1958. The heroine's hesitation between marriage with a steady and
reliable man, and insecure excitement with a hoodlum, is resolved
when her affairs are interrupted by concern for the daughter of a
friend; the young lesbian, Mab, whose life has become entangled
with some very shady characters.
+ HULL, HELEN R. "The Fire" ss in Century Magazine, Nov 1917;
Excellent story of a small-town girl's love for a middle-aged
spinster who awakens her to a world beyond her small one.
"With One Coin for Fee", novelette in _Experiment_, Coward-McCann
1938, 1939, 1940. An introspective spinster and a lifelong friend,
trapped in a New England house during the 1939 hurricane; subtle
but good.
_The Quest._ Macmillan, 1922. An over-emotional girl, seeking
escape from home tensions, develops crushes on a classmate and on
a teacher: her mother's over-reaction turns the girl against
variant attachments just as her unhappy home turned her against
marriage.
_The Labyrinth._ Macmillan, 1923. Variant attachments, among
others, in a novel of a woman unhappy in domesticity and trying to
find creative outlets.
_Landfall._ N. Y. Coward-McCann 1953. In a brittle and sarcastic
novel of a brittle and sarcastic woman, the heroine, a capable
businesswoman, alternately repulses and warms toward her adoring
secretary--though she secretly scorns the girl's devotion, she
feels it would be a nuisance to break in a new secretary, so
wishes to keep her captivated.
HUNEKER, JAMES. _Painted Veils._ Liveright 1920 (still in print);
pbr Avon 1928. Unpleasant novel of the theatrical and literary
world of that day; the heroine, Easter, (an opera singer) has a
mannish satellite.
HURST, FANNIE. _The Lonely Parade._ N. Y. Harper 1942. Very minor
mention of lesbians in a novel of lonely women at hotels.
+ HUTCHINS, MAUDE PHELPS McVEIGH. _A Diary of Love._ New
Directions, 1950, pbr Pyramid 1952, 1960. Weird stuff, written
with a detachment and delicacy reminiscent of the Colette novels.
A teen-age girl, Noel, goes through a bizarre series of
experiences in a strange household where her grandfather seduces
his (male) music pupils and a nymphomanic, neurotic housemaid,
Freida, successively seduces everyone from Grandpa down to Noel.
Beautifully done.
_Georgiana._ New Directions, 1948. The second section of a
sensitive, well-written novel is laid in a girl's school; there
are three important variant attachments, and as a result one of
Georgiana's classmates is expelled. In later life Georgiana blames
her failure to find happiness on a "lesbian complex."
_My Hero._ New Directions, 1953, (m).
ILTON, PAUL. _The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah._ pbo, Signet,
1956, 1957, (m). Historical, Biblical setting.
JACKSON, CHARLES. _The Fall of Valor._ Rinehart & Co, 1946, pbr
Signet, 1950, (m).
_The Lost Weekend._ Farrar & Rinehart 1944, pbr Berkley 1955 and
others.
"Palm Sunday" ss in collection _The Sunnier Side_, pbr Berkley nd
and others, also in Cory, _21 Variations_.
+ JACKSON, SHIRLEY. _Hangsaman._ Farrar, 1951. Frightening,
macabre story of a lonely girl who conjures up a thrilling
companion--who looks and acts like a boy but is clearly a girl.
They meet secretly and engage in wild conversation and loveplay,
and only slowly, with dawning horror, does the reader realize that
the child is a split personality and the two girls are one and the
same.
_The Haunting of Hill House._ Viking, 1959. During the
investigation of a reputed "haunted house", two of the
investigating party--Theo, an admitted lesbian, and Eleanor, a
lonely, inhibited spinster--go through a curious, subtly
delineated relationship wavering, with the intensity of the
"haunting" of the house, from attraction to intense love to
unexplained revulsion. Macabre; good of its kind.
JAMES, HENRY. _Turn of the Screw._ Macmillan 1898, hcr Modern
Library n d, Pocket Books and other editions. Available
everywhere. Some authorities consider subtle and understated
lesbianism to be the mysterious motivations behind the scenes of
this curious psychological ghost story of the struggle of a
governess for the souls of two young children.
