author
Noel I. Garde
1925–1996
Best known for pioneering reference works on gay history and literature, this writer used careful research to bring together stories and sources that had often been ignored or scattered. The books remain notable for their ambition and for the window they offer into an earlier era of LGBTQ scholarship.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Writing as Noel I. Garde, Edgar Hugh Leoni published works exploring homosexuality in literature and history at a time when the subject was rarely treated openly. Archival records identify Noel I. Garde as Leoni's pseudonym and note his long-standing interest in both homosexual history and literature.
His best-known books include The Homosexual in Literature: A Chronological Bibliography, circa 700 B.C.-1958 and Jonathan to Gide: The Homosexual in History. These books gathered references, biographies, and source notes into large reference works meant to help readers trace a hidden tradition across centuries.
Leoni was born in 1925, earned a B.A. from Harvard in 1945 and later an M.A. from Columbia, worked in the insurance industry in New York City, and retired to Clearwater, Florida. He died in 1996. No reliable portrait image could be confirmed from the sources reviewed here.