The magnificently witty diaries of 'one of the great stately homos of England', covering his recent years in New York City - a transatlantic Alan Bennett. The diaries of Quentin Crisp, a well-known homosexual, giving his views on politics, prejudice and human nature.

After half a century of metropolitan infamy, Quentin Crisp graduated to international fame when his widely acclaimed autobiography The Naked Civil Servant made him a household name, even in respectable households. In this second volume of autobiography, Quentin Crisp describes the wider horizons of his years as a celebrity at home and aborad, and explains his personal philosophy of inaction, as well as his love affair with North America. How to Become a Virgin is a witty, acute and perceptive as its inimitable author.

Since moving to New York City over a decade ago, Quentin Crisp has brought his love of the cinema and his notorious wit together in a series of essays on films and film stars. A veteran film-goer of seventy years who has kept a vigilant eye on changing Hollywood styles and the public tastes that follow, Mr. Crisp discusses both films and stars with his typical panache and dexterity and leads his readers with polite madness to a clear, straightforward moral, proving himself to be an unexpected champion of good sense. Along the way Mr. Crisp shares his personal encounters with the likes of Lillian Gish, John Hurt, David Hockney, Divine, Sting, and Geraldine Page. Prefaced by longer essays on the essence of stardom, the nature of Hollywood, and the deplorable state of that town today, Mr. Crisp's book is a delight to read.

Crisp describes his life with uninhibited exuberance in this classic autobiography. He came out as a gay man in 1931, when the slightest sign of homosexuality shocked public sensibilities, and he did so with provocative flamboyance, determined to spread the message that homosexuality did not exclude him or anyone else from the human race.