_The Bostonians._ Century Magazine 1885, hcr Dial 1945.
JOHNSON, KAY. _My Name is Rusty._ Castle Books, 1958. Allegedly a
novel of a woman's prison, complete with glossary of "prison
slang"--but if the author has ever been inside a woman's prison,
or even done any authentic research, your editors will eat a copy
of the book, complete with cover jackets. Brief plot; butchy Rusty
makes a pass at prison newcomer Marcia, in order to share her
commissary credits. When Rusty gets out of prison she marries and
goes straight and Marcia kills herself. Read it and weep.
JONES, JAMES. _From Here to Eternity._ Scribners 1951, pbr Signet
ca. 1952, (m).
KASTLE, HERBERT D. _Koptic Court._ Simon & Schuster 1958, pbr tct
_Seven Keys to Koptic Court_, Crest 1959, (m).
KEENE, DAY and Leonard Pruyn. _World Without Women._ pbo Gold
Medal, 1960, Science-fictional evening waster; all the women in
the world die off, except a few, who must be carefully protected
as potential mothers of the human race. One episode involves all
the surviving lesbians, who barricade themselves in a prison. Good
of type.
KENNEDY, JAY RICHARD. _Short Term._ World, 1959. This one is just
out; reviews indicate some lesbian content, but this could be
anything from a paragraph to three chapters. BAYOR.
KENT, JUSTIN. _Mavis._ Vixen Press 1953, pbr Beacon 1960. scv.
"Mavis is married to a lush, so she dallies and so does he, and
they are really a pair of dillies dallying...."
+ KENT, NIAL. (pseud of William LeRoy Thomas) _The Divided Path_,
(m). Greenberg 1949, Pyramid pbr 1951, 1952, 1959. For once the
plus is used to promote personal prejudice; various authorities
call this book overly sentimental. But when this hardened reviewer
finds herself in tears, she's apt to think there must be something
to it. Childhood, adolescence and manhood of Michael, a young
homosexual, and his long-continued, scrupulously self-denying
relationship with a boyhood friend who does not suspect his
friend's "difference".
KENYON, THEDA. _That Skipper from Stonington._ Messner, 1946. A
juvenile novel, strangely enough, found in a high school library.
The hero runs away to sea as a small boy and is protected by a man
who is obviously homosexual, though the boy does not know it; the
other men on the ship, suspecting that this relationship is
unhealthy (it isn't) hound the boy's protector to suicide.
KEOGH, THEODORA. _Meg._ Creative Age Press 1950, pbr Signet 1952,
1956. Sublimated lesbianism in a very young girl.
_The Double Door._ Creative Age 1950, pbr Signet 1952, (m).
KESSEL, JOSEPH. _The Lion._ (trans. from French by Peter Green).
N. Y. Knopf 1959. One editor saw subtle variant emotion in the
mother's attachment to a school friend.
KING, DON. _The Bitter Love._ Newsstand Library Magenta Book,
1959. Rather good evening waster about a supposed double murder,
gradually solved by the slow revelation of the affair between
Brenda and her 16 year old stepdaughter.
KING, MARY JACKSON. _The Vine of Glory._ Bobbs-Merrill, 1948. This
won a prize as the best novel on race relations by a Southern
writer for its year. A repressed, inhibited, small-town girl,
Lavinia, at the mercy of elderly tyrannical relatives, forms a
close friendship with a Negro man who was her only childhood
friend. The friendship between Lavinia and Augustus is purely
platonic; she attends a school he has set up for colored girls who
wish to improve themselves, and he helps to find her a job; but
enraged small-minded bigots bring on a lynching. Early in the book
a preparation is laid for Lavinia's lack of friends of her own sex
and status by her unfortunate friendship with Dixie Murdoch,
teen-age daughter of a Holy-roller preacher. While spending the
night, Dixie attempts to make homosexual advances to the younger
girl, and Lavinia becomes hysterical. The episode is brief,
condemnatory and very realistic.
