Unspeakable: A Life beyond Sexual Morality is a 2020 biography of British writer Norman Douglas (1868-1952) written by American historian Rachel Hope Cleves.Ponzio, Alessio. Review of Unspeakable: A Life Beyond Sexual Morality, by Rachel Hope Cleves. Canadian Journal of History, vol. 56 no. 2, 2021, p. 209-211. Project MUSE. It focuses on Douglas's pedophilia, stating, "In 1923, when he was fifty-four years old, the writer Norman Douglas boasted that he'd had sex with eleven hundred virgins", both boys and girls. "By present standards he was a monster. During his lifetime he was considered a great man," even though "[e]veryone" "knew about his sexual life.... He was a central figure in literary circles all the same".Unspeakable, p. 1. Unspeakable examines the change in attitudes toward pedophilia.
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