SINCLAIR, JO. (pseud. of Ruth Seid)Wasteland. Harper Bros. 1946. This is the excellent and heavily lauded Harper prize novel of that year. Told on the psychiatrist’s couch, it concerns the failure of Jewish Jake Braunowitz to live up to his manhood ... which forces this job onto the shoulders of his sister Debbie, a lesbian. The psychiatrist discovers that he ran from his responsibilities in the first place due to feeling weaker than the masterful intelligent Debbie; then, after forcing her to take a man’s role in the family, he turns around and feels guilt and shame at her adjustment to the situation. Excellently done.
SPEERS, MARY.We Are Fires Unquenchable.Murray and Gee, Hollywood 1946. fco. A badly written, almost illiterate novel, the first few scenes of which are laid in a girl’s college swarming with luridly treated lesbians and in an assortment of Bohemian settings.
+ SMITH, ARTEMIS.Odd Girl.Beacon pbo, 1959. The blurb reads “Life and love among warped women”, but don’t let it scare you. This is one of the better and more serious approaches to the writing of a serious novel of lesbians through the stereotyped pattern of the paperback novel. The basic plot concerns Anne, and her experiences in trying to find out for herself, the hard way, whether she is a lesbian or whether she can successfully adjust to life as a normal woman. The story ends with the surprising, but growingly popular affirmation that “adjustment” is not always to be desired at all costs. The cover also calls this a story of “society’s greatest curse”; meaning homosexuality; but for once it isn’t treated that way.
The Third Sex.pbo, Beacon, 1959. Most of the remarks made above also apply to this one, though the heroine is Joan, a college girl who fears that she is becoming a lesbian, and fights it by redoubling her affairs with men. Slightly more sensational than “Odd Girl”, but well written, well thought out and generally excellent.
SMITH, DOROTHY EVELYN.The Lovely Day.N. Y. Dutton, 1957. Interesting novel of an English village on a choir outing, contains a minor but funny account of an unconscious lesbian’s decisions.
SMITH, SHELLEY. (pseud. of Nancy Bodington.)The Lord Have Mercy, Harper 1956, pbr tctThe Shrew is Dead, Dell 1959. English mystery story; a major subplot involves a pair of lesbians.
SNEDEKER, CAROLINE DALE.The Perilous Seat.Doubleday, Doran 1929, marginal (m) in a juvenile of ancient Greece; the hero, being sold into slavery, attempts to disfigure himself to escape “the fate of handsome boys among the Persians.”
STAFFORD, JEAN.Boston Adventure.Harcourt, 1944.
STEIN, GERTRUDE.Things as They Are.Banyan Press, Pawlet, Vermont. (Very rare; $25 and up second hand.) A novel by the well-known surrealist poet ... possibly her only coherent work ... dealing with lesbianism.
STONE, SCOTT.The Divorcees.Beacon pbo 1955, released 1959 Evening waster about a racketeer who specializes in quick divorces, and his girlfriend who flirts with all the women as he disengages them from their husbands.
Margo.Beacon pbo 1955, released 1959. scv.
Blaze, Berkley pbo or pbr, n. d. no data except “trash”.
SOUBIRAN, ANDRE.Bedlam.Putnam 1957, pbr Pyramid 1959, (m). Minor.
STONEBRAKER, FLORENCE.Sinful Desires.pbr Bedside Books, 1959. (previous paperback, publisher unknown, ca. 1951). Silly novel about a married woman briefly captivated by a stereotyped lesbian.
+ STURGEON, THEODORE. (pseud. of Edward Hamilton Waldo). “Affair with a Green Monkey”. Venture Science Fiction May 1957; also inA Touch of Strange, Doubleday 1959.
“The Sex Opposite”. inE. Pluribus Unicorn, Abelard 1952, Ballantine pbr 1953.
"The World Well Lost" inE Pluribus Unicorn. Many of Sturgeon’s other short stories and novelettes touch on extremely strange, offbeat relationships.
+ SWADOS, FELICE.House of Fury.Doubleday 1941, pbr Lion 1955, Berkley 1959. One of the better paperbacks, dealing with racial tensions and muted lesbian attachments in a girl’s reformatory.
