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Michael Field
Description:

Publishing under the pseudonym Michael Field, Katherine Harris Bradley and her niece Edith Emma Cooper published both plays and poetry in 19th century Britain. They published 27 plays, as well as 8 books of poetry which discussed themes of gender roles, family relations, and same sex relationships.

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METHINKS my love to thee doth grow,       And this the sign:    I see the spirit claim thee,    And do not blame thee, Nor break intrusive on the Holy Ground,    Where thou of God art found.       I watch the fire     Leap up, and do not bring
Michael Field
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Atthis, my darling, thou did'st stray A few feet to the rushy bed, When a great fear and passion shook My heart lest haply thou wert dead; It grew so still about the brook, As if a soul were drawn away. My darling! Nay, our very breath Nor light nor darkness shall divide;
Christina Rossetti
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HEAR now a curious dream I dreamed last night, Each word whereof is weighed and sifted truth.   I stood beside Euphrates while it swelled Like overflowing Jordan in its youth : It waxed and coloured sensibly to sight ; Till out of myriad pregnant waves there welled Young crocodiles, a gaunt blunt-featured crew,
Charlotte Mew
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My heart is lame with running after yours so fast Such a long way, Shall we walk slowly home, looking at all the things we passed Perhaps to-day? Home down the quiet evening roads under the quiet skies, Not saying much, You for a moment giving me your eyes
Anonymous
Description:

My Secret Life is an anonymous memoir chronicling "Walter's" experiences with sex and sexuality in Victorian England. It is an enormous work, compiling over 4,000 pages and is known for its obsessive fixation with sex and incredibly detailed accounts of one man's sexual encounters throughout his life. Because it was published anonymously, it is difficult to discern how much of the work is fact and how much is fiction, thus making it easy for many perhaps dub My Secret Life as nothing more than possibly the longest erotic novel ever written. However, it's unapologetic descriptions of the hidden aspects of Victorian life such as sex, prostitutes, and fetishes is unparalleled, and gives the reader valuable insight into the side of Victorian life that was often swept under the rug, so to speak. 

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Some years have passed away since I penned the foregoing, and it is not printed. I have since gone through abnormal phases of amatory life, have done and seen things, had tastes and letches which years ago I thought were the dreams of erotic mad-men; these are all described, the manuscript has grown into unmanageable bulk, shall it, can it be printed?
Amy Levy
Description:

Amy Levy poem originally sent as a love poem to Violet Paget (a.k.a. Vernon Lee).

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I. SHE, who so long has lain   Stone-stiff with folded wings, Within my heart again   The brown bird wakes and sings. Brown nightingale, whose strain   Is heard by day, by night, She sings of joy and pain,   Of sorrow and delight. II. 'Tis true,—in other days
Radclyffe Hall
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If not from Phaon I must hope for ease, Ah ! let me seek it from the raging seas : To raging seas unpitied I'll remove; And either cease to live or cease to love. Ovid's Heroic Epistle, XV. Immortal Lesbian! canst thou still behold From some far sphere wherein thy soul doth sing
A.E. Housman
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Oh were he and I together   Shipmates on the fleeted main, Sailing through the summer weather   To the spoil of France or Spain. Oh were he and I together,   Locking hands and taking leave, Low upon the trampled heather   In the battle lost at eve.
Isaac Baker Brown
Description:

In the excerpt from his detailed book On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy and Hysteria in Females, Isaac Baker Brown provides "evidence" that explains why his cliterechtomy procedures in the mid-1800s were advantageous. He describes female masturbation and clitoral stimulation as "abnormal excitement" and he seems to be rather threatened by the notion that Victorian women are potentially "plagued" by sexual desire. The coded language regarding masturbation displays Brown's discomfort with the whole ordeal and the introductory chapter provides insight into his attempts at rationalizing his method of treatment.  His misogynistic perception of women shines through when he states that he cannot possibly discuss the "numerous varieties of insanity and other nervous disorders to which females are liable," yet he seems frightened that this "abnormal irritation of a nerve centre" could lead to the sexual downfall of men (Brown, 2).  

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As the title of this book implies, I do not intend to occupy the attention of my readers with all the numerous varieties of insanity and other nervous disorders to which females are liable, but only those which I believe to be curable by surgical means.
Charlotte Mew
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We passed each other, turned and stopped for half an hour, then went our way, I who make other women smile did not make you-- But no man can move mountains in a day. So this hard thing is yet to do. But first I want your life:--before I die I want to see
John Gambril Nicholson
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He has given himself to me, And he class me his at last. All's well that is to be, And all is well that is past. Long we counted the cost, We tested well the ground, And when all for Love was lost Then all in Love was found. Goodbye to days of doubt
Anges Mary Frances Robinson
Description:

Anges Mary Frances Robinson expresses her admiration of a woman through the process of plants growing tall and beautiful in the Spring. 

