CAMP is 135 years old?

[Laurence Horn]

>In a message dated 12/15/05 10:43:24 AM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:
>
>
>>  I've
>>  recently seen a pair of illustrations from a London publication,
>>  _The Day's Doings_ of 20 May 1871, that showed Frederick William
>>  Park, a well-known homosexual of the period whose "campish
>>  undertakings" with Ernest Boulton in the Burlington Arcade in 1870
>>
>
>Why the quote marks around "campish undertakings" -- does this mean that
>"camp" in this sense goes back to 1870? If I ever knew that, I've
>forgotten it.

I'm not the one to ask on this--as noted, I was quoting the above
(1999) passage from a now-unidentifiable source that I suspect may
have been Michael Quinion.  Michael, can you confirm or disconfirm
this suspicion?  If the latter, will anyone else own up to it?  I
don't have my HDAS on me, and the OED--which doesn't include a
relevant "campish"--tracks "camp" (adj.) back only to 1909, FWIW.

Larry