The Naked Civil Servant

My father hated me chiefly because I was revolting but also because I was expensive. Dates are important, ask any camel. Quentin Crisp was born in 1908. This funny and truly outrageous autobiography was published in 1968. Quentin was the Oscar of his day, and this book is stuffed with Wildeish observ......more

Sting [Gordon Sumner] dedicated his song "Englishman in New York" (1987) to Crisp. He had remarked jokingly "that he looked forward to receiving his naturalisation papers so that he could commit a crime and not be deported." In late 1986 Sting visited Crisp in his apartment and was told over dinner......more

The humour here is of the sort where one has to laugh at adversity. The bullies and bigots are defied and resisted by making jokes. One survives by being stronger and somewhat detached, and that can mean acting the fool. Crisp was a clown, a jester, but also a wise village elder. Even so, there are......more

Quentin Crisp is a delightful, smart and engaging man and his book is an entertaining, funny as well as tragic, insight into what it was like to be flamboyantly gay in the early part of the twentieth century. It's a fabulous story of a very brave man who stuck by his ideals and refused to be anythin......more

There’s an old English expression: “he does go on about the price of fish.” Basically it means someone is holding long discourse on a subject that no one else is particularly interested in. It’s a phrase which came to mind as I read Quentin Crisps’s autobiography, his great subject being himself and......more