Teleny: Or, the Reverse of the Medal

Teleny, or, The Reverse of the Medal, is a pornographic novel, first published in London in 1893. The authorship of the work is unknown. There is a general consensus that it was an ensemble effort, but it has often been attributed to Oscar Wilde. Set in fin-de-siècle Paris, its concerns are the magnetic attraction and passionate though ultimately tragic affair between a young Frenchman named Camille de Grieux and the Hungarian pianist René Teleny. The novel is one of the earliest pieces of English-language pornography that focuses explicitly and near-exclusively on homosexuality (following The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, published in 1881). Its lush and literate, though variable prose style and the relative complexity and depth of character and plot development share as much with the Aesthetic fiction of the period as with its typical pornography.