Michael Hone

Capri Michael Hone

Just off the coast of Naples, the jewel known as Capri soars from seas of cobalt and azure, as poets have written since the time of Tiberius, the story of whom begins this fully-illustrated book. The playground of cannon millionaire Krupp whose orgies were accompanied by a live orchestra and each Caprese boy's orgasm was celebrated with fireworks, Nietzsche was among its visitors and Oscar Wilde took shelter at the Capri Quisisana Hotel with Alfred Douglas the moment he was liberated from prison. The island-boys' beauty was rendered immortal by photographers Gloeden and Plüschow, and the under-the-table sale of the photos attracted hundreds of visitors to Gloeden's bacchanalias, among them kings and princes, painters and writers. Poet Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen built a palace next to that of Tiberius, and imported so many lads he was expulsed from Capri for the unfair competition that deprived island families of vital income. Fersen was the island's first suicide. Later Ischia, Taormina and Capri became the private pond of the Americans Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Gore Vidal and Christopher Isherwood (naturalized), as well as the world's best-kept boy, Denham Fouts who, arrested at the Quisisanna, was being escorted out when English Lord Tredegar ordered the police to ''unhand that handsome youth, he is mine!'', following which Denham knew months of liveried footmen and an army of servants. Graham Greene had a residence where his postman Attilo Scoppa said boys aged 14 to 16 often lived, adding, ''the boys came for sex.'' Men flocked to Capri for its beauty and its boys, and today, 2,000 years after Tiberius, its remarkable destiny is still unfolding. I deeply regret not being able to publish this book in color, which would have priced it out of the reach of the lads I hope will give it a go.