The Green Carnation (eBook), Robert Hichens

Description

The Green Carnation (1894) is a dazzling, satirical queer classic that skewers the aesthetic movement of fin-de-siècle London. At the center of the novel is the beautiful and self-consciously decadent Lord Reginald “Reggie” Hastings, whose every gesture is a performance of artifice, wit, and sensuality. When he encounters Lady Locke, a worldly young widow returning from life abroad, their conversations—full of paradoxes, poses, and flirtatious provocation—reveal a society obsessed with appearance and terrified of sincerity.

Filled with sharp dialogue, theatrical personalities, and decadent situations, The Green Carnation was widely understood by contemporaries as a thinly veiled commentary on Oscar Wilde and the aesthetic world surrounding him. The novel’s bold portrayal of unconventional masculinity, queer-coded desire, and “wickedness as art” scandalized polite society and still fascinates modern readers.

Today, the book stands as an important artifact of queer literary history—not because it hides its queerness, but because it flaunts it through irony, exquisite language, and fearless performance. This free Queerazon edition makes a long-neglected classic accessible again for readers interested in LGBTQ+ literary heritage, Wildean decadence, and queer modernism.