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Marion Zimmer Bradley
_CHECKLIST_
A complete, cumulative Checklist of lesbian,
variant and homosexual fiction, in English
or available in English translation, with
supplements of related material, for the use
of collectors, students and librarians.
table of contents
Editorial; History and purpose of the Checklist 2
List of symbols and abbreviations 6
The complete cumulative Checklist, indexed by author 7
The poetry of Lesbiana; chronological reference
list (compiled by Gene Damon) 58
Variant Films 61
Related Publications; the homosexual Press 63
For Collectors Only; a list of book services 64
Paperback Publishers; addresses 65
Hardcover Publishers; addresses 66
Behind the scenes; meet the editors 68
Edited and Published by: MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY
Associate Editor: GENE DAMON
Cover design and layouts by Kerry Dame
Entire contents copyright, May 1960, by Marion Zimmer Bradley,
Box 158, Rochester, Texas. All rights reserved.
editorial
THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE CHECKLIST
Here, in a single volume, it has been our intention to list, document
and review every novel dealing, however slightly, with female variance,
lesbianism or intense emotional relationships between women. We have
also included a majority of the better known novels which, dealing
primarily with male homosexuality, are of interest to the collector of
variant fiction in general.
In related supplements we have compiled lists of variant poetry, variant
films, of the major book services and publishing houses where these
books can be obtained, and of the homosexual press.
The titles in the major portion of the Checklist are listed in a single
comprehensive index by author. Information includes date published,
number of reprints and publisher's name. Brief reviews are included of
most titles. An effort has been made in each case to distinguish whether
the work under discussion is a novel about lesbianism, whether the
variant content has been included mostly for shock effect, or whether
(as in some excellent modern novels) homosexual characters appear
incidentally to the other main themes of action in the book.
In such a comprehensive listing, reviews must of necessity be brief. For
further discussion of many of the titles listed here, with excellent and
complete critical analysis of their variant content, the serious student
or collector is earnestly urged to invest in the definitive and major
work on the subject:
FOSTER, Jeannette Howard; _Sex Variant Women in
Literature._ N. Y. Vantage Press, 1956.
Although now officially out of print, this book can occasionally be
obtained second hand, and copies will soon be offered for sale through
the Daughters of Bilitis publication, THE LADDER. (See appendix.) We
have made no effort to give more than cursory reviews of titles which
are discussed at length in Dr. Foster's work. However, since the
publication of the Foster book, many new novels of lesbianism have been
published, and the diligent search of many collectors, working with the
Checklist editors, has brought many old ones to light.
We have tried to review in some detail the novels which were omitted
from Dr. Foster's work, and to strive for completeness, even at the
expense of discriminatory judgment about the excellence or otherwise of
the works included. Therefore this Checklist includes many works whose
lesbian content was too slight, too subtle--or too "trashy"--to have
come within the scope of the scholarly studies of Dr. Foster or the
running column, _Lesbiana_, conducted by junior editor Gene Damon in
the pages of THE LADDER.
It is our further contention that many novels dealing with male
homosexuality come also within the province of the serious collector of
lesbiana. We make, however, no claim for completeness for novels which
fall within the homosexual, rather than the lesbian province. In
general, the male titles included in this list--clearly defined, in each
case, by the sign (m)--have been included because they were of special
interest to the editors and therefore are presumably of interest to
other collectors of lesbiana.
For those who wish a complete list of works dealing with male
homosexuality, we suggest the comprehensive bibliography compiled by
Noel I. Garde, discussed in the Appendix of Related Publications. Mr.
Garde has indexed virtually every homosexual work from antiquity to the
latest paperback shocker, and has also performed the mighty task of
separating them into categories ... a task from which the Checklist
editors have shrunk, though we have made some attempt at classification
in our reviews and by awarding a plus sign to books of exceptional
value. (For further discussion of this division, please consult the
"List of Symbols and Abbreviations" on page 2.)
Most of the reviews in the present listing were written by one of the
editors; no attempt has been made to divide the reviews written by MZB
from those written by Damon. In general, these reviews have been
gathered from so many sources that the awarding of individual credit
would be impossible.
This Checklist, 1960, is the last of the cumulative Checklists. Plans at
present are to publish brief supplements annually, listing only new
titles, new reprints of old titles, or new discoveries of overlooked
titles. Since this is the case, we feel that some brief history of the
Checklist might be of interest to the readers.
Nearly 10 years ago, in the mailing of the Fantasy Amateur Press
Association, a very bitter discussion was raging on the subject of
censorship--pro and con. Complicating this discussion, a man who is now
dead, and shall therefore be nameless, published a scathing attack on
homosexuals. By way of subtle reproof, and partially as a deadpan joke
on this man, your senior editor, with Royal Drummond (whose "Digression"
was highly praised by Checklist readers last year ...) published a
12-page offset leaflet, with editorials attacking censorship, and
extensive reviews of perhaps a dozen of the best known homosexual
novels. This leaflet had a cartoon cover and the general light-hearted
tone of the publication was indicated by the title, which was _Fairy
Tales for Fabulous Faps_. Reaction to this leaflet was mixed, but in
general the readers enjoyed it, and said, "Do this again some time -- ".
However, soon after this, Mr. Drummond dropped out of the Fantasy
Amateur Press Association, and your present editor had no impetus to
continue the series single-handed.
Early in the history of the publication known as THE LADDER, your senior
editor had the privilege of reviewing the Foster book mentioned above,
while the junior editor was in charge of the _Lesbiana_ column. After
reading the Foster work, your editor (MZB) resolved to publish a list of
the omitted titles; when I began cutting the mimeograph stencils,
however, I resolved to review not only the titles which Dr. Foster had
omitted, but all of those which I had read, for the purpose of putting
into print my own personal opinions and reactions. This first Checklist
was called _Astra's Tower #2_, and the number 2 seems to have baffled a
good many people--they all wrote in, inquiring about #1. Number 1,
however, was a mimeographed booklet of my own fiction, published during
my late teens for the FAPA, mentioned above.
