Tom Crewe

11th June 2025

At our latest Suffolk Book League event we were taken back in time, as we listened to Gill Lowe in conversation with Tom Crewe about his 2023 novel, The New Life, set in 1890s London. It is a fictional story featuring two men who are collaborating on a book entitled Sexual Inversion which is based on the real 1897 book of the same name by Havelock Ellis and John Addington Symonds. This is Tom’s debut novel but he is not new to publishing. He has a PhD in nineteenth century history from Cambridge and since 2015 he has been an editor at the London Review of Books, to which he contributes essays on politics, art, history and fiction. 

Tom explained that he wanted to write since his childhood, inspired by Angela Baker, his English teacher at school, who encouraged him in his creative writing and to enter competitions. He was just 11 when she retired and he wrote her a letter promising to dedicate his first book to her. He has kept his promise. And, while Angela Baker is now dead, her daughter has been in touch with him.  

He got the idea for the novel in 2013, but completed it in 2023 and it was quickly picked up by publishers. It follows two men, John and Henry, who want to explore homosexuality as a natural phenomenon. Their aim is to write a book comprising interviews with men who were then seen by society as having sexual deviance. The novel alternates between the narratives about John and Henry and there are fictional letters included between them. This was stimulated by the correspondence between the historical figures of Symonds and Havelock Ellis.

The book raises many issues about morality, the conflict between private and public acts of courage and openness. Central to the book was the 1895 trial of Oscar Wilde for gross indecency. From the perspective of these two men, Oscar Wilde betrayed their cause. He lied and denied his sexuality, claiming his relationships were chaste. From their point of view he did not have the courage to stand up and tell the truth. ‘I cannot bear what a coward he was …. He has brought each and every one of us down with him’.

Gill asked about Catherine, the wife of one of the men in the novel, suggesting that she was pivotal. Catherine is given her voice and the reader sees her perspective. The novel explores the wider costs of a homophobic society, when a good man is forced to behave in a manner that harms his family.

When asked were there two writers fighting in his head, historian and creative writer, Tom responded that these two have many things in common, ‘why things happen, why people do what they do … the past is never past. It is full of complexities and stories’. Tom does not like the phrase ‘historical fiction’, commenting that it is like putting together all the books that have cats in them. In his words ‘I wanted to write the best novel I could, not to be dictated to by history’. He has certainly achieved his aim and has given us an insight into the mores and the limits of freedom at the end of the nineteenth century.

Dymphna Crowe