SWINBURNE, ALGERNON.Lesbia Brandon.Falcon Press 1952, edited and annotated by Randolph Hughes. A famous incomplete novel by the well-known poet, for students rather than readers. Really only a handful of scattered chapters, too scrappy to judge; see also poetry supplement.
SYDNEY, GALE.Strange Circle.Beacon Books pbo 1959, 1960. Grace Garney, feeling unwanted, gets a job with Mrs. Flocke, a repulsive lesbian, and repels a pass; this, however, revives childhood memories, and during a rift in her affairs with a man, she has a brief affair with Inez, a friend with an unsatisfactory husband. Evening waster.
SYKES, GERALD.The Center of the Stage.N. Y., Farrar 1952, pbr Signet 1954. Witty novel of the theatre, with a minor lesbian character.
TAYLOR, DYSON.Bitter Love.orig. copyright 1952, Pyramid 1958, (m). Worldly woman marries a homosexual who wants her for a “front”.
TAYLOR, JOHN.Shadows of Shame.Pyramid 1956, 1959, (m).
TAYLOR, VALERIE.Whisper Their Love.Crest pbo 1957. Unsympathetic college novel of a girl suffering through a lesbian affair while all around her the other girls suffer through rape, incest and abortion. Over-written.
Girls in 3-B.Crest pbo 1959. One of three young girls who come to the city to find jobs or careers. Barby, drifts into a lesbian relationship, mostly out of revulsion against two unfortunate experiences with men. Excellent, sympathetic.
+Stranger on Lesbos.Crest pbo 1959. A married woman with a grown son and indifferent husband, returning to college for work on a college degree, is ripe for an affair with “Bake”, a confirmed lesbian. The affair is told with sufficient skill and restraint to make it believable; even Frankie’s eventual return to her old life is not a cliche “happy ending” but well prepared and well characterized. Remarkably good; the degree of progress from the first to the third of these novels makes your editors anxious to see where Miss Taylor goes from here.
TELLIER, ANDRE.Twilight Men.Greenberg 1931, pbr Lion 1950, 52, 56, Pyramid 1959, (m). Well known.
+ TEY, JOSEPHINE. (pseud. of Elizabeth MacKintosh.)Miss Pym Disposes.Macmillan 1948; also inThree by Tey, Macmillan 1954. Slowly built-up, excellently constructed mystery of a girl’s school, where a close attachment between two seniors provides solution and motivation for a murder. The level of mystification is so high that even on the last page the reader is gasping with the final, shocking surprise.
To Love and be Wise.Macmillan 1951. Another well done mystery, with a variant attachment also providing motive and solution and a high level of suspense and surprise.
TESCH, GERALD.Never The Same Again.G P Putnam’s Sons 1956, pbr Pyramid 1958, (m). Not for the squeamish, but a well-done novel of an affair between a teen age boy and an older man.
+ TIMPERLEY, ROSEMARY.Child in the Dark.Crowell 1956. Two of the three stories in this book involve intense attachments, variant but not explicitly lesbian, between an English schoolmistress and a young girl.
THAYER, TIFFANY.Thirteen Women.Claude Kendall, 1932. Mildly nasty shock-story of a murder, involving thirteen women, one mixed up with a lesbian; she eventually commits suicide.
Thirteen Men.Claude Kendall 1930, (m). Much the same stuff as above only masculine in emphasis. Thayer is a good writer, but not everyone’s choice.
THOMPSON, JOHN B.Girls of the French Quarter.Beacon pbo 1954.
Frenzy of Desire.Encore Press 1957. Evening wasters.
THOMPSON, MORTON.Not as a Stranger.Chas. Scribner’s Sons, 1954 pbr Pocket Books 1955. fco, very minor episodes.
+ THORNE, ANTHONY.Delay in the Sun.Literary Guild, 1934. A “heartening idyll” of two friends who, during a long stopover in Spain, resolve their relationship.