KIN, DAVID GEORGE. _Women Without Men._ Brookwood, 1958. The
author calls this "True stories of lesbian life in Greenwich
Village". It represents a roundup of a dozen or so famous literary
and artistic figures, presented as case histories. They are
presented, picture after sordid picture, without a glimmer of
understanding or real insight, though he sometimes shows smug
sympathy for a few he claims to have reformed by something he
calls "cultural therapy". He baldly states in the preface: "I take
my mental hygiene from Moses, rather than Freud, and have the
Mosaic horror of homosexuality". Despite this vicious slanting,
the book is explicit, funny in places, and presumably
verifiable--but certainly makes homosexuality look like a Fate
Worse Than Death. The writing is straight from the tabloid
newspapers.
KINSEY, CHET. _Kate._ pbo, Beacon 1959. scv.
KOESTLER, ARTHUR. _Arrival and Departure._ Macmillan 1943. A man
makes the most important decision of his life on the rebound of
disillusion after discovering that a woman who risked her life to
save him is a lesbian.
+ KRAMER, N. MARTIN (pseud. of Beatrice Ann Wright). _Hearth and
The Strangeness._ Macmillan 1956, pbr Pyramid 1957. An excellent
novel of the fear of inherited insanity in a family. The youngest
child, Aliciane, becomes a lesbian; this is one of the few
realistic and unromanticized portraits of the factors in the
development of homosexuality from childhood.
_Sons of the Fathers._ Macmillan 1959, (m).
LACRETELLE, JACQUES DE. _Marie Bonifas._ (trans. from the French
of La Bonifas) London & N. Y., G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1929. Classic
novel of feminine variance. Exclusively lesbian characters are
rare in French literature (although bisexual women are relatively
common), and this was one of the best known; it follows the
heroine from childhood to old age.
LACY, ED. _Room to Swing._ Harper Bros. 1957, pbr Pyramid 1958. A
colored detective is retained by a pair of lesbians to solve a
murder; is instead accused of committing it. Good.
+ LANDON, MARGARET. _Never Dies the Dream._ Doubleday, 1949. An
unmarried woman missionary in Siam incurs criticism and suspicion
when she shows marked favor to an unfortunate American girl at the
mercy of the Orient; later, when she risks her own life by
isolating herself to nurse Angela through typhoid, she loses her
own position. Neither the author nor the heroine of the novel
admit the faintest tinge of lesbianism to the relationship, which
is full of warmth and selfless sacrifice, and India angrily denies
the accusation when it is made; but the high emotional intensity
of the whole story bring it well within the boundaries of the
field and place it high on the list.
LA FARGE, CHRISTOPHER. _The Sudden Guest._ Coward-McCann, 1946.
The human driftwood blown up by a hurricane includes a pair of
lesbians, stirring latent memories in the novel's heroine--an
embittered, abandoned spinster.
+ LAPSLEY, MARY. _Parable of the Virgins._ R. R. Smith, 1931.
High-keyed novel of many emotional fevers, hetero and homosexual,
in a woman's college.
LAWRENCE, D. H. "The Fox", ss in Dial Magazine 1922, also in hcr
but NOT in pbr edition of _The Captain's Doll_, Thomas Seltzer,
1923.
_The Rainbow._ Modern Library 1915, 1943, pbr Avon 1959, 1960. In
a long, three-generation novel of the Brangwyn family, one variant
episode between young Ursula and a teacher.
LAURENT-TAILHADE, MARIE LOUISE. _Courtesans, Princesses,
Lesbians._ (Trans. from French by G. M. C.) Paris, Libraire Astra.
Casanova-ish memoir; French pamphleteering of Pre-revolutionary
days. Bitter, explicit and mildly disgusting; mentioned mostly to
state emphatically that the French Libraire Astra, and the Astra's
Tower Checklist, have NO connection.
LE CLERQ, JACQUES. _Show Cases._ Macy-Masius, 1928. Offbeat short
stories, dealing with male and female homosexuality.
LEAR-HEAP, WINIFRED. _The Shady Cloister._ Macmillan, 1950. Quiet,
understated and sympathetic story of feminine relationships in a
school setting--but without the melodramatic atmosphere of tragedy
which usually surrounds such stories.
