author
John Francis Bloxam
1873–1928
An English churchman and writer remembered for one startling, much-debated fin-de-siècle story, his work sits at the edge of Victorian religion, scandal, and queer literary history.
1 Audiobook
The Priest and the Acolyte With an Introductory Protest by Stuart Mason
by John Francis Bloxam
About the author
Born in 1873, John Francis Bloxam was an English author and Anglican clergyman associated with the Uranian literary tradition. He studied at Exeter College, Oxford, where he edited the short-lived magazine The Chameleon: A Bazaar of Dangerous and Smiling Chances.
He is best known for "The Priest and the Acolyte," published in the magazine's only issue in 1894. The story became notorious in its day and has since drawn attention from scholars interested in late-Victorian literature, censorship, religion, and the history of queer writing.
Although little of his writing survives in wide circulation beyond that work, Bloxam remains a notable figure because of the unusual place he occupies in English literary history: a churchman whose name is tied to one of the most controversial short fictions of the 1890s. He died in 1928.