#herbert pollitt

[chiefbelieverstarlight]

“'I lived with Pollitt as his wife for some six months and he made a poet out of me'.” -Aleister Crowley, on his relationship with lover, Herbert Pollitt.

[deviatesinc]

Herbert Pollitt, drag queen, art collector and subject of Aleister Crowley's camp masterpiece The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist.

[deviatesinc]

[Herbert] Pollitt was a stage female impersonator under the name of Diane De Rougy. He took his femme name from a celebrated courtesan and actress Liane de Pougy. In 1898, whilst appearing at the Cambridge Footlights club, he met and had an affair with the then unknown Aleister Crowley. Crowley describes his lover:

'Pollitt was rather plain than otherwise. His face was made tragic by the terrible hunger of the eyes and the bitter sadness of the mouth. He possessed one physical beauty - his hair. This was very plentiful and he wore it rather long. It was what is called a shock. But its colour was pale gold, like spring sunshine, and its texture was of the finest gossamer.'

Crowley would later write: 'I lived with Pollitt as his wife for some six months and he made a poet out of me'.