Karl Maria Kertbeny (Vintage photo)
Brussel: Around 1865. 9 x cm. In fine condition.
Karl-Maria Kertbeny (1824–1882) was an Austro-Hungarian journalist, memoirist and early human rights campaigner. Kertbeny is renown for coining the words homosexual and heterosexual in 1869, in his anonymously published open letter (entitled “Das Gemeinschädliche des §143 des preussischen Strafgesetzbuches vom 14. April 1851 und daher seine nothwendige Tilgung als § 152 im Entwurfe eines Strafgesetzbuches für den Norddeutschen Bund") to the Royal Prussian Minister of Justice regarding the Prussian sodomy law that – argued Kertbeny – violated the “rights of man”, he reasoned that consensual sexual acts should not be subject to criminal law and he put forward that progressive view that homosexuality was inborn and unchangeable.
Price: €2,000.00