+ TORRES, TERESKA.Woman’s Barracks.Gold Medal pbo 1950, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59 and probably every year from now on, for a while anyhow. Gold Medal’s most popular title so far is the story of a group of women with the Free French women’s army, at loose ends and disassociated from family, friends and personal attachments. Among the many threads of the plot is the story of naive young Ursula, who, through her relationship with warm, tough, friendly Claude is helped to maturity and eventually to readjustment to normal life.
Dangerous Games.Dial 1957, pbr Crest 1958. A married woman, discovering her husband is having an affair with her closest friend, briefly becomes infatuated with her too.
Not Yet.Crown 1957, pbr Crest 1958. The story of four young girls in a French school; not children but “not yet” women, and their adjustment to life and love. The narrator, the least mature, is as yet infatuated only with Mother Nathalie, her teacher; no overt behavior is implied except kisses, but the nun’s reaction when the heroine begins to be interested in boys brings this under the scope of the study.
The Golden Cage.Dial 1959. (trans. from French by Meyer Levin). A group of refugees in wartime, waiting for visas in Portugal, undergo various transient attachments. Among the group are several lesbians, treated with sympathy and sensitivity.
TRAVIS, BEN.The Strange Ones.Beacon pbo 1959, (m). Evening waster about a young no-good who earns his living as a paid escort/gigolo and relaxes with boy friends but still loudly insists he is normal. Your editor enjoyed this out of sheer perversity; usually novels treating of male homosexuality engage the subject with deadly seriousness, while the paperback originals reek with drooling voyeuristic strip-teases about lesbians, for the sake of men who like to enjoy pipe-dreams about lesbians making love, and about some Big Handsome Hero who eventually converts the girls to “normality” with some secret formula of caresses. So it is a nice change to see the gay BOYS getting the in-and-out-of-the-sheets treatment for once.
TRYON, MARK.The Fire that Burns.Berkley pbo 1959 scv.
Take it Off.Vixen Press 1953, Modern Press 1956, scv.
UNTERMEYER, LOUIS. (Editor).The Treasury of Ribaldry.Doubleday 1956, pbr Popular Library 1959 (v. 1). This contains Lucian’s “Dialogues of Courtesans”, entitled in this translation “The Lesbian” and “A Curious Deception”. The hardcover edition also contains some of the Songs of Bilitis.
VAIL, AMANDA (pseud. of Warren Miller).The Bright Young Things. Little, Brown, 1958. pbr Crest 1960.
In a story of two worldly young college girls experimenting with life and love, a subplot involves two of their friends, lesbians. Minor but fun.
VANEER, WILLIAM.Love Starved Wife.Bedside Books Inc, 1959. scv.
VAN HELLER, MARCUS.The House of Borgia, Paris, Olympia Press, 1957. Volume #16 in The Traveler’s Companion, straight scv.
VAN ROYEN, ASTRID.Awake, Monique.Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1957, pbr Crest 1958. Astrid, an orphaned child in some unnamed European country (Holland, Belgium, Sweden?) is sent to live with her uncle Rainier; she lives upstairs with Rainier (eventually with a Lolita-like intimacy) while Rainier’s wife lives downstairs with a lesbian friend, Dini. Despite a “broadminded” plea for understanding, Rainier strictly forbids Astrid to have anything to do with the girls. The book is well-written, tasteful, and certainly candid.
VAUGHAN, HILDA.The Curtain Rises.N. Y. Chas Scribner 1935. A young girl, Nest, in London, falls in with a fiftyish spinster with a reputation for aiding young and pretty girls who also have talent. Miss Fremlyn invites Nest to live with her as her companion, showering her with education, attention and restrictions; Nest is naive, Miss Fremlyn unaware, at least consciously, of her own emotions. They travel and live together for some time, but the affair breaks up when Nest, who has always kept in touch with her boy friend, is discovered with him and Miss Fremlyn, considering this a betrayal, dismisses her. Explicit, well done.
VERNE, CHARLES.The Wheel of Passion.N. Y. Key 1957. scv.
VIDAL, GORE.The City and the Pillar.E P Dutton 1948, pbr Signet ca. 1950, (m).
The Season of Comfort.E P Dutton 1949, (m).
WAHL, LOREN.The Invisible Glass.Greenberg, 1950, pbr tctIf This be Sin, Avon 1952, pbr tctTake Me as I Am, Berkley 1959, (m).
