Philip Core doesn’t treat camp as glitter or attitude as the point, but rather it was (and still is) the skeleton key for queer survival. 

To use as revenge, exaggeration as x-ray, artifice, and used to tell the truth straighter than sincerity ever does. Sad to part with but deserves a good home.

A sharp, visual survey with images throughout; closer to a handbook for reading culture sideways than a nostalgia object. And yes, Core’s definition of “the lie that tells the truth” still lands harder than most current theory.

The book is part field guide, part love letter, part blacklist — Cocteau to Divine, decadents, outsiders, exquisite failures and deliberate performances of self. It’s funny, cutting, and deeply affectionate toward those who refuse to behave “normally.”

First printing from 1984; a seminal, still-referenced study of camp aesthetics and queer cultural history. It is very collectible and influential, alongside just being a beautiful object of history and art.

NB: This is one of our listings that includes a donation to charity in the sale price. A portion of this sale will be donated to Transgenre Sydney.

Read more about them here.