Reviewed by Dan

TITLE:    Scandal on Cleveland Sreet

AUTHOR:     R. J. Russell

PUBLISHER:  Self-Published

LENGTH:     100 Pages

BLURB:

In July1889 a scandal broke that was to shake the British establishment to its core. A teenage telegram delivery lad, Charles Swinscow, who worked for the Central Telegraph Office, was originally investigated with regards to monetary theft when he was found to have 18 shillings on him. It was a company ruling that telegram lads were not allowed to carry any of their own money. In order to prove his innocence he had to justify where the 18 shillings came from. The story he gave to the investigating officers was to send shock waves out into Parliament, the aristocracy and even the Royal Family.

Charles Swinscow related a tale of how he had been recruited by a senior telegram office employee to participate as a prostitute in a male brothel in London’s Cleveland Street. Clients ranged from professional men, through to senior members of the establishment and even up to, allegedly, Prince Albert Victor, grandson of Queen Victoria and heir to the throne.

What you will read here is a fictionalized account based on the known facts of Charlie’s life as a brothel boy, from first recruitment through to having to justify the origin of those fateful 18 shillings.

REVIEW:

It had been a while since I picked up a historical fiction, and I’m not sure why. I really enjoyed this read. In “Scandal on Cleveland Street” R.J. Russell introduces us to a true life story about a telegraph delivery boy in London in the late 1880’s. Although this book is a work of fiction, it is based on the facts of a true event that happened in London in 1889 which rocked British society and rumor has it, even the Royal Family.

In the book, we are introduced to Charlie Swinscow, a seventeen year old lad who has gotten a job delivering telegrams for the Central Telegraph Office. In those days much of the communications were sent via telegram and they all needed to be delivered, so boys were hired to be runners. All is well with Charlie’s new job. He is making a decent wage, plus tips, and is able to start contributing to his family’s expenses.

But when Charlie is delivering a telegram one day, and the man receiving the telegram appears in his robe, and it comes open…displaying the man’s hairy body and his sizeable endowment, Charlie begins to have strange feelings. When he later meets up with the man in a dark city park, Charlie realizes what those feelings are!

When he is approached by a senior telegram office employee, Henry Newlove, Charlie is recruited into an underworld of male prostitution, running out of a house at 19 Cleveland Street. As Charlie becomes more involved, his life will never be the same.

I loved the historical aspects of the story, the fact that the people and places were true, and that the story was embellished with some fiction to make it more readable. It was a very interesting read, and I read it straight through without a break. I really liked the Epilogue which told the facts from the actual story, including the fact that it was such a scandal that all the numbers were changed on the houses on Cleveland Street afterwards so that no one would know where #19 once was! Those Victorian era Brits were such prudes by day…but not so much by night!

It is amazing where we are now compared to where gay or bisexual men were in the 19^th Century. I highly recommend the book to anyone who enjoys a true historical gay story, with just a little bit of fiction.  A final note, this book is self-published and I’m not familiar with the author, but I have to tell you it is one of the best edited and proofread self-published works I’ve read in a while.  Great Job!  I’m granting it a 5.0 because in addition to that perfect editing, it really did intrigue me.

RATING:

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