“This remarkable collection assembles Steward’s essays for an unlikely venue: the Illinois Dental Journal. Steward, a once-neglected figure in queer history, palled around with Gertrude Stein, kept a ‘stud file’ of his sexual conquests, and ran a successful tattoo parlor catering to sailors. In 1944, he was asked by his dentist, the journal’s editor, to write a column providing a ‘worm’s-eye view’ of dentistry. The essays that followed, under the pen name Philip Sparrow, were elegantly constructed, bitingly funny, and likely to be utterly baffling to the original readership—particularly the coded gay references.”

Publishers Weekly, starred review

“I suspected, for a moment, that Philip Sparrow Tells All was a prank, either by the University of Chicago Press or on it. The essays of a tattoo artist recovered from 70-year-old issues of the Illinois Dental Journal? Come on. . . . With the measure of safety provided by a pseudonym—and also by the less-than-mass circulation of the Illinois Dental Journal—Steward experimented with the comic, personal and confessional modes of the casual essay in ways that might have been difficult to risk otherwise.”

Times Higher Education

“Talent plus obscurity in a research subject mix to make an irresistible cocktail for almost any scholar. Samuel Steward (1909-1993), also known by his pen name and alter ego ‘Philip Sparrow,’ possesses both in intoxicating quantities, making it easy to see why editor Jeremy Mulderig has worked so hard to bring this figure further into the light in Philip Sparrow Tells All: Lost Essays by Samuel Steward, Writer, Professor, Tattoo Artist. . . . The collection is well worth reading, both for the quality of writing in the essays themselves and for the importance of Steward as a figure who stands as a key rediscovery for Chicago’s history in particular and for LGBTQ history in general.”
 

Chicago Tribune

“At first blush, these essays may seem like gay esoterica, exemplary bits of camp. But they’re more than that. Mr. Mulderig saw fit to gather and annotate them because they are very good—a curious mix of frivolity and erudition, peacockery and restraint. They’re a lost chronicle from a one-of-a-kind writer who spent five years hiding in plain sight. . . . Seductive and entertaining.”
 

New York Times

“How wonderful that Mulderig has reclaimed these lost gems of gay writing. The personal essays in this collection are written from a queer perspective at a time when censorship and homophobia were rampant. It is all the more remarkable considering they were published in the obscure Illinois Dental Journal between the years of 1944 and 1949. . . . Be it a sensitive prophecy of the difficulties soldiers will have reintegrating into American society after World War II or a humorous take on male fashion, Steward’s range of subject matter is impressive.”
 

Lambda Literary

“A must-read for anyone interested in LGBT history.”

Daily Kos

“Fans of Samuel Steward will pounce upon Phil Sparrow Tells All, which brings forth from near-total obscurity 30 of the 50 essays Steward wrote between 1944-49 for, get this, the Illinois Dental Journal. . . . Each essay is entertainingly introduced by editor Mulderig, an Emeritus Professor of English at the DePaul University. As Steward plays peek-a-boo with the reader, Mulderig annotates the gay subtext. Between the editor and the author, erudition is all over the place. All told, these essays reconfirm Steward's important place in 20th-century gay literature.”
 

Bay Area Reporter