WALFORD, FRANK.Twisted Clay.Claude Kendall, 1934. fco. A young girl, a psychotic sadist ... is bisexual and has one big affair with an older woman. It must be marked for people with very complete collections only; it is depressing, inaccurate, etc. “The writing, etc, are excellent, but oh my, what a plot!”
+ WARD, ERIC.Uncharted Seas.Paris, Obelisk Press 1937, (Fairly easy to obtain second hand, and not at all like most of the sexy trash tagged Paris elsewhere in this list.) An excellent, perceptive and controlled story of Diana Bellew, a young married woman with children, a childish husband and too much money and time on her hands, and her successive54affairs with three women. The writing is unusually good for male authorship.
WEBB, JON EDGAR.Four Steps to the Wall.Dial 1948, pbr Bantam 1953, (m). Prison novel.
+ WEIRAUGH, ANNA ELISABET.The Scorpion.Greenberg 1932, Willey Book co, 1948, pbr Avon Books 1957, complete; pbr tctOf Love Forbidden, greatly abridged, 1958. Well-known novel of well-bred German girl, Metta (in some translations, Myra) who, in her late teens, falls in love with a worldly lesbian, Olga, who does much to free her from her stuffy background, but repudiates her painfully in a family crisis. After Olga’s suicide Metta seeks for her real self and real destiny, first in the Bohemian drink-drugs-sex merrygoround of Berlin between the wars, then hides from life in a stuffy middle-class setting; when even here she finds herself pursued by a lesbian tease, Gwen, who flirts with Metta to inveigle her into a sordid partya trois, Metta resolves to go away and come to terms with her own soul.
The Outcast.Greenberg 1933, Willey Book Co 1948. The sequel to the above, this finds the heroine ofThe Scorpionliving quietly in the country. She undergoes a painful and unsatisfactory affair with Fiametta, a dancer, but when this proves unsatisfactory settles down sadly but peacefully with a couple of sexless men friends.
WEISS, JOE, and Ralph Dean.Anything Goes.Bedside Books pbo, 1959. Fast-moving evening waster with a minor lesbian angle.
WELCH, DENTON.Maiden Voyage.L. B. Fischer 1945, (m). Minor.
In Youth is Pleasure.L. B. Fischer 1946. (m minor)
+ WELLS, CATHERINE: “The Beautiful House” Harpers, March 1912. An idyll of two women ends tragically with the marriage of the younger.
WELLS, KERMIT.Reformatory Women.Bedside Books pbo 1959. Surprisingly good for this publisher of rubbish. After escaping from a sadistic lesbian matron in the reformatory, Noreen works as a fake butch in a Greenwich Village Gay bar and tourist trap; later goes to work for gangsters in a roadhouse, falls for a nice boy and goes back to serve her reformatory sentence and marry him when she gets out. Pleasant evening waster.
WETHERELL, ELIZABETH (pseud of Susan Warner).The Wide Wide World.Many editions, very easily obtained, a well-known girls story of the 1880s or thereabout, dealing with Ellen, an orphan of twelve. Much of the first half of the novel is devoted to a very innocent, but exceptionally intense, close relationship between Ellen and her beloved “Miss Alice”, daughter of the local minister. Good of kind, and distinctly relevant on an adolescent level.
WHEELER, HUGH.The Crippled Muse.Rinehart, 1952. A “sparkling comedy” of Capri contains the story of two women who have lived together for ten years; the younger girl is tired of the arrangement, and the older uses her feelings of guilt and shame to hold her captive. In the course of the novel she manages to free herself.
WHITE, PATRICK.The Aunt’s Story.Viking Press 1948. fco.
WIMBERLEY, GWYNNE.One Touch of Ecstasy.Frederick Fell, 1959. A lesbian affair gives “one touch of ecstasy” to a woman’s inhibited, unhappy life, allowing her to return to her husband with wakened perceptions.
WILDER, ROBERT.Wait for Tomorrow.Putnam 1950, Bantam 1953. A girl’s unwilling entanglement with a predatory lesbian, in a romance of an imaginary Balkan country, leads to all sorts of violence and cloak-and-dagger stuff. Good.
