Cecil Dreeme: A Novel

Theodore Winthrop

Published by New York University Press 2016

Cecil Dreeme

A Novel

Theodore Winthrop
With contributions by: Peter Coviello

https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479878390.001.0001

Overview
Contents

About this book

A curious gem of 19th-century gothic fiction

Cecil Dreeme is one of the queerest American novels of the 19th century. This edition, which includes a new introduction contextualizing the sexual history of the period and queer longings of the book, brings a rare, almost forgotten, sensational gothic novel set in New York’s West Village back to light.

Published posthumously in 1861, the novel centers on Robert Byng, a young man who moves back to New York after traveling abroad and finds himself unmarried and underemployed, adrift in the heathenish dens of lower Manhattan. When he takes up rooms in “Chrysalis College”—a thinly veiled version of the 19th-century New York University building in Washington Square—he quickly finds himself infatuated with a young painter lodging there, named Cecil Dreeme. As their friendship grows and the novel unfolds against the backdrop of the bohemian West Village, Robert confesses that he “loves Cecil with a love passing the love of women.” Yet, there are dark forces at work in the form of the sinister and magnetic Densdeth, a charismatic figure of bad intention, who seeks to ensnare Robert for his own. Full of romantic entanglements, mistaken identity, blackmail, and the dramas of temptation and submission, Cecil Dreeme is a gothic novel at its finest. Poetically written—with flashes of Walt Whitman, Charles Dickens, and Oscar Wilde—Cecil Dreeme is an early example of that rare bird, a queer novel from the 19th century.

Author / Editor information

Winthrop Theodore :

Theodore Winthrop (1828–1861) was a lawyer, writer, and world traveler. Cecil Dreeme is a semi-autobiographical novel, set in Washington Square and at the New York University Building where Winthrop had once been a lodger. He is also the author of the novels John Brent and Edwin Brothertoft and the travel narratives The Canoe and the Saddle and Life in the Open Air.Coviello Peter :

Peter Coviello is Department Head and Professor of English at the University of Illinois Chicago. He is the author of five books, including Make Yourselves Gods: Mormons and the Unfinished Business of American Secularism (UChicago Press, 2019) and Tomorrow’s Parties (NYU, 2013). His work Is There God After Prince? is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press in 2023.

Reviews

Cecil Dreemeis remarkable, compelling, and completely unclassifiable...This prophetic and rich novel whose very existence must be seen as surprising against the backdrop of 21st century skepticism as to the possibility of 'gay' literature in pre-modern times. It deserves the widest possible readership.

Cecil Dreemeis more than a great New York novel. It is also a key text for anybody interested in the history of gender and queerness in American thoughtnot just thought that has taken place on these shores, but the history of ideas precisely about this nation itself, its values, and its direction in history.

Heather Love,author of Feeling Backward: Loss and the Politics of Queer History:
A story of treachery and tenderness,Cecil Dreemedescribes the spiritual struggles of an impressionable young American returned from Europe to the all-male haunts of lower Manhattan. This timely reprint of the popular nineteenth-century novel recalls the queer, Gothic past of the U.S. nation-state. Peter Coviellos lively introduction describes the ambiguous pleasures of ardent comradeship in a shifting erotic and political landscape.

Lisa Duggan,New York University:
Cecil Dreeme defies easy categorization. A mid-19th century queer/trans* novel, it mixes genres and perversities as it delights in combining Whitmanesque rhapsody with gothic dread, Wildean cosmopolitan seductions with very American scenes. This beguiling literary treasure provides us all with material for queer pleasure and pedagogy.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
A Note on the Fales Library Marvin J. Taylor Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction: Peculiar Tendernesses: Cecil Dreeme and the Queer Nineteenth Century Peter Coviello Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Biographical Sketch of the Author: From the Original 1861 Edition George William Curtis Publicly Available Download PDF	xxi
1. Stillfleet and His News Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Chrysalis College Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	8
3. Rubbish Palace Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	14
4. The Palace and Its Neighbors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
5. Churm against Densdeth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	32
6. Churm as Cassandra Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	47
7. Churm’s Story Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	53
8. Clara Denman, Dead Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
9. Locksley’s Scare Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
10. Overhead, Without Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	80
11. Overhead, Within Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
12. Dreeme, Asleep Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	88
13. Dreeme, Awake Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	97
14. A Mild Orgie Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	105
15. A Morning with Densdeth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	113
16. Emma Denman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
17. A Morning with Cecil Dreeme Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
18. Another Cassandra Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	150
19. Can This Be Love? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
20. A Nocturne Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
21. Lydian Measures Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	179
22. A Laugh and a Look Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	186
23. A Parting Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	192
24. Fame Awaits Dreeme Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	199
25. Churm before Dreeme’s Picture Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	207
26. Towner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	216
27. Raleigh’s Revolt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
28. Densdeth’s Farewell Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	232
29. Dreeme His Own Interpreter Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	242
30. Densdeth’s Dark Room Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	265

Language: English
Publisher: New York University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;

eBook

Published: April 22, 2016
ISBN: 9781479878390