This free, self-guided one-hour audio trail reveals the rich and often radical history of LGBTQ+ Cambridge. Explore the city’s long-forgotten queer spaces and places, guided by the memories of queer people and queer Cambridge writing by the likes of E.M. Forster, Edward Carpenter, and Ali Smith.

Get the audio file and maps here!

Who we are

Created by Dr Diarmuid Hester
updated 2023

Dr Diarmuid Hester is a radical cultural historian, writer, and performer based in Cambridge, England. Diarmuid grew up in County Kilkenny, Ireland. He studied English and French at University College Dublin, before coming to the UK to study for Master’s degrees in English (University of Sussex) and philosophy (Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy). He received his PhD in English literature from the University of Sussex. Diarmuid has held research fellowships at New York University, the Library of Congress, and the University of Oxford, as well as the Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in English at the University of Cambridge.

Produced by David Bramwell
Funded by a University Diversity Fund Award
Supported by the Faculty of English and lgbtQ+​@cam

Get in touch

We would love your feedback on A Great Recorded History. Get in touch:

Diarmuid Hester: @dehester | diarmuidhester@icloud.com​
lgbtQ+​@cam: @lgbtqcam

Suggested Further Reading: Queer Cambridge in Literature

•    Appiah, Anthony. Avenging Angel. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991.

•    Brookes, Les. Gay Male Fiction After Stonewall: Ideology, Conflict, and Aesthetics. London: Routledge, 2009.

•    Carpenter, Edward. My Days and Dreams, Being Autobiographical Fragments. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1916.

•    Chainey, Graham. A Literary History of Cambridge. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.

•    Chapman, Graham. A Liar’s Autobiography: Volume VII. London: Eyre Methuen, 1980.

•    Duncker, Patricia. Hallucinating Foucault. London: Picador, 1996.

•    Forster, E. M. Maurice. London: Penguin Classics, 2005.

•    Fry, Stephen. The Liar. London: William Heinemann, 1991.

•    Hall, Radclyffe. The Well of Loneliness, with an Introduction by Alison Hennegan. London: Virago, 1982.

•    Harris, Pippa, ed. Song of Love: The Letters of Rupert Brooke and Noel Olivier. London: Bloomsbury, 1991.

•    Isherwood, Christopher. Lions and Shadows: An Education in the Twenties. London: Methuen & Co., 1953.

•    Maugham, Robin. Escape from the Shadows: Robin Maugham, His Autobiography. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1972.

•    Palmer, Paulina. The Queer Uncanny: New Perspectives on the Gothic. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2012.

•    Smith, Ali. Like. London: Virago, 1997.

•    Worsley, T.C. Fellow Travellers: A Memoir of the Thirties. London: London Magazine Editions, 1971.