+ LEE, MARJORIE. _The Lion House._ Rinehart, 1959. Well-written
attempt to capture and document the confused and shifting morals
of modern suburban living. Brad, husband of Jo, starts the story
by flirting with Frannie; this backfires when Frannie and Jo
become friends. As the relationship grows more intense, it proves
so disturbing that even after Frannie has admitted its nature Jo
cannot accept it; Frannie attempts to solve her problems via
psychoanalysis, while Jo continues floundering in her unresolved
conflicts. This year's best new novel.
LEE, GYPSY ROSE. _Gypsy, a Memoir._ Harper Bros. 1959, pbr Dell
1959. In a fascinating, probably largely fictional autobiography,
the ex-burlesque queen/novelist shows one thoroughly comical
lesbian character. This is really minor, but marvelously funny,
and anyone who plows through all the crud we mention will get a
real break from this.
LE FANU, SHERIDAN. "Carmilla" in _Green Tea and Other Ghost
Stories._ Also in Vol III of "The Forgotten Classics of Mystery",
entitled _Sheridan Le Fanu, the Diabolical Genius_. Also in
_Strange and Fantastic Stories_, ed. by Joseph Margolies, McGraw
Hill, 1946. Fantastic lesbian vampire.
LEIBER, FRITZ. "The Ship Sails at Midnight", in _The Outer
Reaches_, ed. August Derleth, Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisc. 1951.
Science-fiction or fantasy of a strange, unusual woman who
captivates a whole group of college students; tragedy is touched
off by their jealous rage when it is discovered that she has been
making love to all of them--not simultaneously of course.
Extremely well done, hint of allegory.
LEGRAND, NADIA. _The Rainbow Has Seven Colors._ N. Y. St Martins,
1958. After the death of the heroine her life is reviewed by seven
people who loved her (as with _Of Lena Geyer_) including a lesbian
who loved her and a young girl who wanted to.
+ LEHMANN, ROSAMOND. _Dusty Answer._ N. Y., Holt, 1927. Still in
print. Well-known novel in which the heroine's whole life is
conditioned by her love for a college classmate. Delicate,
beautifully written.
LENGEL, FRANCES. _Helen and Desire._ Olympia Press, Paris, 1954.
scv, and you can't buy it in this country legally. If you locate a
copy you'll know why we say you aren't missing a thing. Seamy
novel of a nymphomanic ----ing her way around the world. (It's not
worth going to Paris to read.)
LESLIE, DAVID STUART. _The Man on the Beach._ London, Hutchinson
1957, (m).
LEVAILLANT, MAURICE. _The Passionate Exiles._ (trans. Malcolm
Barnes.) Farrar, Straus & Cudahy 1958. Historical "dual biography"
of Madame de Stael and Madame Recamier.
+ LEVIN, MEYER. _Compulsion._ Simon & Schuster 1956. pbr Pocket
Books 1958, (m).
LEWIS, SINCLAIR. _Ann Vickers._ Doubleday, 1933. One important
lesbian episode in a novel of woman suffrage, viciously
condemnatory.
LEVERIDGE, RALPH. _Walk on the Water._ Farrar, 1951, pbr tct _The
Last Combat_, Signet 1952, Pyramid 1959, (m).
LEWIS, WYNDHAM. _The Apes of God._ N. Y., R. M. McBride & Co, 1932,
London, Arthur Press 1950, London, Arco, 1955. Satire, including
sharp studies of homosexuality, male and female.
LIN, HAZEL. _The Moon Vow._ Pageant Press, 1958. A Chinese woman
psychiatrist, attempting to solve a patient's problems, is led
into seamy byways of Peking, including a somewhat gruesome lesbian
cult.
LINDOPS, AUDREY ERSKINE. _The Outer Ring._ Appleton 1955, pbr
Popular Library tct _The Tormented_. (m)
LINGSTROM, FREDA. _Axel._ Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1939.
Wealthy man adopts two boys and a girl. One boy, Valentine, has
homosexual affair with an older boy, Teddy, who later commits
suicide; the girl, Auriol, studying music in Germany, lives with 2
older women, one of whom is very innocently but very ardently in
love with her. Well-written.