Through this first Checklist, I came into contact with Miss Damon, and
because paperback lesbiana was blossoming on all the stands, we quickly
resolved to publish another Checklist. I had fully intended to give Miss
Damon full credit for her work last year; however, the mimeograph work
on last year's list was so poor, the quality of the paper so bad, and
some unreliable reviewers fouled me up so badly on data, that I refused
to foist off any portion of the blame on other shoulders.
The relaxing of censorship of recent years--as documented in the Supreme
Court judgment relevant to _Lady Chatterley's over_, etc.--has meant,
in recent fiction, fewer taboos and in general a franker treatment of
sexual themes. On the whole this is a good thing. However and
unfortunately, it has also released a flood of trash and borderline
erotica, of no literary worth and "interesting" only for the sexual
content. Your editors have conscientiously waded through all this
newsstand slush (and believe me, we get no kick out of it) because
experience has taught us that even the worst peddlers of commercialized
sex-trash sometimes come up with exceptionally well-written, honest and
sincere work. For instance, Beacon Books (a subsidiary of Universal
Publishing and Distributing Company)--some of whose paperback originals
can be called printable only by the uttermost charity,--are currently
also publishing the work of Artemis Smith, one of the major writers in
the variant field today.
However, actually reviewing the majority of this stuff is impossible.
Most of these books are not novels at all. They have impossibly complex
plots--or no plots at all--since the story exists only as an excuse for
the characters to jump into amorous exercise with the closest male, or
female, or sometimes both. This sort of thing, "lesbian" only remotely,
belongs more properly to the field of curiosa. One can, of course,
display a Place Pigalle post card in a gallery with the Botticelli
Venus, and classify them both as "nudes". I personally consider this an
insult to the Venus, and the devotee of "feelthy peectures" will find
the restraint and taste of fine art too tame for his jaded tastes.
We are unalterably opposed to most censorship--but after wading through
almost a hundred books whose only excuse for existence is to provide
phony "thrills" for people too inhibited, too ignorant or too fearful to
provide their own, well--we think wistfully of some self-imposed
standards of taste.
We also realize, flatly and realistically, that too much license in this
stuff is going to bring on a wave of public reaction which may impose a
sure-enough censorship--making the standards of the 1940s and 1950s look
liberal.
Now obviously the field of homosexual literature is going to place a
certain emphasis on the sexual problems of humanity which will be
quantitatively greater than that of--say--the Western novel, or the
detective story. Sex alone has not been made an excuse for consigning
any novel to the trashbin. If the treatment is honest, the characters
even remotely believable and the purpose of the book seems reasonably
genuine, then the quantity of sex is purely a matter for the author's
discretion; and be it much, as in the works of March Hastings, Artemis
Smith or Henry Miller, or little, as in Iris Murdoch's delicate and
subtle THE BELL, or Shirley Jackson's THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE,--we
give the book judgment only on its merits as a book.
However, in self-defense, we have had to find a way to dispose of the
more repetitive rubbish. Allowing for differences in taste, and granting
that many people like their books well-spiced, if there is a reasonably
well-written story along with the sex we have called it "Evening
waster"--on the grounds that it may very well provide pleasant
entertainment for anyone not a hopeless prude. But if the story is just
a peg on which to hang up a lot of poorly written, gamy erotic episodes,
with no literary value, and just evasive enough to keep the printer out
of jail, then we have given it short shrift with the abbreviation
"scv"--which cryptic letters are editorial shorthand for "Short Course
in Voyeurism"--and have been the basis of a lot of jokes in the tedious
business of passing reviews around the editorial staff (The junior and
senior editors live a thousand miles apart and have never met; the
others who occasionally contribute reviews are scattered from Alabama to
Oregon.). So we have to have some fun in the endless correspondence--and
"scv" books are fair game.
Regrettably, we are well aware that some people are going to use this
designation in precisely the opposite fashion than we intended--go
through the list picking out the sexy books and carefully avoiding the
others. Well--we shan't spoil your fun. Each to her own taste, as the
old lady said when she kissed the cow.
We wish here to give some slight acknowledgment to all those who, over
the years since the initiation of this endeavor, have contributed
overlooked titles, pointed out our errors, sent comments, criticisms and
sometimes cash, laboriously tracked down elusive data, worked as unpaid
researchers and stencil-cutters, and in general helped us to feel we
were not working in a vacuum.
Special acknowledgments are due to Dr. Jeannette Howard Foster,
unfailingly generous and gracious in allowing us to pick her brains; to
Leslie Laird Winston, of the Winston Book Service; to the editors of THE
LADDER, Del Martin in particular, for helping us to publicize our
Checklist, and for allowing us to use reviews run in the _Lesbiana_
column; to Forrest Ackerman, for endless help and encouragement; and to
Kerry Dame, whose generous gift of stamps proved invaluable to the heavy
load of correspondence necessary to keep this one-woman publishing house
rolling. And to all those others, anonymous by choice, who have sent
small gifts of cash and stamps, turned up elusive paperbacks for me in
news-standless West Texas, contributed reviews and data, and, above all,
provided cheer and encouraging support. We hope this Checklist is half
as much fun for you to read as it was for us--all things considered--to
prepare.
And here at the end I take off my editorial "We" for a special, personal
THANK YOU to my collaborator and co-editor, GENE DAMON.
And now, until the first Supplement time, it's time to turn the
Checklist over to you. Comments and criticisms are invited.
