The White Paper (novel)

[2] It was published that year, 1928, in his friend's—Maurice Sachs's—literary press, Editions des Quatre Chemins, for a total printing of 21 copies: 10 for Cocteau, and 11 for the public.

[3] Frédéric Canovas, a scholar of French literature, wrote that Cocteau chose The White Paper as the novel's title because of the term's contemporary usage as an official document that addresses social issues.

[4] According to Canovas, gay identity and experiences were seen as social problems by Cocteau's contemporaries.

He recounts stories of having crushes in school in Toulon,[B] one-night stands—including his first sexual encounter in a park near his father's house, and his gay identity being acknowledged after watching two boys have sex[7]—watching nude people masturbate through one-way mirrors,[8] and casual sex at bathhouses.

[8] The book was called one of the "pederastic erotic classics" alongside Leo Skir's Boychick and Ronald Tavel's Street of Stairs, by LGBT studies scholar James T.