The Naked Civil Servant
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
One of the most audacious and unrepentant memoirs ever written, The Naked Civil Servant chronicles the extraordinary life of Quentin Crisp — an openly effeminate gay man who walked the streets of pre-war and wartime London with paint on his face and henna in his hair, daring a hostile world to do its worst. Born Denis Charles Pratt in 1908, Crisp presents his own story with breathtaking wit and self-awareness, detailing the poverty, violence, ridicule, and unexpected tenderness he encountered as a man who refused, at any cost, to be invisible in a society determined to erase him. Set against the backdrop of a Britain still rigidly governed by class, convention, and sexual repression, his account is at once a social document and a deeply personal act of defiance. Crisp's prose is razor-sharp and laced with an irony so dry it borders on the sublime, transforming what might have been a tale of suffering into a triumphant, darkly comic manifesto on individuality. The book stands as a landmark text in LGBTQ+ literature and social history, illuminating the quiet, daily courage required to exist outside society's boundaries decades before any legal protections existed. Adapted by Thames Television into an award-winning film starring John Hurt, the story resonates far beyond its biographical origins — leaving the reader to wonder not how Crisp survived, but how the rest of the world managed without him.
Author: Quentin Crisp
Format: Paperback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: No dust jacket
Pages: Good
Condition remarks: Condition as shown in image
One of the most audacious and unrepentant memoirs ever written, The Naked Civil Servant chronicles the extraordinary life of Quentin Crisp — an openly effeminate gay man who walked the streets of pre-war and wartime London with paint on his face and henna in his hair, daring a hostile world to do its worst. Born Denis Charles Pratt in 1908, Crisp presents his own story with breathtaking wit and self-awareness, detailing the poverty, violence, ridicule, and unexpected tenderness he encountered as a man who refused, at any cost, to be invisible in a society determined to erase him. Set against the backdrop of a Britain still rigidly governed by class, convention, and sexual repression, his account is at once a social document and a deeply personal act of defiance. Crisp's prose is razor-sharp and laced with an irony so dry it borders on the sublime, transforming what might have been a tale of suffering into a triumphant, darkly comic manifesto on individuality. The book stands as a landmark text in LGBTQ+ literature and social history, illuminating the quiet, daily courage required to exist outside society's boundaries decades before any legal protections existed. Adapted by Thames Television into an award-winning film starring John Hurt, the story resonates far beyond its biographical origins — leaving the reader to wonder not how Crisp survived, but how the rest of the world managed without him.