A largely irresistible story, complete with a big courtroom finish that I won't spoil. While the basic research can't be faulted, he also gives us the inner thoughts of everybody concerned. In the event, he puts in a performance easily as theatrical as his heroines in their pomp. Faced with such terrific material, McKenna could easily have told the story straight (as it were). QX Magazine Neil McKenna's often jaw-dropping tale. It will be made into a movie as sure as Neil McKenna is the greatest gay biographer of our era. Mail on Sunday Neil McKenna's lively account of a mid-Victorian scandal. The Sunday Times ~ Must Reads examination of the case is excellent. Kathryn Hughes Guardian rollicking account of the trial of two middle-class Victorian cross-dressers. Purists and puritans may balk at the book, both its tone and its way of proceeding. Showy as a feather boa, McKenna's text takes pleasure in its own silly excess. His writing has much of the performative element that characterised Stella and Fanny's appearances on the streets of London and in provincial halls.

McKenna does an excellent job of dusting down for the 21st century, testing the limits of his documentary source material and showing what happens when the biographer allows himself the licence to go inside his subject's head. McKenna plunges us into a world of lush longing. Evening Standard Neil McKenna uses the meticulous court records from the two trials, together with the associated evidence - letters, mainly, between the accused and their confederates - to reconstruct the story of how Boulton and Park got to be Stella and Fanny. a sufficiently crisp, colourful and funny writer. If the opportunity arises to describe an anal fistula - and it does, frequently - he does not shirk it. Neil McKenna has thrown himself into it with unfettered glee. The Sunday Times You would need to be a very dull - or prim - dog indeed not to find this a terrifically entertaining story. It would be an understaement to call it a colourful book. McKenna has done a tremendous job of recreating Victorian London's gay subculture, weaving newspaper reports, police documents and contemporary diaries into a jolly rollicking narrative. McKenna lays bare a fascinating tapestry of interrelated personal histories. McKenna makes an impassioned case for re-gaying Wilde.' The Times McKenna provides what is certainly the definitive account of the Boulton/Park story. An entertaining and fascinating (sometimes jaw-dropping) insight into Victorian homosexual practices.' Observer 'A superb new portrait of the secret life of one of the 19th century's most tragic and beguiling figures.' Washington Post 'Intriguing and entertaining. Praise for The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde: 'A groundbreaking new biography.

Fanny and Stella by Neil McKenna