Marion Z Bradley
[Illustration]
List of Symbols and Abbreviations
pbo--paperbacked original; first published in paperback
or first English edition in paperback.
pbr--paperbacked reprint.
n.d.--no date listed or date unknown.
ss--short story.
qpb--quality paperback book (as, Grove Press or Vintage).
tct--title changed to (as, _Torchlight to Valhalla_, pbr
tct _The Strange Path_).
fco--for completists only; variant content either extremely
slight or problematical.
+ before a title indicates a book of considerable value.
Occasionally used to call attention to a fine new
release or the discovery of an old title overlooked
in previous bibliographies. In general, the plus
sign has been reserved for books of honest purpose,
sincere if not always entirely favorable treatment of
the homosexual theme, and some genuine literary merit.
In one or two cases, a plus has been given to a book
of little intrinsic worth because of some major and
exceptional contribution to thought on the variant
theme; or to an occasional book for being extremely
good entertainment of its kind, even if no masterpiece.
We have tried to avoid including only our favorites.
(m) indicates a novel concerned mostly with male homosexuality.
A very large proportion of such novels,
however, contain some discussion of female variance,
or lesbian characters, as well.
BAYOR--Buy at your own risk ... either no accurate data is
available or the editors find themselves in hopeless
disagreement about its relevance.
Evening Waster--good solid entertainment and reasonably
well-written, though worthless as literature.
scv--see editorial for complete discussion of this term.
This is the literary ghetto, the gutter books, the
commercialized sex trash as distinguished from honest
erotic realism.
THE COMPLETE, CUMULATIVE CHECKLIST OF LESBIAN FICTION
ACKWORTH, ROBERT C. _The Moments Between._ pbo, Hillman Books
1959. Characters in a college novel include an
instructor--male--who is homosexual, very sympathetically
portrayed. Also a subtle, but sympathetic attachment between an
unlovely, unloved student and an older woman; the relationship is
shown as constructive for both in the end.
+ ADAMS, FAY. _Appointment in Paris._ pbo, N. Y., Gold Medal 1952.
An American girl in Paris has a brief affair with a French woman
and is thereby enabled to break the hold of her old-maid aunt. She
later marries.
ADDAMS, KAY. _Queer Patterns._ pbo, Beacon, 1959. scv. Trashy
shocker about young Nora Card, who briefly forsakes her boy
friend, Roger, for a corrupt lesbian employer.
_Warped Desires._ pbo, Beacon, 1960. scv. Teen-age Doris goes to a
boarding school and is seduced by everyone on the premises, male
and female.
ALDRICH, ANN (pseud.)
_We Too Must Love._ pbo Gold Medal 1958.
_We Walk Alone._ pbo, Gold Medal 1955.
Non-fiction studies of the lesbian world, highly subjective,
mostly vignettes of gay life in and around Greenwich Village, with
some added data about the manners, customs and language of the
"gay" world. Good reading, if somewhat biased.
see also VIN PACKER
ALEXANDER, DAVID. _Madhouse in Washington Square._ Lippincott,
1958. Mystery novel of high quality, introducing a pair of
lesbians for window-dressing.
ANDERSON, HELEN. _Pity for Women._ N. Y., Doubleday, 1937. An
unhappy and tense relationship among three women, inhabitants of a
women's residence club in New York.
ANDERSON, SHERWOOD. _Dark Laughter._ N. Y., Boni & Liveright, 1925,
pbr Pocket Books, 1952. Very slight.
_Poor White_; N. Y., B. W. Huebsch, 1920, hcr in The Portable
Sherwood Anderson, qpb Viking Press P42. In the course of a novel
about the rise of a "shantytown boy's" rise to prosperity, there
is a brief but extremely sympathetic portrait of the lesbian, Kate
Chancellor; the hero's wife, Clara, is briefly captivated by Kate
during her college days.
ANDREYA, GUY. _Tormented Venus._ N. Y. Key Pub. Co 1958. scv.
ANONYMOUS. _Adam and Two Eves._ Macauley Co, N. Y., 1934, pbr Beacon
Books 1956. Evening waster. Neurotically heartbroken woman
mourning her dead lover becomes entangled with a married woman
because a woman's love does not constitute infidelity to the dead;
once initiated she becomes entangled in a long affair _a trois_,
from which she is eventually extricated (somewhat the worse for
wear) by a man she later marries.
ANTHOLZ, PEYSON. _All Shook Up._ pbo, Ace Books, 1958, (m). Alan,
small-town teen-age rowdy, fights against his friendship with
newcomer Howard Sirche, because it is rumored that Howard, who
avoids women, is homosexual. Very good of its kind.
ANTON, CAL. _The Private Life of a Strip Tease Girl._ pbo, Beacon
1959, scv. Just what it sounds like. Among her many "affairs" is a
brief episode with another girl.
ASQUITH, CYNTHIA. "The Lovely Voice". ss, in _This Mortal Coil._
Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin. Fantasy, 1947
BAKER, DENYS VAL. _A Journey With Love._ Bridgehead Books, 1955,
pbr Crest Books 1956. fco. The hero's first marriage fails because
of his wife's insistence that a woman friend shall share their
home. Nothing is explicit.
BAKER, DOROTHY. _Trio._ Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co, 1943, hcr Sun
Dial 1945, pbr Penguin Books 1946. Tells of the captivation of a
young woman by an unscrupulous literary agent who also happens to
be a lesbian. Highly defamatory.
_Young Man with A Horn._ Boston; Houghton Mifflin, 1938, pbr
Signet 1953. Very minor lesbian incident in a jazz novel.
+ BALDWIN, JAMES. _Giovanni's Room._ Dial 1956, pbr Signet 1959,
(m). An American boy in Paris fights against his affair with a
young Italian, Giovanni; his fear and resistance to this
relationship leads to separation, tragedy and their separate
destruction. A powerful, tender and tragic book.
