FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

"Alan Bray was a groundbreaking historian, whose classic book Homosexuality in Renaissance England created a new field for an entire generation of literary critics, historians and gay activists. A second book, entitled The Friend, completed just before his death, seems likely to do the same 20 years on."
The Independent (London)

Publication Date: 15 September 2003	$40.00 · £28.00
UK publication date: 22 September 2003	0-226-07180-4

In the chapel of Christ's College, Cambridge, some twenty years ago, historian Alan Bray made an astonishing discovery: a tomb shared by two men, John Finch and Thomas Baines. The monument featured eloquent imagery dedicated to their friendship: portraits of the two friends linked by a knotted cloth. And Bray would soon learn that Finch commonly described his friendship with Baines as a connubium or marriage. There was a time, as made clear by this monument, when the English church not only revered such relations between men, but also blessed them. Taking this remarkable idea as its cue, The Friend explores the long and storied relationship between friendship and the traditional family of the church in England. This magisterial work extends from the year 1000, when Europe acquired a shape that became its enduring form, and pursues its account up to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Incorporating a vast array of fascinating examples, which range from memorial plaques and burial brasses to religious rites and theological imagery to classic works of philosophy and English literature, Bray shows how public uses of private affection were very common in premodern times. Finely nuanced and elegantly conceived, The Friend will be essential reading for anyone interested in the history of England and the importance of friendship in everyday life.