Transvestia

BOOK

REVIEW

ROYAL SET, by Edna Nixon, Reynel & Co., New York, Hardcover, 245 pp. 3 bib./12 index. $5.75 (1965)

Publication of this volume should be the big event of 1965 in the TV world. Despite some defects in Mrs. Nixon's understanding of transvestism, she seems to have a good feel for it except when misled by various "medical experts." In addition (or perhaps primarily) she is a skilled and meticulous historian, and has obviously done a far better job than any of her predecessors. The Chevalier really comes to life under her pen, and so do his close associates - friendly and otherwise. One fault, though, is the excessive use of French phrases (plus a few Latin ones) where the English equivalent could hardly have failed to convey her meaning adequately.

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Many delightful surprises await the reader who has seen only the usual two-page summary of D'Eon's career in some popular "medical text". That his long string of given names began "Charles Genevieve-----" was apparently not uncommon in that time and place but the addition of "Mary" at confirmation was apparent- ly less so and the boy was reported to have been particularly pleased by it! A quotation from his teen- age journal also seems significant: "We should all like to live...an imaginary life, in order to approve of ourselves with more certainty, and to live in our imagi- nation more calmly." This is an interesting step to- wards the double life we all know so well, and to which he gave his name.

On page 35, Mrs. Nixon asks (rhetorically) "why

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