BALDWIN, MONICA. _The Called and the Chosen._ Farrar, Straus _&_
Cudahy, N. Y., 1957, pbr Signet 1958. A good study of repression and
frustration in convent life, containing passim the story of Sister
Helena, novice-mistress; although her behavior was strictly
correct even for a nun, she once inspired such violent passions in
her juniors that she was removed from this office. The heroine
refers to Sister Helena, after her death, as "the one human being
I ever loved".
BALZAC, HONORÉ DE. _Cousin Bette._ Classic; many standard editions
and translations. The story of a neurotic spinster's half-realised
passion for a woman friend.
_The Girl with the Golden Eyes._ Many standard editions and
translations, including pbr Avon Books 1957, (trans. Ernest
Dowson.) Shocker of the 19th century, dealing with the passion of
the Chevalier de Marsay for a strange, unspoilt girl, Paquita--who
is virtually enslaved to a sinister lesbian Countess.
_Seraphita._ London, J.W. Dent & Sons, 1897; also as above. A
romance of an angelic hermaphrodite. All of these are classics of
world literature, as well as the literature of variance, and are
apt to be available even in small libraries.
+ BANNON, ANN.
_Odd Girl Out._ pbo, Gold Medal, 1957, 1960.
_I am a Woman._ pbo, Gold Medal, 1959.
_Women in the Shadows._ pbo, Gold Medal, 1959.
These three form a single, connected narrative, although any of
the three novels can be read as a self-contained story. The first
volume introduces the heroine of the series, Laura Landon, at
college; where, in undergoing an affair with her roommate, lovely
but frigid Beth, she discovers her homosexuality. Softened by the
affair, Beth marries, and Laura runs away. In the second book,
Laura, in Greenwich Village, is sharing an apartment, with Marcie,
a divorcee, entirely "straight" who plays Laura along strictly for
kicks; Laura suffers under this treatment for a long time, then
runs away again to shack up with a butch-type Village character,
Beebo. In the third book, Laura and Beebo have been living
together for two years; Laura is tiring of this lengthy affair and
cheats on Beebo with a colored dancer named Tris, while Beebo, to
win Laura back, resorts to such trickery as staging a phony "rape"
... inflicting wounds on herself in search of sympathy. Tiring of
this life, Laura runs away again, this, time to marry a male
homosexual friend, Jack, in a search for stability and permanence.
The whole story invites comparison with Weiraugh's THE SCORPION:
homosexuality per se is not attacked, but the drawbacks of the
life, and the dangers and difficulties to anyone trying to adjust
him-or-herself to that life, are frankly and brutally delineated;
there is a pervasive air of dissatisfaction, or resignation, and
gradual withdrawal; and the ending of the third book is
unsatisfactory and hardly complete. Nevertheless, the impact of
these books, particularly when read all together, is considerable;
Miss Bannon's grasp of character, technique and construction
improve with each novel. Despite wild improbabilities and
gimmicky, contrived situations, these are perhaps the major
contribution to lesbian literature in the paperback field
anywhere.
+ BARNES, DJUNA. "Dusie", ss in _American Esoterica_, NY,
Macy-Masius, 1927. This collection also contains short stories of
(m) interest.
_Nightwood._ N. Y., Harcourt 1937, hcr New Directions n.d. A
well-known and excellent lesbian novel laid in Paris.
+ BARR, JAMES. _Derricks._ NY, Greenberg 1951, (m) hcr Pan, 1957.
Although those short stories all deal with male homosexuality,
their coherent, fresh and constructive philosophy make this a book
of primary importance for every reader.
_Quatrefoil._ N. Y., Greenberg, 1950, (m).
_Game of Fools._ ONE, 1954, 1955.
BARRY, JEROME. _Malignant Stars._ N. Y., Doubleday, 1960. Signe, a
handsome Valkyrie-type girl, is found dead, and the note beside
her body is apparently a love letter from her roommate Lyn; the
suspicion that Lyn is her lover and murderer forms the main theme
of the plot. Well done.
BAUM, VICKI. _Theme for Ballet._ N. Y., Doubleday 1958, pbr Dell
1959, (m). Minor but excellent.
_The Mustard Seed._ Dial 1953, pbr Pyramid 1956 (m minor).
BEER, THOMAS. _Mrs Egg and Other Barbarians._ Knopf, 1933. Rarer
than hen's teeth--lesbian humor.
BELLAMANN, HENRY. _King's Row._ N. Y., Simon & Schuster, 1940, (m).
BELOT, ADOLPHE. _Mademoiselle Giraud, My Wife._ Paris, Dentu 1870,
Chicago, Laird & Lee 1891. The wife remains a "miss", refusing her
husband's approaches because of her attachment to another woman.
Typically the husband drowns this monstrous creature (other woman)
during an ostensible seaside rescue.
BENNETT, ARNOLD. _Elsie and the Child._ N. Y., Doran, 1924. "Common
sense" treatment of an attachment between Elsie the housemaid, and
a girl of twelve, which subsides when the little girl is sent to
school.
_The Pretty Lady._ N. Y., Doran 1918. A subtle picture of indirect
variance between two women in wartorn Paris.
BERKMAN, SYLVIA. _Blackberry Wilderness._ N. Y., Doubleday, 1959.
Esoteric, melancholy, beautifully written short stories, of which
two are overtly lesbian in content.
BERTIN, SYLVIA. _The Last Innocence._ (Trans. by Marjorie Dean). N
Y McGraw Hill, 1955. Story of Paula, a member of a French
provincial family. "The refreshing thing is that Paula is treated
as a matter of course ... that she wears trousers, hates men, etc.
is presented with no more excuse or explanation than the
individual foibles of the rest of the family."
BESTER, ALFRED. _Who He?_ N. Y., Doubleday 1955, pbr Berkley 1956,
(m) tct. _The Rat Race_. Tense, tightly plotted novel of split
personality. The hero's housemate is a deeply sublimated
homosexual who cracks up when Jake gets a girl; this episode snaps
the high pitch of tightrope tension and precipitates the
denouement of the novel. Excellent.
