The Leather Boys one starts chatting him up. When Pete walks in they all recognise him and Reggie suddenly understands that Pete too is gay. He leaves. The book was published in 1961 under the pseudonym Eliot George—an inversion of the pen-name of the famous 19th century female author, Mary Ann Evans, who published as George Eliot. Freeman is credited under her own name in the film as the author of the screenplay based on the novel of "Eliot George". The original novel is explicit about the sexual relationship between the two male characters, and about the odds that the hero's wife is
Mary Ann Tocker they should regard Mary Ann as a forerunner of their profession. More recently, Mary Ann's trial is often referred to in books on early women radicals. While Mary Ann may not have been connected to any of the radical movements of the nineteenth century, she is recognised as having inspired other women. "Mary Ann Tocker, who braved a libel to expose political corruption, inspired many other women with her forthright public radicalism and even led Thomas Hardy to write the anonymous letter to the "Black Dwarf" calling for woman's rights." Like other early women radicals, Mary Ann educated herself and