Books like The Palace of Varieties by James Lear

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece examines the glittering yet hollow glamour of the Roaring Twenties as the enigmatic Jay Gatsby pursues love, wealth, and identity across the social divide.

In the unforgettable Le Cirque des Rêves, two young magicians, Celia and Marco, are locked in a nocturnal duel of wonder and will—an impossible game where love and magic collide on a stage of breathtaking spectacle.

A collection of eerie American short stories where a cursed play, cults of otherworldly power, and time‑shifting tragedies intertwine, crafting a haunting early classic of fantasy and horror.

Charles Warren Stoddard (1843–1909) was, during his life, an acclaimed and prolific writer in multiple genres: poetry, travel sketches, personal memoir, and conversion narrative. His most popular works were dispatches primarily from the South Sea Islands but also extended into Palestine, Egypt, and what would become known as Hawai‘i, most of which were published in the San Francisco Chronicle and then collected into books. For the Pleasure of His Company: An Affair of the Misty City, Thrice Told (1903) is Stoddard’s only novel. This new edition, as with other works in Penn Press’s series Q19: The Queer American Nineteenth Century, returns and reframes an important queer literary text to print. Set mostly in and around San Francisco in the late nineteenth century, the novel features a protagonist, Paul Clitheroe, who is an aspiring writer living among the Bohemian artistic circles of that place and time—the same circles Stoddard himself inhabited. The novel is both formally experimental and largely autobiographical. Thus Paul comes into contact, as Stoddard did, with writers, artists, actors, directors, priests, adventurers, and many others as he attempts to begin his career. Bohemian artistic life and erotic experimentation go hand in hand here: Paul has multiple relationships with other men even as he writes a novel that features similar liaisons. At the very end of the story, while on a cruise in the Pacific, Paul impulsively leaves his ship and disappears in a canoe with some young Hawaiian men. This parallels Stoddard’s life too: he spent many long periods of his life in Hawai‘i, where he found the local homoerotic customs to his liking. This Q19 volume also includes three of Stoddard’s Hawaiian travel sketches, which chronicle his intimate personal relationship with a Hawaiian youth he calls Kána-Aná. The volume contains a full critical introduction as well as extensive annotations explaining textual references of various kinds and identifying parallels with Stoddard’s own life.

A discreet 19th‑century tale of love and longing between the French musician Camille Des Grieux and Hungarian pianist Rène Teleny, set against the backdrop of a Parisian concert hall.

The gripping finale to Jodi Ellen Malpas’s bestselling trilogy follows Ava and Jesse as their passionate affair reaches a wedding‑day climax at a grand manor, where secrets threaten to tear their love apart.

A sensual celebration of gay black men’s sexuality, showcasing a range of characters from street‑style B‑boys and tough thugs to polished business executives.