Author: Rodgers, Bruce.

Publisher: Paragon Books, New York.

Format: Softcover octavo in purple card covers, 265pp, 20.3 x 11.5cm.

Formerly published as The Queen’s Vernacular: A Gay Lexicon, 1972.

“Gay Talk is a passionately gathered lexicon of homosexual ‘slanguage,’ of expressions and terms that reveal much of the sexual mores, social customs, and minority attitudes of a very large portion of the gay community.” Over 12,000 entries sourced on location from bars, steam baths, dance halls, public johns, and on street corners. Example:

Have the large news for somebody: to let someone else in on a little secret; to pass on information “I have the large news for your ass, sweetie; you couldn’t live on four bits a month!”

Bumping to corners, creases overall, tear to top of spine and edge up to p27.