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Pagan Lights: Dreams of Freedom and Beauty in Capri

I found this title Pagan Lights: Dreams of Freedom and Beauty in Capri by Jamie James while searching for Jerome and Freer in Google Books. Being that it was only $6 on eBay I ordered a copy. The author gives some background information on both men including the arrival of Henrietta Sophia Rupp, Jerome's supposed maid in name only mistress. Which sort of explodes the speculation that he and Freer were engaging in a secret romance.

It also gives some literary connections as well since both Somerset Maugham and Compton Mackenzie, who were fellow occupants of the island and apparently part of his friend group, wrote about him. Maugham's short story Mayhew was clearly about Jerome and Mackenzie's Scudamore, a character from his novel Vestal Fire, was based upon him.

Reviewers are not so kind about the book: 

I bought this book because it was among "the 75 Best Books of 2019 to take to the beach" by the New York Times. Yes perhaps if you intend to throw it in the water while you are there. Do these people at the NYT read these things? Capri is incidental to the book which is exclusively about the dissolute, prurient behaviour from ancient times onward. You will about Capri except where this stuff happened. Much of the history of ancient times seems to be unfounded but that doesn't stop the author from going into unecessnary and boring detail. And it only gets worse from there. The extraordinary detail about who did what perhaps to whom goes on and on and is too boring for words. It's not even the least bit interesting. Really deserves no start at all.

and

A few interesting tid bits pertaining to Capri and its lively expat community..I was appalled by lengthy quotes taken from obscure books involving adult males engaging in erotic activity with minors. This book appears to be a bibliography of novels and memoirs devoted to sexual activity with youngsters......Author conflates the emerging 20th century public communities of homosexuals (adults) with the despicable abuse of children...in Capri and in other,  

in the author's words "Capri represents a zone of individual liberty, outside the structures of social conformity"

NAMBLA (North American Man/Boy Association ) devotees will love this book.

Though, there are its admirers as well, I prefer the hateful reviews to stir up some controversy. Were the Yondotega boys going to the 19th century version of Epstein's Island for purely aesthetic reasons? One would have to be a romantic to assume that it was purely a pursuit of beauty over carnal pleasure but who knows.

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