Twilight of the gods: John Henry Mackay's Der Unschuldige

The writings of the Scotch-German John Henry Mackay are important for the early cultural history of the modern gay movement. This article recalls this unjustly neglected anarchist writer and advocate of man/boy love by tracing his biography and pointing out his contacts with others in the movement. His late novella Der Unschuldige is analyzed to show that Mackay has encoded homosexuality there in a unique and individual way.