LIPSKY, ELEAZAR. _The Scientists._ Appleton-Century-Crofts 1959,
pbr Pocket Books, 1960. Minor character in a long novel is a
vaguely treated, but explicit lesbian.
LIPTON, LAWRENCE. _The Holy Barbarians._ Messner, 1959. Love among
the beat generation, including all kinds of homosexuality.
LITTLE, JAY. _Somewhere between the Two._ Pageant, 1956, (m).
_Maybe Tomorrow._ Pageant, 1952, (m). Amusing.
LIVINGSTON, MARJORIE. _Delphic Echo._ London, Andrew Dakers, 1948,
(m). Minor, in a novel of ancient Greece.
LODGE, LOIS. _Love Like a Shadow._ Phoenix Press, 1935.
Purple-passaged novel of a lesbian seeking true love.
+ LOFTS, NORAH. _Jassy._ Knopf 1945, pbr Signet 1948, others.
Roughly a third of this novel, about a young English girl who,
herself innocent, brings tragedy on everyone, is lesbian in
emphasis. In a girl's school she comes between Mrs. Twysdale, a
rather slimy, neurotic woman who has adored her boyish cousin,
Katherine, for years. Katherine, chafing at this adoration, turns
to Jassy for undemanding friendship and Mrs. Twysdale connives to
have her expelled--which spurs Katherine to precipitate a
long-desired break with her.
_The Lute Player._ Doubleday, 1951; pbr Bantam 1951, (m). Fine
historical of Richard III, based on the thesis that he was
homosexual.
+ LONG, MARGARET. _Louisville Saturday._ Random 1950, pbr Bantam
1951, 53, 56, 57, 59. A study of women in wartime includes a brief
study of a woman's acceptance of a variant friendship (the
sections titled GLADYS).
LORD, SHELDON. _A Strange Kind of Love._ N. Y., Midwood-Tower Pubs
pbo 1959. Evening waster about a writer who discovers that two of
his (dozens of) girl friends are involved with one another.
_69 Barrow Street._ Midwood-Tower pbo 1959, scv. Love, if you can
call it that, in Greenwich Village.
+ LOUYS, PIERRE. _Aphrodite._ (Many editions, of which the
standard English translation seems to be The Collected Works of
Pierre Louys, Liveright, 1926, still in print. Also various Avon
paperbacks.) The beautifully written story of an Alexandrian
courtesan also includes the story of two young Greek girls, Rhodis
and Myrtocleia, no more than children, who wish to marry one
another.
_The Adventures of King Pausole._ As above. Fine, funny, highly
risque story of the king of a strange country, who has a thousand
wives, like Solomon, and believes in freedom for everybody except
his daughter, Aline--who eventually runs away with a "boy" who is
really a girl.
_The Songs of Bilitis._ As above. Prose or poetry, depending on
translation, and perhaps the classic story of lesbianism in an
ancient setting.
LUCAS, RICK. _Dreamboat._ pbo, Berkley, 1956, 1957. scv.
LYNDON, BAREE, and Jimmie Sangster. _The Man who Could Cheat
Death_, based on the screenplay, for the recent movie, which in
turn was based on a play, The Man in Half Moon Street. Without
the fantastic photography which made the movie superb, this is a
remarkably silly pseudo-science thing about a man who finds away
to survive indefinitely by glandular transplants. To camouflage
his deathlessness he pulls up his roots and moves every ten years
and during one such interlude he falls for beautiful Avril Barnes,
who turns out to be a lesbian. He converts her, and she becomes
such a pest that he murders her. Shocker, silly.
MacCOWN, EUGENE. _The Siege of Innocence._ Doubleday, 1950, (m).
And minor lesbian element.
MacKENZIE, COMPTON. _Extraordinary Women._ Martin Secker, London;
Macy-Masius N. Y. 1928, hcr New Adelphi 1932. The Winston Book
Service offered this for sale quite recently. Amusing, satirical
and well-known novel of lesbians.
