Phil Andros is the nom de plume of Samuel Steward and also the name of Steward’s creation, a hustler who narrates a series of homosexual pornographic novels and stories Steward published in the early 1960s and 70s. It doesn’t require a knowledge of Greek to translate Phil Andros as “man lover.” Samuel Steward was a fascinating character in his own right. I read about him in a remarkable biography I highly recommend titled, Secret Historian (Justin Spring, 2011).

Steward shares many of his biographical details with his character, Phil Andros, so it’s useful to recount a little of Steward’s life. Steward was born in 1909. He attended Ohio State University, in Columbus, receiving a PhD in English. He then taught at a series of universities in Ohio, Montana, Washington, and Chicago. Through an academic advisor, he was introduced to Gertrude Stein, met her and Alice B. Toklas in the late 1930s, and through them and his gay connections met many other literary figures including Thornton Wilder and Thomas Mann the painter Paul Cadmus and photographer George Platt Lynes. He also knew Lord Alfred Douglas, whom he arranged to have sex with to create a mystical connection by extension with Oscar Wilde.

Throughout his life, Steward took notes of his extensive sexual encounters in what he called his “stud file” (thus Springs’s “secret” historian). This led to a collaboration with Alfred Kinsey, the sex researcher, where Kinsey used Steward’s connections in the gay community to recruit subjects for his research, research that Steward happily supported and participated in. Though presenting himself a writer, and initially pursuing a literary or academic career, Steward’s sexual interests were too florid to be successful in either field in the 1950s, He switched, instead, to a career as a tattoo artist, attracted by the erotic thrill of working on the bodies of young men.

In a bit of metafiction from 1972, Steward has his character Phil Andros help a new friend struggling to define himself in the hippie scene of San Francisco by sharing the example of a fellow who sounds a lot like their author: “Listen–back in Chicago I knew a cat who was a university professor and he got tired of it and became a tattoo artist, which is just about as far from Academe as you can get. And all before the age of drop-out and without acid. That’s nonconformity for you, and it all came from his head–not from beards, mustaches, long hair, or readin’ Steppenwolf.” (Shuttlecock p. 27)

As the tattoo artist under the nom de needle, “Pete Swallow” (you get the joke when you remember that Pete is short for Peter), Steward became the pre-eminent tattoo artist of his day, and mentored such future icons of the profession as Don “Ed” Hardy. Steward died on the last day of 1993, in Berkeley, California.

After writing several novels as a younger man, as a writer he turned to short pornographic stories, publishing several in European magazines. In 1966, following the relaxation of pornographic laws in the United States he was able to publish a short story collection, titled Stud, introducing his character, Phil Andros. In the sexually-accomplished, handsome, and confidant character of Phil, Steward combined his autobiographical experiences, probably many drawn from his “stud file”, with his sexual fantasies both of the man he wished to be, and the men he enjoyed being with.

Stud was followed by several other novels. I first came across them in editions reprinted in the 1980s when I worked my first job at a bookstore in Hermosa Beach. They’ve been on my bookshelf for years but I’ve never read more than a chapter or two in a few of them. I’ve read them all now. I read the first four, (through Roman Conquests) during the summer of 2022, then read the rest, over the summer of 2024. Because the stories are interconnected, it’s helpful to read them in chronological order, as they’re listed here.

Stud (1966)
My Brother, My Self (1970)
The Boys in Blue (1970)
Roman Conquests (1971)
Shuttlecock (1972)
Below the Belt and Other Stories (1975)
Greek Ways (1975)
Different Strokes (1984)