Book excerpt: "This very rare document, the earliest autobiography of an avowed American homosexual, was published in St. Louis in 1901. Claude Hartland grew up in farming communities in southern Missouri, went to country schools and became a teacher, but his sexual drive, pronounced from adolescence, increasingly troubles his conscience. Eventually he moves to St. Louis where he finds work more congenial to his nature and a measure of sexual satisfaction"--Page [4] of cover.