Edward Carpenter

Author Code: EECZ

Carpenter attended Brighton College and Trinity Hall, Cambridge and took religious orders. He resigned from the priesthood in 1874 and embarked on his writing career with the publication of his first poem, Narcissus. A confirmed socialist, Carpenter travelled to America in 1877 and befriended Walt Whitman who had a great influence on his further poetic works. Carpenter published many pamphlets and books dealing with socialist causes among which was Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure in 1889. During the trial of Oscar Wilde, he published The Intermediate Sex extolling the homosexual cause and, surprisingly, was not persecuted by the authorities.