+ WILHELM, GALE.Torchlight to Valhalla.Random, 1938, pbr tct
The Strange Path, Lion 1953, Berkley 1958, 1959. Morgen, rootless and drifting after the death of her artist father, to whom she had been childishly close, is loved by two fine young men, but finds her happiness with a strange young girl, Toni. Major, well known.
We Too Are Drifting.Triangle Books 1938-39; Modern Library 1935. pbr Lion Books 1951, Berkley 1957, 58, 59, 60. Probably the major novel of the thirties to deal with lesbians; perhaps the best of all time. In substance it deals with the boyish, but feminine Jan Morale; her struggle to escape a slightly sordid affair with Madelaine, a married woman, and to find happiness, despite family complications, with a young girl, Victoria. Told with fairness, restraint, and skill—not to mention that this is one of the dozen or so books on this entire list to display not onlysome, butexceptionalliterary merit.
WILLIAMS, TENNESSEE. “Something Unspoken” in27 Wagons Full of Cotton. New Directions, 1953. Also in Best Short Plays of 1955-56, Dodd, Mead, 1956. A play; I marked this for fco, received a protest “Everybody will enjoy this.” Compromise; everybody will enjoy this who likes Tennessee Williams.
WILLIAMS, WILLIAM CARLOS.The Knife of the Times.Dragon Press, 1932, hcr tctMake Light of It, Random House 1950, (m). The title story is in DWCory,21 Variations.
WILLIAMS, IDABEL.Hellcat.Greenberg 1934, pbr Dell 1952. Unpleasant girl who uses everyone for her own purposes includes a lesbian among her victims.
WILLINGHAM, CALDER. (pseud).End as a Man.Vanguard 1947, pbr Signot co. 1957, (m).
WILLIS, GEORGE.Little Boy Blues.Dutton, 1947.56Concerns the machinations of a lesbian to achieve marriage and motherhood as a “front”.
WILSON, ETHEL D.Hetty Dorval.Macmillan 1948, fco.
WINDHAM, DONALD.The Hitchhiker.Florence, Italy, priv. print. (m).
Servants with Torches.N. Y. 1955 priv. print. (m).
Dog Star.Doubleday, 1950, (m).
WINSLOE, CHRISTA.The Child Manuela.(Trans. Agnes Scott Farrar, 1933.) Motherless Manuela, sent to a strict boarding-school because of supposed misconduct with a boy (actually she was only fascinated with his mother) falls in love with Elizabeth von Bernberg, one of the teachers. The woman’s behavior is strictly correct, but her warmth of personality attracts all the love-starved, inhibited children; Manuela, exhilarated and slightly drunk at a school party, babbles of her love for the Fraulein, and is punished so severely that she throws herself from a top-floor window.
Girl Alone.(Trans. Agnes Scott). Farrar 1936. A girl in difficulties finds temporary refuge with a lesbian friend.
WINSTON, DAOMA.The Golden Tramp.pbo Beacon Books 1959. Evening waster about a woman writer trying it both ways.
WOLLER, OLGA.Strange Conflict.Pageant, 1955. Purple-passaged and would-be-horrifying story about a Eurasian hermaphrodite—supposedly as she is because of her mother’s intercourse with demons before her birth—who inspires love and brings death to everyone she knows, male or female.
WOODFORD, JACK.Male and Female.Woodford Press, 1935.
Unmoral.Woodford Press, 1938. Both of these are evening wasters—racy stuff, not bad at all when compared with the current crop of trashy paperbacks. The “lesbian” content, of course, is strictly for fun.
WOOD, CLEMENT.Strange Fires.Woodford Press, 1951. “Shipwreck on Lesbos” in hisDesire, Berkeley n. d. 1958 (copyright 1950, perhaps Woodford Press?) Clement Wood is either a pen name for, or a successor to, Jack Woodford, a popular writer of racy, risque, sexy books of little literary merit but relatively innocuous even for teenagers ... the trash of the thirties and forties was a very different thing from the scv of the fifties.
