Sex and love

A portrait of the English poet Geoffrey Chaucer (c1340-1400), who modern literary scholars credit for turning Valentine into the patron of love. Chaucer was a major influencer in his day – after him, everyone began calling their beloved “Valentine” and writing love poems on 14 February, says Lisa Bitel. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A brief history of Valentine’s Day – from the patron saint of epilepsy to Chaucer’s love tales

An Athenian red-figure kylix (cup) dating from around 510–500 BC depicts a young pentathlete pulling his older lover towards him for a kiss. In many of the city-states of ancient Greece, sex between a man and a youth was an accepted – even idealised – form of love, its virtues extolled in works by writers including Plato. (Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images)

General ancient history

Pride and prejudice: same-sex relations through history

Catherine de Valois is seen here marrying Henry V, who was 14 years her senior, as part of the 1420 Treaty of Troyes. Following Henry's death she wed Welshman Owain ap Maredudd ap Tudur, who is variously referred to as the queen’s steward, page or cupbearer. (Mary Evans Picture Library/Alamy)

Scandalous Tudor marriages: 7 women who braved royal wrath by marrying for love

Pope John XVII

Q&A: Has there ever been a married Pope?

American socialite Wallis Simpson

The vilification of Wallis Simpson: how Edward VIII’s mistress was savaged by society

Mandy Rice-Davies (left) and Christine Keeler

Notes on a scandal: revisiting the Profumo Affair

Princess Margaret and her husband, Lord Snowdon, in San Francisco during a visit to America, November 1965. (Photo by Harry Benson/Express/Getty Images)

“Cheap men and expensive bottles”: Princess Margaret’s love affairs

Two women outside a book shop in Leicester Square, London, with paperback copies of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' by D H Lawrence, after a jury at the Old Bailey decided that it was not obscene. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images)

The trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover: how the ‘obscene’ book caused a moral storm

Portrait of Catherine of Aragon

Catherine of Aragon: Spain’s Virgin queen?

AustenMAIN-4648d5e

Jane Austen’s fiction: an accurate portrayal of life in Georgian England?

A Maria Spilsbury painting of a group sat at a drawing room table

Romance and reality in Jane Austen’s world

Literary women through the ages: Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf and Charlotte Brontë all enjoyed female friendships which enriched their writing, say Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. (Getty Images)

From Austen & Brontë to Woolf: literature’s forgotten female friendships

Katherine Parr (also Catherine), the sixth and last wife of King Henry VIII, c1543. Engraving after a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger. Katherine was no middle-aged frump but a clever, devout and passionate wife, says Derek Wilson. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Katherine Parr: the truth about the wife who ‘survived’

People outside the Stonewall Inn attempt to block police arrests, 28 June 1969. The crowd did not disperse until 4am the following morning (New York Daily News Archive/Getty Images)

Out of the closets and into the streets: the legacy of the Stonewall Riots

A portrait of the romantic novelist Jane Austen. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)

The real reason Jane Austen never married