Led by: Helena Esser, and Rebecca Hamilton
Welcome to the Third Sex Reading Group! Meeting once a month, we focus on texts that examine ‘the third sex’ – that is; Victorian and neo-Victorian works that explore sex and gender, queerness, and LGBTQIA+ identities.
Interested in Queer History? Love literature and film? Join us! Our sessions aim to cover all things LGBTQIA+, the long Victorian, Neo-Victorian, poetry, fiction, history, art and so much more.
Meetings take take place on the last Wednesday of the month (unless stated otherwise) at 5.30pm GMT/BST via Zoom, last for approximately 90 minutes, and will be supplemented by an exciting and supportive reading pack, comprising questions and textual prompts for members.
To join you can register via eventbrite or email us FAO 3rd Sex at vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com.
We will send out the reading pack a week in advance of the group meeting, and a link to join us online the day before it is scheduled. You will also be provided with a password to access the reading pack (link below). The pack and password will change with each session: please do not share this information with others. Bring your tea, coffee, other, and come join us! We look forward to seeing you there.
Join the discussion on Twitter: #3rdSex
Our Next Session
Reading Group Archive
Explore the themes of our previous Reading Groups here!
Tipping the Velvet
Albert Nobbs
Oscar Wilde Biofiction
Carter’s The Toy Shop
Gentleman Jack (Part 1)
Gentleman Jack (Part 2)
Wilde, Beardsley, and Salome
The Well of Loneliness
Corelli’s My Wonderful Wife
1900 Paris (Vivien, Barney, dePougy)
American Short Stories
A Queer Christmas Carol
Bad Gay Novels (Green Carnation, Teleny)
Mary Diana Dodds
Richard Bruce Nugent
Dickinson
Are They Women?
Queer Vampires
The Night Brother
Male Romantic Friendships (Ouida)
Female Romantic Friendships
Nettleblack
The Woman in White
Queer Arcadias
Vernon Lee
Queer Zoology
Aces and Aesthetes
CAMP!
Queer Swinburne
The New Life
Asexuality 2.0
Queer Phenomenology
Queer Steampunk
Fingersmith
The Happy Prince
Yukio Mishima
Edith Ellis
Victoria Cross
Nosferatu
Short Stories: Queer Places
Black Dandies
Lodore
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street
Colette
Netta Syrett’s The Victorians
Sarah Water’s Affinity
George Sand
Selby Wynn Schwartz’s After Sappho
Almost Trans?: Ada, The Betrayed
2020 – Queer Victorians
2022 – Moral Panic (Fanny & Stella)
2023 – Hidden Histories
2024 – The Cleveland Street Scandal
2025 – Queer Cannibals of Ratnabar Island
2026 – ‘The Love That Dare Not Deduce Itself: Queer Sherlock Holmes Fanfiction and Participatory Publics’
If there are any texts that you would like us to explore in the Reading Group, we would love to hear from you! Email us, FAO 3rd Sex, at vpfareadinggroup@gmail.com
With thanks to previous co-organisers:
- Dr Claire O’Callaghan
- Dr Matt Crofts
- Milly Harrison
- Dr Mollie Clarke
Page last updated: 13-7-26