_The Vestal Fire._ N. Y. Doran, 1927, (m). However, in this novel
of Americans living abroad, there are also important lesbian
characters.
MacRAE, KEVIN. _Nikki._ Vantage. 1955. Not to be confused with the
rubbishy book by the same title by Stuart Friedman, this is a
story of Nikki, who loses her beloved in an air raid in London and
nearly cracks up before finding a home in a lesbian "colony" in
Southern California; silly, but a lot of fun.
+ MacINNES, COLIN. _Absolute Beginners._ London, MacGibbon & Rae,
1959. A novel about London teen-agers, told in Soho idiom--a sort
of bastard hip-talk. The characters in this novel include several
male homosexuals, and one lesbian, Big Jill. Enough space is
devoted to social problems, by an author who is quite obviously
one of the "angry young men", to give this novel real status.
McMINNIES, MARY. _The Visitors._ Harcourt, Brace 1958. A
diplomat's wife abroad, fancying herself as Madame Bovary,
attempts to use everyone around her for her own purposes. She has
an affair with an American correspondent and also captivates
Sophie, a countess, and an extremely well-portrayed character. One
of the most sympathetic portraits of a lesbian in recent fiction,
as well as a ruthless portrayal of women who enjoy flirting in
both fields.
+ MAHYERE, EVELINE. _I Will not Serve._ Dutton 1959, 1960. This
book, boycotted by many major reviewers, was written by a young
Frenchwoman who committed suicide before its publication.
Precocious, nonconformist Sylvie has been expelled from a convent
for writing, in a letter, that she loves one of the nuns. The
story deals with the unfolding pattern of Sylvie's meetings with
Julienne, an older novice in the convent. The conflict is clear;
Sylvie's creed is "I will not serve"--a statement of her refusal
to become a good wife and mother--and she wants nothing of life
but Julienne. Julienne, has given herself to God. Refusing to
accept this, Sylvie commits suicide. The book is profound and
sincere, and on the basis of this one work the author's premature
death was a loss to the field of literature.
MAINE, CHARLES ERIC. _World Without Men._ pbo, Ave Books 1958.
Science fiction of a world thousands of years in the future, where
the men have all died out, reproduction is scientific and the
women, having no one else to love, love one another. In defiance
of all conceivable theories of heredity and environment, a few
women still think this state of affairs is "unnatural" and band
together to create a male birth, assuming everyone will turn
normal overnight. Silly.
MALLET, FRANÇOISE. _The Illusionist._ (Trans. by Herma Briffault).
Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1952 tct _The Loving and the Daring_,
Popular 1953. (pbr). Now well-known novel, by a young French
writer, of a girl captivated by her father's mistress.
_The Red Room._ (trans. by Herma Briffault). Farrar, Strauss &
Cudahy 1956, pbr Popular 1958. Sequel to the above.
MALLOY, FRED. _The End of the Road._ Woodford Press 1952, pbr
Berkley tct _Wicked Woman_, 1959. Good evening waster about a girl
who is picked up by Charlotte, a truck-driver "dike" type;
Charlotte gives Alice a home, but eventually Alice runs off with a
man who is worse than she is. Surprisingly, for this type of
thing, the author implies that there _is_ a fate worse than
lesbianism.
MANNING, BRUCE. _Triangle of Sin._ Intimate Novel (Universal Pub.)
1952, pbr Beacon Books 1959; same title, but author listed as
Manning Stokes. Evening waster.
MANNIX, DANIEL P. _The Beast._ pbo Ballantine Books 1959, (m).
MARECHAL, LUCIE. _The Mesh_ (trans. by Virgilia Peterson.)
Appleton 1949, pbr Bantam, 1951, 1953, 1959. Excellent novel of a
Belgian family; the weakling son marries, brings his bride into
home dominated by his mother, shadowed by his lonely sister.
Eventually sister takes the young woman away from her brother.
MARLOWE, STEPHEN. _Homicide is My Game._ Gold Medal 1959 pbo.
Hardboiled murder mystery involving a teen-age sex club--a
businessman is involved of running it, but the real culprit is his
daughter, Liz. She is also a lesbian. Evening waster.