LGBTQ Icon Quentin Crisp Has a New Autobiography Out (18 Years After His Death!)

One of my absolute IDOLS, Quentin Crisp, has a new book out – despite the fact that he died 18 years ago. The writer/raconteur/lavender-haired dandy – who found fame in his later years as a curmudgeonly expert of social manners – apparently made a series of series of tape recording with best friend Phillip Ward in the years leading up to his death, and those tapes have now been turned into Crisp’s third (and final) memoir, The Last Word (MB Books, LLC).

From the press release:

Whereas [his first autobiography] The Naked Civil Servant made Crisp famous and How To Become A Virgin [his second] detailed that fame and his move to and life in New York, The Last Word was written by a man who knew the end was near. While Crisp died from a heart attack in November 1999 in Manchester, England – on the eve of a British revival of his one-man show – having been diagnosed with prostate cancer and heart problems and at the age of ninety, Crisp had begun to put his affairs in order. The Last Word then, is Crisp’s goodbye to the world. In it he recounts the story of him having once been a temporary tramp (a hobo in American-English), his recently discovered transgender identity, his struggles with ill-health and growing old, and a host of other previously untold stories.

“I am delighted to finally be able to share The Last Word with all of Quentin’s fans throughout the world.” said Phillip Ward, literary and estate executor for Quentin Crisp. “Quentin was one of a kind. He was a philosopher, an observer of life, a survivor and a beacon of hope for many. In life, his primary mission was the immediate happiness of those around him. He leaves behind a legacy of great importance to the world’s gay and straight communities of which The Last Wordis his swansong.”

Get your copy here.

(via Boy Culture; Photo below of me and Quentin by Tina Paul, 1990)