Gavin’s second book, The Gay Apocalypse, will be published in spring 2027 in the UK/Commonwealth by Constable (Little, Brown) and in the US/Canada by Pegasus Books, as well as in the German-speaking world as Traum und Begehren: Eine diverse Geschichte der Wiener Moderne by Molden (Styria Buchverlage).

The book draws on fresh archival research, including Habsburg protocol, police files, letters and diaries, to form a lavish portrait of the age. Broadening its scope beyond the city’s instantly familiar names, it forms a passionate and, at times, salacious account of Vienna’s aristocracy and middle class, as well as focussing on the lives of the city’s poor and disenfranchised.

Advance Praise for The Gay Apocalypse:

‘This is a fascinating, untold story, set in an age of artistic brilliance. It reveals the empowering queerness at the heart of society and culture, and in the process shows how what was perceived as decadence was in fact the vital spark of the spirit of the modern age.’ — Philip Hoare, author of Albert and the Whale and William Blake and the Sea Monsters of Love

‘A superbly rendered narrative of a vital era in the arts, packed with revelation.’ — Sathnam Sanghera, author of Empire World and Tonight the Music Seems So Loud

‘This is a riveting book: a stylish and engrossing account of the gay life that ‘hid’ in plain—sometimes ostentatious—sight in late-imperial Vienna, and a meticulous evocation of a world that feels by turns outré and uncannily close to our own. The Gay Apocalypse retraces the public and private lives of Vienna’s queer iconoclasts with wit and erudition, unfolding a story that is as extravagant, surprising, and contradictory as the metropolis it portrays.’ — James Cahill, author of The Violet Hour

‘Thoroughly researched and brilliantly written, The Gay Apocalypse gives uncovered queer stories—and the often tragic lives inside them—the dignity and erudition they deserve and demand. Vienna is a metropolis of careful performances; Gavin Plumley attunes us to the artful choreography of gender and sexuality, politics and class. Taking us from domestic parlors and elegant coffeehouses to the hungry shadows of the Prater, where Viennese morality is flaunted and enforced. Plumley tells those histories with élan.” — Richie Hofmann, author of Second Empire; A Hundred Lovers; and The Bronze Arms

‘From Mahler to the military, Klimt to the Kaiser—Gavin Plumley’s impressively researched survey of fin-de-siècle Vienna uncovers a hotbed of higher gossip and scintillating exposés that fully justify its subtitle. This illuminating book tracks an elaborate network of cultural figures whose lives were rarely what they seemed to be. A witty, original, and fearless analysis—by an author whose queer sensibility and deep immersion in the culture of Mitteleuropa offers an understanding of what made the city such a fertile ground zero for the arts.’ — Virginia Nicholson, author of All the Rage: Stories from the Frontline of Beauty: A History of Pain, Pleasure, and Power: 1860-1960

A Home for All Seasons, Gavin’s first book, was published to wide acclaim in 2022. The paperback is now in its sixth edition. A work of narrative non-fiction, it launched at Hay, when it was one of the House & Garden picks of the Festival. Events followed in Pembridge, Gavin’s home village, and at Wigmore Hall, as well as at bookshops and festivals nationwide. Features appeared on Inigo, Sphere and in Herefordshire Living, along with interviews on Times Radio, Monocle 24 and BBC local radio in Hereford and Worcester, Cornwall and Gloucestershire.

‘A fascinating trip into the rural past.’ – House and Garden

‘A tender and illuminating history of an overlooked world.’ – Horatio Clare

‘Truly a revelation on every page.’ – Petroc Trelawny

‘A wide-ranging meditation on place and past.’ – Literary Review

‘A richly textured book, replete with illuminating discoveries and observations.’ – Country Life

‘Charming — a love-letter to home, history, and nature.’ – Leah Broad

‘A moving, memorable book about how we make our lives inside architecture, and how we are changed in turn by the places we call home. With passion and precision, Gavin Plumley pushes the boundaries of memoir and scholarship and shows that the chronicle of a house can contain the grand history of a whole world as well as the sweet, urgent story of a life: all that intimacy within the vastness of historical time.’ – Richie Hofmann