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The following was QI Fact of the Day on 10th November 2011:

Sir Isaac Newton was a cold, austere and difficult man. The slightest criticism of his work drove him into a furious rage, and his life was blighted by vicious feuds with other eminent mathematicians. A hypochondriac, obsessive, neurotic homosexual, he had no friends to speak of.

What evidence is there to support the claim that Newton was a homosexual?

Tom77
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From the book Sir Isaac Newton: Brilliant Mathematician and Scientist:
(by Natalie M. Rosinsky)

[Isaac Newton] spent almost all of 1689 in London [...] At that time, Newton began what was possibly the strongest personal relationship of his life. It was with a young Swiss mathematician named Nicolas Fatio de Duillier [...] While there is no proof that either man was homosexual, their letters suggest that their affection for one another was romantic.


From The Newton Project:

It has also been suggested - though this is purely conjectural and much disputed - that he was a repressed homosexual ...


More:

Oliver_C
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  • Where are the letters at? – SteveGSD Feb 14 '12 at 04:40
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    You should point out that this book is the *only one* making the allegation. All the other cites are quoting it. – DJClayworth Feb 14 '12 at 21:27
  • @DJClayworth - The "Times Higher Education" article actually credits the book __Isaac Newton: The Last Sorcerer__, by author Michael White. And as far as I can tell his book predates Rosinsky's by a couple of years. – Oliver_C Feb 14 '12 at 22:31
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    @CowKingDeluxe - excerpts can be read in the linked book. – Oliver_C Feb 14 '12 at 22:32
  • @CowKing In various libraries and collections around the world. Most were sold at auction at Sotheby's in 1936. Many libraries do not perform digitization of their collections, and so the letters are only open to perusal to accredited academics invited to visit the collections for research purposes. You might try the Cambridge Digital Library. – Marcel Besixdouze Oct 10 '15 at 22:37
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The evidence for this is in fact remarkably sparse. The only reputable work that claims Newton as a homosexual is the book Sir Isaac Newton: Brilliant Mathematician and Scientist:
(by Natalie M. Rosinsky) Even this book admits that there is no hard evidence - it simply says "their letters suggest that their affection for one another was romantic."

There are a number of newspaper reports that cite the claim, but all of them are essentially quoting this one book.

However there have been many, many biographies of Sir Isaac, even modern ones, which never mentioned this allegation.

Wikipedia had a brief debate about whether to include the allegation and decided not to. You can track the argument for yourself.

DJClayworth
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    The "Times Higher Education" article is from 1997 and the one from "The Guardian" is from 2005. As far as I can tell Natalie Rosinsky's book was [published in 2007](http://www.booktopia.com.au/sir-isaac-newton/prod9780756522094.html) – Oliver_C Feb 14 '12 at 22:48
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    -1 It appears that Oliver_C is right and the Rosinsky book was first published in 2007, making it impossible that the two linked articles refer to that book. Furthermore, the Times Higher Education article explicitly references Isaac Newton: The Last Sorceror (published in 1997) as its source. The Guardian article could hardly be said to be quoting anything. – called2voyage Aug 12 '13 at 17:57