BISHOP, LEONARD. _Creep Into thy Narrow Bed._ Dial 1954, pbr
Pyramid 1956. Story of a vicious abortion racket; woven into the
story is the sympathetically treated story of a young lesbian's
self-realization. Very good of kind.
BODIN, PAUL. _All Woman's Flesh_ (trans. from the French of Le
Voyage Sentimental, by Lowell Bair.) pbo Berkley 1957.
_The Sign of Eros_ (trans. from French) Putnam 1953, pbr Berkley
1955.
Both of these involve a man's attachment to two women who have
some homosexual contact, but the emphasis is heterosexual, rather
than lesbian.
BOLTON, ISABEL. "Ruth and Irma", ss in The New Yorker, Jan 26,
1947; also in Donald Webster Cory's _21 Variations on a Theme_.
BOTTOME, PHYLLIS. _Jane._ Vanguard, 1957. Story of a street
urchin, including lesbian episodes in a girl's reformatory.
BOURDET, ÉDOUARD. _The Captive._ N. Y., Brentano's 1926. Drama based
on a triangle--man, wife, and a woman who is winning the
affections of the latter.
BOURJAILY, VANCE. _The End of My Life._ Scribner's 1947, pbr
Bantam 1952, (m).
_The Violated._ Dial 1958, pbr Bantam 1959, (m).
_The Hound of Earth._ Scribner 1955, pbr Permabooks, 1956, (m).
Also includes a minor, and unsympathetic lesbian character.
BOWEN, ELIZABETH. _The Hotel._ N. Y. Dial 1928. A shy young girl
sent to catch a husband at a fashionable hotel is, instead,
captivated by a sophisticated woman.
BOWLES, JANE. _Two Serious Ladies._ N. Y. Knopf, 1943. The
emancipation of an inhibited American housewife.
BOYLE, KAY. "The Bridegroom's Body" ss in _The Crazy Hunter_,
Harcourt 1938, 1940. Also qpb, Beacon Press, 1958, (m).
_Gentlemen, I Address you Privately._ NY, Smith 1933, (m).
_Monday Night._ N. Y. Harcourt 1938, hcr New Directions, n.d. Brief
account of a lesbian affair through the eyes of a child.
BRADLEY, MARION Z. "Centaurus Changeling" in The Magazine of
Fantasy and Science Fiction, April, 1954. Science Fiction novel;
intensely emotional relationship between three wives of alien
bureaucrat leads to jealousy and tragedy when the eldest,
Cassiana, takes an outsider into their home and makes a favorite
of her.
_The Planet Savers_, in Amazing Stories, Dec. 1958, (m). Science
fiction of split personality, one equivocally homosexual.
BRAND, MAX. (pseud of Frederick Faust). _The Night Horseman._ G.P.
Putnam's Sons, 1920, hcr Dodd, Mead 1952, pbr Pocket Books 1954,
(m). Unusual Western story of a strange cowboy who has an almost
supernatural influence on horses and other men; his foster father
mysteriously declines when he leaves, makes a miraculous recovery
when he returns home. Subtle and good of its kind.
BRINIG, MYRON. _The Looking Glass Heart._ Sagamore, 1958. One
lesbian episode, treated vaguely. (Minority report says that
nevertheless it is so clearly and well done that the book is worth
anyone's reading.)
BRITAIN, SLOAN. _The Needle._ pbo Beacon Books, 1959. Overly
contrived shocker about Gina, a young girl who falls
simultaneously into narcotics, lesbianism, prostitution and the
hands of a weird couple dabbling in incest. Evening waster, rather
better than most but leaves a bitter taste.
+ _First Person, Third Sex._ pbo Newsstand Library 1959. Very
well-written novel of Paula Harman, young schoolteacher coming to
terms with her life as a lesbian through bitter experience. Don't
let the lurid paperback covers and blurb scare you off, this is a
NOVEL--well worth hard covers and a steal at 35c.
BROCK, LILYAN. _Queer Patterns._ Greenberg 1935, pbr Avon 1951,
1952. Purple-patched sloppily sentimental tale of Sheila,
beautiful young actress with a perfect husband who nevertheless
loses her heart to Nicoli, a stereotype lesbian complete with
tuxedo. They part to avoid gossip and live unhappily ever after.
BROMFIELD, LOUIS. _The Rains Came._ N. Y. Collier 1937, pbr Bantam
1952. In a long novel of India there is a brief but important
episode involving two old missionary ladies. The elder, an
engaging old battleax, muses as she tucks the younger and sillier
into bed that her friend had never understood why they had been
driven out of the school where they had, as young girls, been
teaching. Ironically, the nice old grim one is killed in a flood
while the silly one remains to pester everybody.
_Mister Smith_, Harper, 1951; no pbr on record, but your editor
has owned one--perhaps an "Armed Forces" edition? (m). Four men,
marooned on a desert island in WW2.
+ BROPHY, BRIGID. _King of a Rainy Country._ Knopf. 1957. Poignant
novel of a young girl who lives with Neale, a young male
homosexual, out of wedlock. They both become enamored with a
portrait of Cynthia, a girl out of the childhood of the
heroine....
BROWN, WENZELL. _Prison Girl._ pbo, Pyramid, 1958. One of many
books documenting in painful detail the abuses prevalent in the
women's prison system, with special attention to the undeniable
fact that the system breeds various sexual aberrations. A few of
these books are excellent. This one isn't.
BROWNRIGG, GAWEN. _Star Against Star._ N. Y., Macaulay, 1936. Story
of a girl conditioned from childhood to lesbian affairs, first by
an overly seductive mother, then by a school friend. The book has
the doom-ridden atmosphere of its day, and is emotional and
somewhat over-written.
