assured, unapologetic affirmation of what is good and beautiful, making it very relevant to readers today. This anthology draws on the entirety of his poetic output and includes the first in-depth look at his life and work, addressing questions such as how his boy-love poetry could have been received so favourably in early-20th-century Britain.[1]
Author
Edwin Emmanuel Bradford (1860–1944) was one of the Uranians, that group of late-Victorian and early-20th-century poets and prose writers who, often taking inspiration from classical Greece, sang the praises of the love between boys and men and advocated its rehabilitation in society. Virtually his entire poetic body of work – twelve volumes that appeared between 1908 and 1930 – is dedicated openly to this theme. Rather than looking back to classical antiquity, it is rooted largely in his own time and experience.[1]
His work sings "the praises of the love between boys and men and advocated its rehabilitation. "[2]
Excerpt
When I Went A-Walking
When I went a-walking
In the morning fair,
I met three boys a-running,
And one had golden hair:
Curly locks were they,
Like little rings of light.
I thought of him all day,
And I dreamed of him all night.
When I went a-walkingIn the noonday glare,
I met three boys a-bathing
And the form of one was fair:
Snowy white, like may,
Yet rosy 'neath the white.
I thought of him all day,
And I dreamed of him all night.
When I went a-walkingIn the evening air,
I saw three boys a-coming:
Two went I know not where.
But one went not away
For that I held him tight;
I'll work with him all day,
And dream of him all night.
