I recieved a ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was a lovely collection, and perfect to read during LGBTQ+ History Month. I really appreciated that this collection wasn't a monolith: there were letters spanning a good deal of history, many of the writers were PoC and some were transgender (or would probably identify as such nowadays), although I would personally have loved more letters brushing on transgender topics. I believe all were originally written in English, which meant they were mostly confined to English-native speakers- so Brits, and Americans, but I believe that's a feature of the archive from whcih they were gathered. I would love a collection with some translated letters, so as to get a wider sample of letters cross-culturally, but I appreciate that's an extremely tall order. I also really enjoyed the letters of 'friendship,' featured here, and would love to have seen a few more of those- but I appreciate the love letters are probably were most of the dramatics lie!

This is a wonderful addition to any queer bookshelf. It's always wonderful to have concrete reminders of the old maxim, "we have always been here," and I love the emotional range in this connection- from domestic conversations (the letter between a gay couple which mentioned little things like one throwing out the other's worn shirt and doing his laundry was one of my favourites) to some extremely dramatic trysts and love triangles.. I also appreciated that many of the writers were slightly underdiscussed, or viewed from a slightly new angle- e.g. the Vita Sackville-West letter written not to Woolf but to another lover. It was also exciting to come across a George Sands letter, having just finished Briefly, A Delicious Life. And I defintiley enjoyed that they weren't all writers- of course, writers tend to write many letters and write dramatically, and famous people tend to have their letters preserved regardless of their occupation, but it was lovely to see letters from those who clearly didn't write for a living, and I appreciated that the collection left grammar and spelling errors intact where meaning could still be gleaned: there's clearly a real effort to paint as comprehensive a portrait of the queer community as possible here.

If I had one peeve, I would say I sometimes got lost in the introductions to each letter. Sometimes there's a lot of players to introduce- not just the people exhanging the letters, but third parties they're referring to- and this collection will waver between using surnames and forenames in these sections, which is tricky if you're just learning the names. I'd definitley reccomend a physical copy so you can flick back when you need to refresh on the names: I imagine this could get really frustrating in an audiobook. A similar point could probably be made about the little additional comments usually presented after the letters. I can't say I wish they weren't there, because many were fascinating, but because they were often so disjointed from the collection they did tend to break my flow a little, and I find I can't remember any of them now. Where they weren't directly relevant to the letters they came after, I think I'd rather have them expunged, or placed at the back, and have one or two letters included in their place, but that might just be personal preference.

All in all this is a wonderful collection, and I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in reading more about queer history but intimidated by historical tomes. This is readable, relatable, thought-provoking, and sorely needed right now.