BURNS, VINCENT G. _Female Convict._ Macaulay 1934, pbr Pyramid
1959. More women in prison and the unfortunate relationships
developing among them.
BURT, STRUTHERS. _Entertaining the Islanders._ N. Y. Scribners,
1933. Sophisticated, satirical, novel in which a man becomes aware
that his ex-sweetheart has been captivated by another woman.
+ BUSSY, DOROTHY. _Olivia._ (by Olivia). Wm. Sloane Associates,
1949, Berkley pbr 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959. An English schoolgirl,
sent to boarding school in Paris, becomes an unwitting third party
to a long-standing affair between Julie and Cara, the two
schoolmistresses. Julie's response to the girl, and Cara's
jealousy, and suicide, form the main events of the story, which is
told with delicate restraint, after a retrospect of many years, as
Olivia, now herself a lesbian, has come to understand the
procession of events.
CAIN, JAMES M. _Serenade._ Knopf 1937, pbr Signet ca. 1953, (m).
CAINE, HALL. _The Bondsman._ R.F. Fenno & Co, ca. 1890; other
editions available, frequently very cheap secondhand. Called a
"Modern Saga", this is laid in 18th-Century Iceland. Two
half-brothers, Jason the Red and Michael Sunlocks, sons of the
same man by different mothers, grow up knowing of one another's
existence, but unknown to each other personally. Through a series
of saga-like coincidences, they fall in love with the same woman,
and are eventually exiled together to the sulphur mines--Iceland's
prison colony--still unaware of each other's real identity. There
Jason undergoes a psychological and emotional upheaval which can
only be described as "falling in love" with Michael, who is still
known to him only as Prisoner A-25, not as his hated brother. This
story is probably more explicit, emotionally, than anything
written before the 20th century and the freedom given by Freud to
the emotions of novelists. Recommended.
_The Deemster._ Rand McNally, 1888, Chicago; D. Appleton, 1888;
numerous other editions, (m). A glorified friendship between two
cousins ends in murder.
CALDWELL, ERSKINE. _Tragic Ground._ Little, Brown & Co, 1944, pbr
Signet 1948, fco.
CAPOTE, TRUMAN. _Breakfast at Tiffany's._ Random House 1958, pbr
Signet 1959. In the story of a promiscuous, rather pathetic girl,
a sadistic lesbian neighbor brings on violent events. Everything
very subtle and indirect.
_Other Voices, Other Rooms._ Random House 1948, pbr Signet 1959.
Young boy slowly falling under the influence of a decadent uncle
who is a transvestite. Macabre.
CARCO, FRANCIS. _Depravity._ pbo Berkley 1957.
_Infamy._ pbo Berkley 1958.
Both of these books hint at lesbianism on the cover blurbs, but
are, rather, highly risque French novels with brief, irrelevant
and heterosexually oriented contact between women characters
strictly for voyeuristic effect.
CARPENTER, EDWARD. _Iolaus_; _an Anthology of Friendship._ N. Y.,
Albert & Charles Boni, 1935, (m). Listed as "the first of its
kind", this is said also to be "very vague and old-fashioned."
+ CASAL, MARY. _The Stone Wall. An Autobiography._ Chicago,
Eyncourt Press, 1930. In casual, conversational and entirely
frank form, a woman born in 1865 (and therefore, at the time of
writing, in her sixties) tells the story of her entire life as a
lesbian. With the exception of "slightly autobiographical"--and
always greatly disguised--fiction, this is probably the earliest
such memoir in the literature. The writing is highly competent and
professional, (subtly denying the author's insistence that she was
not a writer;) and filled with most interesting revelations about
the lesbian world of New York and Paris at the turn of this
century. Unfortunately the book is rare and expensive, but it
stands alone as a classic of its kind.
CHAMALES, TOM T. _Go Naked in the World._ N. Y. Scribners 1959. Nick
Stratton, wounded veteran, returns to find that his girl friend is
a call-girl and a lesbian.
CHANDLER, RAYMOND. _The Big Sleep._ Knopf 1939, pbr Pocket Books
1950, and others. (m). The bizarre murder of a homosexual hoodlum,
and the interrogation of his boy friend, form important sequences
in this hard-boiled murder mystery.
CHEEVER, JOHN. "Clancy in the Tower of Babel", ss in _The Enormous
Radio_, Funk 1953, pbr Berkley 1958, (m).
+ CHRISTIAN, PAULA. _The Edge of Twilight._ pbo Crest 1959.
Airline stewardess Val, in an alcoholic haze, allows herself to
make love to a young girl friend, Toni. Fearing her own response
to this "abnormal" love, she redoubles her promiscuous
sleeping-around, but the girls end up together. The treatment,
though sensational, is honest and constructive; the book will win
no literary prizes, but whatever the reader's sympathies and
prejudices, he will approve the stand that happy adjustment to
love and affection--even homosexual--is a more constructive
solution than promiscuity. Very good of its kind.
CHRISTIE, AGATHA. _A Murder is Announced._ Dodd, Mead 1950, fco.
Suspects include a pair of problematical lesbians.
CLARK, DORENE. _The Exotic Affair._ Magnet Books, 1959, scv. "I
really think this one should be Maggot Books," wrote my reviewer.
"One of those fastmoving sloppy jobs where two men and two women
on an exotic cruise complete with mis-spelled and misapplied
foreign phrases spend most of their time trying all of the
printable and some of the unprintable variations on an old old
theme. All sex and no sentiment makes Jack and Jill sickening (and
the reviewer sick) or, for that matter, Jack and Jack or Jill and
Jill."
