Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
The extraordinary male impersonator treading the boards in Canterbury, Kitty Butler, captures the attention of oyster girl Nan King. Nan is able to see all of her performances and finally meet her heroine thanks to a friend she made at the box office. She soon takes on the role of Kitty’s stylist, and the two travel to Leicester Square to start their sparkling careers as music-hall stars in an all-singing, all-dancing double act. They confess their affection to one another in private at the same moment, and their affair starts.
Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
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It’s about a girl named Nan who visits the pantomime theatre on the South Coast of England and falls in love with a girl named Kitty who performs as a male impersonator. She travels to London with her, and despite your uncertainty as to whether this is a romantic relationship or just a girlish crush, it does develop into one. They start living together, but because they have to hide, it is difficult. Nan is then heartbroken and disappears into this odd Edwardian underworld after Kitty starts dating a man.
It all seems quite strange as she briefly goes out as a prostitute who pretends to be a man and hangs out with men who believe she is a boy. Then an aristocratic woman who wants to retain her as a mistress takes her in. She eventually settles in with a diligent, impoverished family that is rescuing the lower class from themselves. All of her former lovers now return, and she must make a decision. You think she’ll leave with Kitty, but is she really going to?
Young Nan King, the daughter of an oyster-selling family, is the book’s main character. She attends the performance of renowned male impersonator Kitty Butler since she loves the theatre. She quickly falls in love with Miss Butler and eventually manages to become both her co-star and extremely close lover. The rest of the novel follows Nan as she struggles to find her way in life after this relationship ends tragically. She eventually turns into a transgender prostitute and the sexual object of an affluent, senior member of society. In the end, Nan falls in love with a socialist.
