The Uranians were a little-known group of homosexual poets who flourished between 1870 and 1930. Their name derives from the writings of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs who revived the Platonic theory of "heavenly" or "Uranian" pederasty. Their work was a characterized by a sentimental infatuation with adolescent males, and conservative verse forms.

The chief poets of this clique were John Gambril Nicholson, the Rev. E. E. Bradford, John Addington Symonds, Edmund John, and several other pseudonymous authors such as "Philebus" and "A. Newman". The flamboyantly eccentric novelist Frederick Rolfe, also known as "Baron Corvo", was a unifying presence in their social network. The fame of their work was limited by the Edwardian taboos of their day, the extremely small editions in which their verse was promulgated, and the generally saccharine nature of their poetry.

Marginally associated with their world were more famous writers such as Oscar Wilde and Edward Carpenter, as well as the obscure but prophetic poet-printer Ralph Chubb, with his majestic lithographic volumes celebrating the youthful male ideal. The Uranian quest to revive the Greek notion of paiderastia was not successful; later gay poets would look to the androphilic inspiration of Walt Whitman and A. E. Housman instead.

Further information can be found in Love In Earnest, by Timothy d'Arch Smith.