+ CLAYTON, JOHN. _Dew in April._ Kendall & Sharpe, 1935. Romance
of the Middle Ages, laid in the Convent of St. Lazarus of the
Butterflies. Dolores, a homeless vagabond, is given shelter by
Mother Leonor, a mystic, repressed, white-hot and deeply tender
woman whose passionate emotional attachments to her young novices
are never explicit but pervade the entire book. Much of the story
is concerned with a subtle, sweet and innocently sensual
blossoming of adolescent emotions into homo-erotic form under the
pressures of convent life; the interplay of delicate love
relationships between Dolores, Mother Leonor, and the young
novices Dezirada and Clarisse, and their fluctuation between
despair, self-sacrifice and compassionate love when Dolores finds
a knightly lover, Pedro, is probably unmatched in studies of
feminine variance.
_Gold of Toulouse._ Kendall & Sharpe, 1935. Sequel to _Dew in
April_, but laid chronologically six or seven years earlier.
Though mostly concerned with the adventures of Don Marcos, the
Spanish knight, it also tells the story of Leonor, and shows the
beginning of her relationship with Dezirada.
CLIFTON, BUD. _Muscle Boy._ pbo Ace Books, 1958, (m). Teen-age
athlete inveigled into posing for dirty pictures. Good evening
waster.
COLE, JERRY. _Secrets of a Society Doctor._ Greenberg, 1935. pbr
Universal Publishing & Distributing, ca. 1953, (m).
+ COLEMAN, LONNIE. _Ship's Company._ Little, Brown & Co, 1955, pbr
Dell, 1957. Collection of short stories, of which two are
homosexual.
_Sam._ David McKay, 1959, pbr Pyramid, 1960, (m). Major, excellent,
important. Don't waste time reading reviews, just go out and buy
it.
COLETTE, SIDONIE-GABRIELLE. _Claudine at School._ _Claudine in
Paris._ _The Indulgent Husband_ (in The Short Novels of Colette).
"Bella Vista" in _The Tender Shoot._ "Gitanette" in _Music Hall
Sidelights._
All of these are currently in print in excellent, uniform English
translation of the standard "Fleuron" edition of Colette's
complete works, from Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, of recent date. The
two "Claudine" novels have had recent Avon pbr editions under the
titles of _Diary of a 15 Year Old French Girl_, and _Claudine_.
Much of the work of this important French novelist was variant.
Only the most explicit are named above. The first three form a
connected narrative, telling of Claudine's school crushes, her
friendship with a male-homosexual cousin, and her "indulgent
husband" who connives at her lesbian affair with a woman friend,
in order to enjoy it secondhand. "Bella Vista" tells of a vacation
spent at a hotel managed by two middle-aged lesbians; the
narrator's fascinated interest in the couple vanishes when one of
the "ladies" turns out to be, actually, a disguised man.
CONNOLLY, CYRIL. _The Rock Pool._ Scribner 1936, hcr New
Directions n.d. Very well written novel of a group of expatriates
in the South of France. Nearly all are homosexuals; the story is
told without comment or judgment.
CONSTANTINE, MURRAY, and Margaret Goldsmith. _Venus in Scorpio._
John Lane, 1940. Heavily fictionalized biography, (erroneously
listed elsewhere as a novel) of Marie Antoinette, suggesting
lesbianism in her adolescence.
+ CORY, DONALD WEBSTER. _21 Variations on a Theme._ N. Y., Greenberg
1953. The classic anthology of short stories about homosexuals;
four deal with feminine variance.
COUPEROUS, LOUIS. _The Comedians_, N. Y. Doran 1926. Variant
couple in a novel of Imperial Rome.
COURAGE, JAMES. _A Way of Love._ G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1959, (m).
COWLIN, DOROTHY. _Winter Solstice._ Macmillan, 1943. A brief
variant relationship proves beneficial to a hysterical invalid.
CRADOCK, PHYLLIS. _Gateway to Remembrance._ Andrew Dakers, London
1950. fco. Very brief mention of a lesbian couple in a sappy
metaphysical novel about Lost Atlantis.
CRAIG, JONATHAN. _Case of the Village Tramp._ pbo Gold Medal 1959.
Fast, well-written mystery introduces a pair of lesbians among the
suspects; _good_ entertainment.
+ CRAIGIN, ELISABETH. _Either is Love._ Harcourt, Brace, 1937, pbr
Lion Books, 1952, 1956, Pyramid 1960. After the death of her
husband the narrator re-reads the letters she had written him
about her intense love affair with another woman. Almost
unequalled treatment of a lesbian _romance_.
CREAL, MARGARET. _A Lesson in Love._ Simon & Schuster 1957. A
Canadian orphan's passion for a beautiful schoolmate ends in
disillusion when the older girl, Tammy, tries to force Nicola into
a distasteful affair with a boy, the better to deceive her mother
about a similar affair of her own.
CROUZAT, HENRI. _The Island at the End of the World._ Duell, Sloan
and Pearce, 1959. An ex-schoolteacher, Patrice, is marooned on a
sub-Antarctic island with three nurses; Joan, a nymphomanic;
Victoria, a lesbian, and Kathleen, a quite ordinary girl. Due to
fortuitous circumstances, they manage to assure themselves the
necessities of life, and between Robinson-Crusoe-ish struggles,
embark on a round of excesses gradually diminished by the horrible
deaths of Kathleen, then Victoria. Fascinating, slightly macabre.
+ CUSHING, MARY WATKINS. _The Rainbow Bridge._ G P Putnam's Sons,
1954. This book is included for the light it sheds on another
novel in this list, Marcia Davenport's _Of Lena Geyer_, and not
for the sake of any impertinent conclusions about the real people
involved. Mrs. Cushing served for seven years as companion and
buffer against the world for the famous prima donna, Olive
Fremstad, and Mme. Fremstad's reclusive, fantastically disciplined
personality seems to have served, at least in part, as model for
Lena Geyer. At any rate, both books become more interesting when
read together.
