Michael Davidson (1897-1975) was an English foreign correspondent widely respected for his intelligence, keen observation and sympathy for the underdog. He joined the Berlin communists against Hitler, crossed wartime Morocco in Arab disguise, and opposed the British authorities in Malaya and Cyprus. This autobiography, published in 1962 in an England where homosexuality was still illegal and widely reviled, caused a sensation with its opening sentence, “This is the life-history of a lover of boys,” but impressed many with its candid accounts of his journalistic and sexual adventures.
After being taken on by seven different publishers in three countries, The World, The Flesh and Myself went out-of-print for a quarter of a century. This new edition includes an introduction by the author’s close friend, the artist and writer Colin Spencer, and fascinating biographical notes on the main characters mentioned (gathered mostly from Davidson’s private correspondence) by novelist Edmund Marlowe.
