SOURCE: "Norman Douglas's Temporary Attachments," in Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars, Oxford University Press, 1980, pp. 119-30.

Fussell is an outspoken American nonfiction writer, essayist, and critic whose best-known works—including The Great War and Modern Memory (1975), Class: A Guide through the American Class System (1983), and BAD: or, the Dumbing of America (1991)—are noted for their scrupulous scholarship, accomplished prose style, and often polemical tone. In the following excerpt, he examines Douglas's travel writings in light of his pederastic relationships with young boys.

The titles of the two travel books Douglas published in the 20's, Alone (1921) and Together (1923), will suggest the alliance in his mind between companionship and the impulse to record perceptions of abroad. According to Acton, "He told me that each of his books had ripened under the warm rays of some temporary attachment: unless he was in love he had little or no impulse...