Edwardian era

The Edwardian era is invoked by David Henniger as a tradition that connects wealthy gay men’s presence in North Africa with inherited privilege. The reference links Richard Galloway’s ease at a Moroccan party to a longer history of Western access and cultural appropriation, while exposing the assumptions in David’s own account of that history.

The Historical Frame

At the party, David considers Richard an orientalist snob and thinks that gay men have long come to North Africa, making their presence there an Edwardian tradition. He wonders whether they followed Oscar Wilde to Algiers. The reference is not offered as a detached historical account: it belongs to David’s sardonic, judgmental interpretation of Richard and the gathering around them.

Family Memory and Privilege

David places his own grandfather, Edwin, within this imagined tradition. Edwin had gone to North Africa, an act that caused a scandal in the family. The recollection makes the Edwardian reference personal as well as social: the conduct David criticizes in Richard has a precedent in his own family history.

Power and the Colonial Gaze

David’s conclusion is that such men went because they could and because they had power. That recognition sharpens his criticism of the party’s staged North African décor, but it does not put him wholly outside the gaze he condemns. His reflection on the Edwardian era thus marks both a critique of Western privilege and his own implication in its inherited assumptions.