WOOD, CLEMENT, and Gloria Goddard.Fair Game.Woodford Press, 1949, pbr Beacon 1958. Evening waster about girls coming to the wicked big city, and we all know what happens to such girls in this kind of book. One of them falls in with the dangerous women instead of the dangerous men.
+ WOOLF, VIRGINIA.Orlando.To The Lighthouse.
Mrs. Dalloway.All of these are classics easily available.57in small, medium and large libraries, college bookstores, and the like. The lesbian content is vague and subtle, but good; one of the best woman writers.
WOUK, HERMAN.Marjorie Morningstar.Doubleday 1955, pbr 1956. The variant element in this is minor and problematical. In conversation, it occurred to a group of reviewers that the developing relationship between Marjorie and Marsha “resembled a love affair”, that Marsha’s attack of hysterics at her wedding, and her outcry that all she had ever wanted was a friend, and now she’d always be alone, was of distinct significance, BAYOR.
WYLIE, PHILIP.The Disappearance.Rinehart 1951, pbr Pocket Books 1958. Science fiction; for men, all women vanish; for women, all men vanish. The problem of lesbianism arises in the women’s world; Wylie, though technically and superficially approving of homosexuality, has his heroine reject it for herself, saying “I’m not a child.”
Opus 21.Rinehart 1949, pbr Signet 1952, 1960. The hero, rewriting a book in a hotel during a weekend of crisus, runs across many unusual characters; among them a woman, shaken because her husband is having a homosexual affair, is shamed into tolerance by dallying with a lesbian prostitute. Wylie, again superficially approving, has his hero act in a skirt-withdrawing way, refusing such things for himself at the last minute in every book.
WYNDHAM, JOHN. “Consider her Ways” inSometime, Never, Ballantine 1956-57. Science Fiction; a woman experimenting with strange drugs goes into the future, where all men have perished and society resembles that of the ant. Good.
The Midwich Cuckoos.Ballantine, 1957. Science Fiction. Alien visitation from outer space leaves every nubile female in Midwich—married or single, young or old—pregnant. Hilariously funny situations arise; one of the funniest involves a pair of lesbians. Wonderful fun.
YAFFE, JAMES.Nothing But the Night.Little, Brown & Co, 1957, pbr Bantam 1959, (m). More fake Leopold-Loeb. Good.
YOURCENAR, MARGUERITE.Hadrian’s Memoirs.Farrar, 1954, qpb Anchor 1954, (m).
ZOLA, EMILE.Nana.Literally dozens of hardcover and paperback editions of a shocker about a street girl who, in addition to all her affairs with men, also has an affair with Satin, a streetwalker.
A Lesson in Love.Abridged edition of Pot Bouille. Pyramid, 1959.
ZUGSMITH, ALBERT.The Beat Generation.Bantam pbo based on screenplay by Richard Mathesen. (m), minor.
Briefly, this includes variant as well as overtly lesbian poetry, written in English or available in English translation. The arrangement is chronological, rather than alphabetical. All of these are easily available in public libraries, unless otherwise indicated.
Briefly, this includes variant as well as overtly lesbian poetry, written in English or available in English translation. The arrangement is chronological, rather than alphabetical. All of these are easily available in public libraries, unless otherwise indicated.
THE ANCIENT WORLD:
Erinna—only one fragment left. Available in the Greek Anthology and other miscellaneous collections of that type.
Nossis—Various variant poems and fragments. Greek Anthology, Putnam, 1915-26 (5 vol.). Also in similar collections.
Sappho—The classic poet of lesbianism. Over 50 editions available in hard covers. New translation by Mary Barnard, University of California Press, 1958, qpb $1.25. An attractive edition is also published for $2.50 by the Pater Pauper Press, on display in most bookstores.
Juvenal—Satires. Many editions in hardcover and qpb. (Rolfe Humphries trans. and ed. the Indiana University Press, 1958, $1.50; also number 997 in Everyman’s Library, $1.85.) The Sixth Satire.
Martial—His “Epigrams” contain various references to lesbians. Cambridge University Press, 1924, $2.75.
THE MIDDLE AGES:
Ariosto, Ludovico—Orlando Furioso. London, Bell, 1907.
