This is a rare vintage FACTORY SEALED / UNREAD and out of print copy of Gymnasium, by LUKE SMALLEY and published and distributed by Twin Palms Publishers in 2000 featuring the nude male photography of photographer LUKE SMALLEY. This 96 pages with 85 duotone plates HARDCOVER book and DUST JACKET measure 8 x 1 x 10.75 inches. Elegantly produced and designed with the customary highest quality by Jack Woody. See photos for condition.

"Boys will be boys," is the remark very frequently made when boys become unusually boisterous, or give vent to their desire for violent activity. Not infrequently this remark is made from a derogatory standpoint, as though there was something innately evil in the character of the average boy.
Remarks of this kind are especially common when the boy is very strong and is more thoroughly supplied with the nervous energy that calls upon the muscles for almost constant activity. But we should remember that boys who are willing to sit and mope for hours, who pore over their studies unceasingly for long periods without complaint, who have but little
desire to be a "boy," do not usually amount to much in life. It is the boys who have snap and vim and energy, those who have a plentiful supply of "ginger," that accomplish results of importance. It is the "Boys-will-be-boys" kind of a boy that is really worth talking about. Boys of this sort often get the reputation of being bad when they really possess the opposite characteristics.

Therefore, I would say to my boy readers, and to all those who have boys under guidance, furnish good, wholesome methods by which boys can be supplied with means of using up their vital energies. The real boy who has the right kind of stuff in him is always panting for something to do.
Whether it is good or bad is in some cases not of very great importance to him, but he must be active. Every nerve and every muscle cries out for activity. But if my boy readers will always find ways of using their surplus energies, in physical culture exercises, or in active games of some kind, they will be storing up health and strength of vast value in the future, and there will not be even the slightest temptation toward evil habits. The boy who wants to be strong and rugged, who wishes to grow up into a superb, manly man, and who uses his surplus energies in wholesome games and in a temperate amount of study, will avoid with - out the slightest effort all that is evil.

REVIEWS
The teenage athletes in Luke Smalley's pictures seem inhabitants of some time or place other than the northwestern Pennsylvania towns where the photographer recently found and photographed them. The sensuality of these young athletes seems familiar, their gaze immediate and direct, yet their other worldly quality remains a product of the artist's unique vision. No telephone or television seems possible in this not-quite familiar landscape. For the past ten years the photographer has painstakingly coordinated the creation of the work presented here, often making his own athletic equipment, props, and costumes. The images are published here for the first time.

REVIEWS
It is a world of good-looking model boys, that are innocent yet sensual, and they have been immortalized by Mark Twain, and celebrated by the famous photographers such as Bruce Weber and Greg Gorman. Now we have Luke Smalley who takes it a step further. He has spent 10 years recreating these athletic images of an innocent and bygone era that was once called All American, way before the nation lost its innocence. This is an outstanding collection of teenage athletes, residents of Pennsylvania towns, who Smalley has posed throwing footballs, wrestling, leaping over hurdles and performing gymnastics. That Twin Palms published this book for Smalley is an added bonus, for it is beautifully designed and bound. The black and white photos are superbly reproduced here.

Smalley has accomplished what he set out to do, capturing the innocence of youth, a vision of the past, and the masculine youthful beauty of young men at the peak of their athletic ability.

Due to recent delivery issues with the USPS I now ship all items via Priority Mail. $100 of insurance is included in this price. I’m selling my collection of vintage 1960-1980s gay pulp paperback novels, pictorial & hardcore magazines, physique photography, magazines & artwork.