A landmark illustrated anthology of queer Greek and Roman love stories that reclaim and celebrate homosexual love and sensuality, from artist Luke Edward Hall and award-winning poet Seán Hewitt. For centuries, evidence of queer love in the ancient world has either been ignored or suppressed. Even today, only a few narratives are widely known: the wild romance of Achilles and Patroclus; the yearning love of Sappho's lyrics; and the three genders introduced in Plato's Symposium . Yet there is a rich literary tradition of queer Greek and Roman love that extends far beyond the prudish translations of these familiar handful of stories. In 300,000 Kisses , award-winning poet Seán Hewitt and renowned designer Luke Edward Hall collect these stories—including some of the most beautiful and moving in the classical canon—and bring them to vivid life. Alongside celebrated works by Homer, Sappho, Ovid and Catullus, they include a wide range of rarely anthologized sources: raunchy poems, thoughtful dialogues, philosophical treatises, and even a graffiti text salvaged from the ruins of Pompeii. Through Hewitt's contemporary translations and Hall's vibrant illustrations, we encounter relationships that are by turns heartfelt and nourishing, unrequited and lustful, toxic and crude, tender and fulfilling. A groundbreaking anthology that seeks to change the way we see the ancient world, 300,000 Kisses is a fascinating journey through love in all its forms. Seán Hewitt  is a book critic for the  Irish Times and teaches Modern British and Irish Literature at Trinity College Dublin. His poetry collection Tongues of Fire was awarded the Laurel Prize and was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, the John Pollard Foundation International Poetry Prize, and a Dalkey Literary Award. He is the recipient of a Northern Writers’ Award, the Resurgence Prize, and an Eric Gregory Award. Luke Edward Hall  is an artist, interior designer, and columnist described as a “wunderkind” by Vogue . His colorful work is often inspired by history, filtered through a lens of irreverent romanticism. He has collaborated with Burberry, Lanvin, Christie's, the Royal Academy of Arts, Richard Ginori, Svenskt Tenn, and Habitat, and has exhibited his artwork in Athens, Stockholm, the USA, London, and further afield. He is currently designing the hotel Les Deux Gares in Paris and writes a weekly column for the Financial Times in which he answers readers’ questions on design and stylish living. Prologue In the two brief lyrics by the Ancient Greek poet Theognis which open this book, we get a first glimpse into the sunlit classical Mediterranean. In one poem, the springtime, and the blooming of the flowers, becomes the blossoming of love and desire. It moves across the land, mysterious and sacred. In the other poem, a boy is like a horse, full of muscular heat, drawn with urgency back to his lover. These verses are frank and tender. They give us sight of a world long before our own, where queerness was not only acknowledged, but shown to be utterly part of the fabric of life. The erotic takes place alongside the elemental; nature governs the passions; everything is full of longing and it is only right that we are too. It is natural, when we don’t see ourselves reflected in the world around us, to look for another world. It is natural, when we feel alone, to seek connection. All of us look for a past, but what happens when, gazing back in time, we see a world without us? That idea of a world without us is a lie, and the gaps in its history are no accident. But history is not the past, only the way it is written. Look closer, look longer, and what might first appear as a black sky suddenly seems to sparkle with a hundred constellations. For queer people, the act of recovering history has often been one of discovering it, too. Is it any wonder that, placed on the dock during his trial for gross indecency, Oscar Wilde spoke of a love common to Plato, and Michelangelo, and Shakespeare? History and culture were proof of an enduring love that could produce some of the greatest works of art his audience knew. Picking up that golden thread, and placing himself as one of its inheritors, was an audacious and supremely affecting move. Many people in the court gallery, almost in spite of themselves, applauded. Those names Wilde spoke of may be familiar to you, but I invite you to add the names of the characters and writers in this book, too. It is a long and glorious list. Every queer person has this same past, and deserves to inherit it. That sudden outbreak of applause in the courtroom is a glimpse of what it is like to witness a birthright brilliantly reclaimed. It takes our breath away, and its power resonates far and wide. It is that same radical and revelatory feeling I experience when I read these queer tales from the ancient world. I find that, rather than being cast out on the dark tide of history, I am sailing in a