Labe, Louise—Love Sonnets (trans. by Frederick Prokosch), New Directions, 1947, $2.50, still in print.
Shakespeare, William—The first 27 of the “Sonnets” are generally adjudged to be male-homosexual in emphasis and are therefore of interest to collectors in this field.
THE ROMANTIC POETS—19th CENTURY:
Coleridge, Samuel T.—Christabel. Long narrative poem of a curious attachment between a guileless young girl and a female demon; available in virtually every anthology of English literature.
Rossetti, Christina—Goblin Market. Lovely and fantastic poem with distinctly variant overtones. See anthologies of English literature.
Romani, Felice—Norma. Italian libretto for the opera by Vincenzo Bellini, generally adjudged to be subtly lesbian in overtones. Many translations are available in collections of opera libretti, but most English translations edit out the variant content or alter the emphasis.
Baudelaire, Charles—The Flowers of Evil, (trans. from the French of Les Fleurs du Mal by Edna St. Vincent Millay and George Dillon) N. Y. Harper, 1936, also New Directions, pbr, 1958. Many other editions and translations available.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles—Poems and Ballads, 2 vols, London, Chatto & Windus, 1893, 1895. Many of the poems in this series are explicitly or implicitly lesbian. In the interests of space limitation, only the major titles will be listed for those who want to sift through anthologies; Anactoria, Fragoletta, Sapphics, At Eleusis, Sonnet with a copy of Mlle. de Maupin, The Masque of Queen Bersabe, Erotion. The entire series of Poems and Ballads is available in her no. 961, Everyman’s Library, Dutton, 1940, 50, for $1.95.
Louÿs, Pierre—Songs of Bilitis. Many editions available, the most easily located probably being the Liveright “Collected works of Pierre Louys”, $3.50. There is also a paperback edition, Avon Red and Gold Library, no date. The “Songs” have been published singly in numerous privately printed and illustrated editions, some of which are very beautiful collector’s items.
Brontë, Emily—Complete Poems. N. Y. Columbia University Press, 1941 (still in print at $4.00). A scattering of these poems are (or can be interpreted as) vaguely variant.
Mencken, Idah Isaacs—Infelicia. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1875. (Rare, and expensive.)
Field, Michael—(pseud. of two Englishwomen.) Entire work of lesbian interest and a “must” for completists. Most medium to large public libraries have some of their work.
Dickinson, Emily—Bolts of Melody. N. Y. Harper, 1945. Also variant poems are scattered throughout her earlier editions. (Selected Poems, Modern Library, 1948, $1.65.)
THE MODERN POETS:
Lowell, Amy—No one volume of her work can be singled out; her poems are perhaps the most openly variant of any of the English or American poets. Her “Complete Poetical Works” is still in print; Boston, Houghton & Mifflin Co., 1955; Introduction by Louis Untermeyer, $6.00.
O’Neill, Rose—The Master Mistress. N. Y. Knopf, 1922. The creator of the “Kewpies” also was the writer of these sensitive, occasionally erotic poems. Perhaps a dozen are explicitly lesbian.
Hall, Radclyffe—Poems of the Past and Present, London, Chapman & Hall, 1910. Songs of Three Counties, Chapman & Hall, 1913. The Forgotten Island, London, Chapman & Hall, 1915. Sheaf of Verses, London, Chapman & Hall, 1905. Twixt Earth and Stars, London, Chapman & Hall, 1906.
These poems by the author of “Well of Loneliness” are so overt that it is almost unbelievable that they were printed at all, but they were, and I have the books to prove it ... she managed to get away with it, I guess, because she talks in these poems as if she were a man, writing to a woman.
Millay, Edna St. Vincent—Collected Poems, N. Y. Harper, 1956, $6.00. This is the favored anthology of Millay for this purpose, since it contains everything of hers which is variant in tone. However, there are many single volumes of her poetry available, and also pbrs; Collected Lyrics (Washington Square, 50¢), and Collected Sonnets (Washington Square, 50¢).
Sackville-West, Victoria—King’s Daughter, N. Y. Doubleday, 1930.
