La biblioteca de la piscina

William Beckwith is a twenty-five-year-old homosexual aristocrat, reasonably wealthy, cheerfully promiscuous, and decidedly hedonistic. One afternoon, while picking up women in a public restroom, he saves the life of Lord Nantwich, an eccentric character, also homosexual but as old as the century itself, who had gone to the urinals to reminisce about past glories and suffered a heart attack. They meet again days later at the Corinthian, a gymnastics club that young Beckwith frequents and uses as his "hunting ground." Lord Nantwich, a former Crown official in Africa—and, like William, an admirer of young Black people—who knew Ronald Firbank and other leading figures of English gay culture, wants young Beckwith to write his biography. He invites him to his home, allows him glimpses of the charms and splendors of the gay community in bygone days, and entrusts him with his diaries.