This is a moving, daring and very readable book. Subtitled “Letters of LGBTQ+ Love & Friendship Through History '', it is a valuable resource of letters that have attempted to express feelings that have transformed lives. These are the often secret relationships that may have been frowned on at different times and places throughout the centuries, and indeed, have even been deemed illegal in some cases. It is a positive book, often celebrating love and friendship between people separated by circumstance, as letters rarely pass between those who are physically together, and trying to express real depths of feeling. I was pleased to have the opportunity to read and review this fascinating book. This book is made more interesting by the biographical notes that precede each writer, which gives some details of the writer and recipient and the context in which they were written. These are well researched and written, giving necessary starting points for further reading. Most of the letters are from the twentieth century, but actually the collection begins with some of Sappho’s poetry from the BCE period. As the Foreword by Mark Gatiss points out, this collection also contains poetry which has attempted to convey something of the love that “dare not speak its name” in words and images.

two years later I am still 45% of the way through this book and have felt no compulsion to pick it back up so I think that says everything I can about it really.

This is such a lovely record of affection between queer people, from their letters and notes.
It encompasses a long time-span, with work from more well known people like Vita Sackville West and Audre Lorde as well as those we might not have heard of.
When there was so much work to silence and suppress queer words, it is important to publish them now we are more free to do so.

Such a great book. The world needs more queer literature, especially sapphic novels. The community needs to be seen and heard more, and I am hunting for new queer books coming out each month because it's representing me, and I feel like I belong

The Love That Dares is an interesting collection of love letters from across the ages celebrating the love, lust, desire and hopes of many LGBTQIA+ people, who, for the majority of this collection, suffered persecution, hatred and being criminalised. It is because of the latter that creating a collection like this is so important. For years we've published love letters from men, women, from the Home Front and so on; this is the first time I've seen a collection like this that seeks to actively preserve and share the voices of LGBTQIA+ people; especially their private voices where they are beautifully honest disclosing their wishes, fears, and the mundane everyday.

As a member of the LGBTQIA community (gay married woman) I found this truly beautiful and the collection of letters and poems from queer people through history made me feel emotional and reminded me of being a teenager (I am 44 now).

I love that the material included not only included longing, love and lust but also everyday mundane things such as domestic matters.

I will be purchasing a physical copy of this book.

The Love That Dares is a beautiful, moving collection of letters from LGBTQ+ people throughout history.

I knew I was going to enjoy it just based on the concept, but I didn't expect to be so completely moved by the choice of materials included and by the add context and information that the introductions to each one provided. It was wonderfully - and, I feel, very thoughtfully collated, and I will be buying a physical copy that I can (sorry...) highlight and underline to my heart's content.

I did feel that it got a little repetitive in the middle section, as there were a few collections in a row that had lots of letters by the same person, and I do wish that the editors had been more ruthless and just picked the most poignant letters, but it was also nice to get a more extended, full picture of those individuals' lives.

I always love learning about LGBTQ+ people from the past, but there was something about reading these letters in all of their defiant, hopeful, yearning, romantic glory, that really moved me. I'd recommend to anyone who wants more insight into where we've been and how we can keep hoping to love more openly in the future.

A book that reaches across the decades and grabs one by the heart. Some of the people featured may have had questionable views, but there's no doubt that they loved strongly, and wrote about it in eloquent fashion

The Love That Dares by Rachel Smith and Barbara Vesey is a collection of letters written by queer people throughout history that celebrates their love openly in a way that many of them could not express in their own time. I loved this and would recommend to all of my friends.

I’m glad this book exists - the idea of it is brilliant. That said, the execution just didn’t work for me. The books starts with old letters and progresses to letters from more recent history, this meant that the impenetrable language of lots of the earlier pieces left me dreading picking it up. I also found it difficult to connect with any of the people or experiences shared here - we don’t spend enough time with individuals to get to know them, so the whole thing felt quite forgettable unfortunately.