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The wind blows down the dusty street; And through my soul that grieves-  It brings a sudden odour sweet: A smell of popular leaves.  O leaves the herald in the spring, O freshness young and pure, Into my weary soul you bring The vigor to endure
Agnes Mary Frances Robinson
Description:

Agnes Mary Frances Robinson's poem describes her attempting to woo a female lover with flowers. However, a man swoops in and gives her better flowers instead.

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Agnes Mary Francis Robinson
Description:

Agnes Mary Francis Robinson published this poem in An Italian Garden: a Book of Songs in 1886. The poem describes a lost love, between two women, and how the author hopes that her love will remember her after she dies.

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O night of death, O night that bringest all,   Night full of dreams and large with promises,   O night that holdest on thy shadowy knees Sleep for all fevers, hope for every thrall; Bring thou to her for whom I wake and call,   Bring her when I am dead, for memories,
Agnes Mary Frances Robinson
Description:

Agnes Mary Frances Robinson published this sonnet within a book of sonnets written while she was in a relationship with Vernon Lee (Violet Piaget). In the poem she describes keeping her distance from her lover in order to keep their relationship a secret. 

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GIVE me, O friend, the secret of thy heart    Safe in my breast to hide, So that the leagues which keep our lives apart     May not our souls divide.
Aubrey Beardsley & Oscar Wilde
Description:

After Salomé was published in 1893 The Pall Mall Budget asked Aubrey Beardsley to create a series of illustrations in response to the play. Most of the illustrations (sixteen in all) were censored and had to be redrawn, the original versions not allowed to be published until the 1907 edition of Oscar Wilde's play. The illustrations featured here are: 2. Title Page, 14. The Dancer's Reward, 15. The Climax. 

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THE VOICE OF SALOME: Ah! I have kissed thy mouth, Iokannan, I  have kissed thy mouth. There was a bitter taste on thy lips. Was it the taste of blood? . . . Nay; but perchance it was the taste of love. . . . They say love hath a bitter taste. . . . But what matter? what matter? I have kissed thy mouth, Iokannan, I have  kissed thy mouth.
Algernon Charles Swinburne
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ALL the night sleep came not upon my eyelids, Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather, Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron   Stood and beheld me. Then to me so lying awake a vision Came without sleep over the seas and touched me, Softly touched mine eyelids and lips ; and I too,   Full of the vision,
A.E. Housman
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Shake hands, we shall never be friends, it's all over; I only vex you the more I try. All's wrong that ever I've done or said, And nought to help it in this dull head: Shake hands, here's luck, good-bye. But if you come to a road where danger Or guilt or anguish or shame's to share, Be good to the lad that loves you true
Lord Alfred Douglas
Description:

Lord Alfred Douglas is addressing the wait for day to end so that he can see his lover, who is a man. He can only be with this man at night because they have to hide their love from the rest of society due to the fact that homosexuality was illegal.

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Will the hot sun never die?     He shines too bright, too long. How slow the hours creep by!     Will the thrush never finish her song? She is singing too merrily.
Amy Levy
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MY Love, my Love, it was a day in June A mellow, drowsy, golden afternoon ; And all the eager people thronging came To that great hall, drawn by the magic name Of one, a high magician, who can raise The spirits of the past and future days, And draw the dreams from out the secret breast, Giving them life and shape.
Christina Rossetti
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Song. I have loved you for long long years Ellen, On you has my heart been set I have loved you for long patient years, But you do not love me yet. Oh that the sun that rose that day Had never and never set, When I wooed and you did not turn away, Tho' you could not leave me yet. I lay lands and gold at your feet Ellen,
Havelock Ellis
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The analysis of these cases leads directly up to a question of the first importance: What is sexual inversion? Is it, as many would have us believe, an abominably acquired vice, to be stamped out by the prison? or is it, as a few assert, a beneficial variety of human emotion which should be tolerated or even fostered?
Havelock Ellis
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Westphal, an eminent professor of psychiatry at Berlin, may be said to have been the first to put the study of sexual inversion on an assured scientific basis.  In 1870 he published in the Archiv für Psychiatrie, of which he was for many years editor, the detailed history of a young woman who, from her earliest years, was sexually inverted.