DANE, CLEMENCE. (pseud. of Winifred Ashton); _Regiment of Women._
Macmillan, 1917. Possibly the earliest novel of variance. A
lengthy book of the subtle sadism of the domineering headmistress
of a girl's school.
DARIUS, MICHEL. _I, Sappho of Lesbos._ Castle Books, May 1960.
Supposedly translated from a Medieval Latin manuscript
conveniently lost on the Andrea Doria. In first-person, this
weaves the better-known traditions about Sappho into a racy,
fast-moving novel. The lesbian content is not emphasized, unduly.
Writing-wise, this invites comparison with the work of Pierre
Louys. The "scholarship" is completely tongue-in-cheekish, of
course, as with the _Songs of Bilitis_. In general, this should
prove the Title of the Year for those who wonder why they don't
write like Pierre Louys anymore. (Department of Unpaid
Advertising; this one can NOW be ordered through Winston Book
Service; see Appendix.)
DAVENPORT, MARCIA. _Of Lena Geyer._ Scribner, 1936. Well-known
novel of the life of an opera singer. Lena has a young satellite
and adorer, but Elsie is careful to say that while "gossip has had
many cruel things to say of this friendship ... there was,
needless to say, not a word of truth in the essential accusation."
The two women remain together, even after Lena's marriage, until
her death.
DAVEY, WILLIAM. _Dawn Breaks the Heart._ Howell Soskin & Co, 1941.
A lengthy episode involves the sensitive hero's elopement with
Vivian, an irresponsible girl who turns out to be a lesbian and
leaves him for another woman. Excellent.
DAVIES, RHYS. "Orestes", ss in _The Trip to London._ N. Y. Howell
Soskin & Co, 1946. A lesbian manages to free the protagonist of a
mother-complex, because her attitude is free of feminine
seductiveness.
+ DAVIS, FITZROY. _Quicksilver._ Harcourt, Brace, 1942. Hilarious
novel of the theatre, supposedly based on actual personalities
recognizable to the initiate; my reviewer wrote that some
theatrical people "literally turn purple at the mere mention of
this book ... most real pro actors detest portrayal of
homosexuality in theatre fiction, bad publicity and all that ...
can't say I blame them much."
DAY, MAX. _So Nice, So Wild._ pbo, Stanley Library Inc, 1959.
Evening waster; an impossibly complicated murder-story plot with a
hero who, trying to prove he didn't murder his own uncle, is
pestered by all sorts of girls crawling into his bunk, blondes,
brunettes and a few lesbians trying hard to convert themselves to
heterosexuality. Funny, real fun.
DEAN, RALPH. _One Kind of Woman._ pbo, Beacon, 1959. Evening
waster.
_Forbidden Thrills._ pbo Bedtime Books 1959. Scv.
DEBUSSY, ROY.
--and Jay Arpage; _Non Stop Flight_, Brookwood 1958.
--and Cleo Dorene; _Fountain of Youth_, Brookwood 1958.
--and Arthur Maurier; _Wicked Curves_, Brookwood 1958.
--and Les Maxime; _Eye Lust_, Brookwood 1959.
--and Les Maxime; _The Golden Nymph_, Brookwood 1958.
These are all hardcover risque novels retailing for about $3 in
bookstores which deal in that sort of thing for the adult trade
only; I don't know, not being a postal inspector, whether they
can legally be sent through the U S Mails. On the whole I would
think not. They are all fairly well written for books of their
kind, amusing and entertaining, and bear about the same
relationship to the paperback scv--evening wasters that ESQUIRE
does to the average cheaper girly magazine. They are, however,
strictly for a male audience; the "lesbian" content in all of them
is presented from a strip-tease point of view and in every case
the girl involved is "cured" of this perversion by male
seduction--in some cases, by brutality. The plot of _Non Stop
Flight_ is typical; hero Eric Leighton discovers his wife dallying
with a lesbian, so he beats up and rapes the lesbian (juicily
described) whereupon his wife commits suicide. Then Eric gets
involved with Celia, a stereotype "dish" with an ineffectual
husband; when Celia tires of him he beats her up and rapes her
(juicily described) then runs across the lesbian who has seduced
his wife _and_ Celia, so he beats her up and rapes her again
(juicily described) after which Eric and the lesbian get married
and live very happily forever after. I don't know precisely what
to call these books, but lesbiana is hardly descriptive. You have
been warned.
DEISS, JAY. _The Blue Chips._ Simon & Schuster 1957, pbr Bantam
1958. fco. In an excellent novel of medical laboratory workers, a
very very minor lesbian character.
DE FORREST, MICHAEL. _The Gay Year._ N. Y., Woodford Press, 1949,
(m). Happily untypical of this publisher's racy trash, this story
of a young man searching for self-knowledge in New York's Bohemia
is very good of its kind.
DELL, FLOYD. _Diana Stair._ Farrar & Rinehart, 1932. Long novel of
the early 19th century. Diana is a woman writer, but also explores
life as mill-girl, schoolteacher and abolitionist. Though
attracted to, and attractive to men, she is never without "some
older woman to adore and emulate, or some younger woman to teach
and inspire." Delightful, ironic novel of the trouble women can
get into when they refuse to fall neatly into the ruts laid down
by conventional society for women's lives.
DE MEJO, OSCAR. _Diary of a Nun._ pbo Pyramid 1955. Just what it
sounds like--fictional diary of a young girl in a convent warding
off scandalous advances. Mediocre.
+ DENNIS, NIGEL FORBES. _Cards of Identity._ Vanguard, 1955.
Hilarious novel of confused identity, dealing with both male and
female homosexuality.
DES CARS, GUY. _The Damned One._ pbo Pyramid, 1956. A member of
French aristocracy, ambiguously sexed enough to be classified as
female at birth, grows up unequivocally male but retains the name,
dress and character of a female to avoid scandal--which comes
anyhow when _she_ carries on with an eccentric Englishwoman.