A delightful and touching collection of letters and poetry throughout history, The Love That Dares offers a window into the quotidian romance between same sex couples that have so often been forced into the shadows.

This is a beautiful collection of letters and poems from queer people through history. It was very emotional to read not just the love and lust but also the mundane moments, the chatter about everyday happenings and domestic concerns.

In addition to the main focus of the collections, which is the excerpts and the biographical info given to contextualise them, there were short pieces of on a other figures through history (usually related in some way to the preceding writer, through profession, social network etc). These were interesting little titbits, and I had quite a few ‘oh! I didn’t know they were queer!’ moments.

The only thing that I wasn’t so keen on was that the breadth of people included came at the expense of the volume of each individual excerpt - most people were allowed one or two writings, often quite brief ones at that. I understand that in some cases, especially the earlier ones, this is because more extant writings haven’t survived, but in other cases their collections were cited, so I can only assume more were available.

The Love That Dares is a collection of letters written by and between queer people throughout the ages, with a notable focus on late 19th and 20th century people - owing, in part, to the lack of freedom of expression there has been for queerness in Britain.

It's a wonderful project commissioned by the Bishopsgate Institute as a way to document queer people's life and love. The letters are beautifully written and a piece of warmth fluttered into me reading the powerful emotions penned. There are some obvious names missed, but I can only think this would be down to the difficulty of obtaining permissions to so many texts.

This beautiful collection of letters throughout history is absolutely touching and eye-opening. I wish I can write as brilliant as these people! (I highlighted so much)
I love how for each letter, there's a short bio to put some contexts which helped me to enjoy more reading it.
An absolute recommended addition to your shelf.

3.75⭐️ // ARC provided by the publishers via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

"This morning all the parts of me that haven't heard that you are away got me up and out early and longing to lie down with you."

This collection of LGBTQ+ letters throughout history was a wonderful overview of queer friendships and relationships from ancient times all the way up to today. I appreciated the small biographies woven through that helped to locate the poems in their original time period, and the breadth of letters covered. I only wished that we could have spent more time with certain authors and included more letters to build their relationships further and give more context to the conversations happening.

A rea.lly great collection of essays. Each one held up and there wasn't any that lacked or was shadowed by the previous ones. A very enjoyable read

A lovely collection that spans a variety of authors. It will fit well in our growing queer literature section. As a classicist I was particularly happy to see the inclusion of Sappho.

A most heartfelt thank you to Netgalley and Octopus Publishing for giving me the chance to review The Love That Dares by Rachel Smith and Barbara Vesey in exchange for an honest review.

To start of , keep in mind that I am not of the habit of reading non-fiction books, much less biographies or essays, so to say that this books had an emotional impact on me is something that speaks on its own.

This collection of letters speaks such volumes, of freindship, of love, of struggle, it will impact even readers like myself who are not into books that are about our every day life and have zero ounce of fiction whatsoever.
This book is all about the truth of love and friendship among people of the LGBTQ+ movement, preserved and now collected in one book through the form of letters. The very purpose of this collection, is to let the letters speak of themselves and allow the reader to find pieces of reality and similarity and empathy through the universal sentiment that is love.
Love, that is, in all it's forms :a love between friends, a passion between lovers, an agony of unreciprocated feelings that can speak to every human being.
This book should serve as a reminder to all that love is love, be it homosexual or heterosexual, be it consumated or not, be it between friends or even family, be it reciprocated or unrequited - no kind of love should ever be shunned or denied by society, love should be accepted and cherished in all its many forms.

A heartfelt, insightful, and intelligent collection of letters, poetry, and prose from queer figures and writers throughout the centuries. The team who collated the works were very thoughtful about the pieces they have included, paired with historical context and knowledge that really helps to highlight the importance of each paragraph. The Love That Dares focuses on queer joy, heartbreak, silence, and bravery in a lovely time-lapse through the past. A pleasure to read!

I loved my time with this collection and recommended it to all my friends. I would love to own this and highlight all the beautiful passages, The collection features a great selection!