In 1915, Edward Frederic (E.F.) Benson – the bestselling author of comic novel series Mapp and Lucia – was in his late 40s, popular and famously charming. Since adolescence he’d been drawn to men, and his diaries recount passionate romances at Marlborough College and King’s College Cambridge. But, perhaps unsurprisingly for the son of an Archbishop of Canterbury, he was discreet.
George Wolfe Plank was 15 years younger – a scrappy, self-taught American artist whose fantastical Vogue covers defined the look of the era. George had a studio around the corner from Fred in Chelsea and an eye for his handsome neighbour.