Sterling, George—Strange Waters. Privately printed, n.d., also in American Esoterica, N. Y. Macy-Masius, 1927. Lengthy narrative poem of supposed incestuous lesbianism ... shocker.
Doolittle, Hilda (H.D.)—Red Roses for Bronze, London, Lord, Chatto & Windus. Also the Grove Press qpb, Selected Poems of H.D., 1957; this, however, does not contain the best-known of Sappho paraphrases, “Fragment Thirty-six”. Also “Collected Poems”, Liveright, $2.50.
Pitter, Ruth—English poetess, whose work is rather difficult to locate in this country. Many of her early poems are tinged with variance and well worth the effort of locating them in large libraries.
Smith, Alicia Kay—Only in Whispers. Privately printed; Falmouth, Rockport, Maine. This is the hardest book on this list to obtain, and of course, the most overt. Ardently but in good taste, this tells of a lengthy and beautiful lesbian affair. A “must” book for serious collectors who like poetry.
Wright, James—The Green Wall. Yale University Press, 1957, $3.00. Two overt poems in an excellent and sensitive collection.
With the exception of a few privately filmed and circulated stag films, which of course do not come within the scope of this study, lesbianism is treated only vaguely and by indirection in motion pictures. Hollywood codes (which regulate distribution even of foreign films in this country) state unequivocally that homosexuality may not be portrayedor suggested. (Italixs mine). Even when the predominantly homosexual novel COMPULSION was filmed, the script—though including a rape scene—was fudged so that the relationship between the two boys was never hinted at—except vaguely in one scene, where Orson Welles as the great lawyer said that the opposition might find “something fishy” in the fact that they had no other friends. Your editor has since been informed that the movie NEVER SO FEW portrayed recognizable homosexuals. Hollywood codes are growing less stringent by the day, with the general relaxation of censorship, and by next year there should be some additions to this list. Thanks are due to Miss Ermayne for allowing us to reprint the material used in her article on The Sapphic Cinema in THE LADDER for March, 1959 ... the Editors.
THE ADVENTURES OF KING PAUSOLE. Filmed in France in 1932, with Emil Jannings. Based on the Pierre Louys novel, this starred 366 models and dancers from the Folies bergeres; among these near-nude and nubile nymphs was one disguised as a male ballet dancer, with whom the King’s daughter Aline had a romance even after discovering that they were of the same sex.
ALL ABOUT EVE took the Academy Award in 1950. There is a very lesbian situation used to introduce the main protagonist into the movie; later events proved the woman only pretending lesbian-type devotion, but the inference, in the beginning, is clear and unmistakable. (GD)
THE BARKER 1928. A short silent picture which was banned in many cities because it featured a scene in which a very butchy type in men’s pajamas got into bed with a fluffy blonde type; caused a lot of critical hoop-la. (GD)
THE CHILDREN’S HOUR, a film based on the Lillian Hellman play reviewed in this Checklist, bears a question mark; will someone who has seen the picture please let us know whether lesbian content was implicit in the movie?
CHILDREN OF LONELINESS, outright anti-homophile propaganda, was mostly male-oriented, but did contain a gay night-club scene, and picture and office butch whose offer of affection and protection drove one girl to a psychiatrist’s couch—where she was counselled against “abnormal love”.
DARK VICTORY. 1939, recently shown on TV, concerns a talented, charming woman (Bette Davis) dying of a brain tumor; her constant companion and secretary is clearly in love with her, and there were numerous beautiful and heartbreaking scenes, some of which would be impossible in a movie not dealing with such a sad situation.
CLUB DES FEMMES (Girl’s Club in English) an admirable French film starring Danielle Darieux, reviewed at length in THE LADDER. The lesbian element is treated explicitly and with taste and charm.
ESCAPE TO YESTERDAY, a French film with one brief sequence in a cabaret, where recognizably lesbian types were portrayed.
MAEDCHEN IN UNIFORM, a classic German film of the thirties, reviewed at length in J H Foster’s book, starring Hertha Thiele as Manusia and Dorothea Wieck as her teacher. The film has recently been re-made but has not yet reached the USA.
THE GODDESS, an art film released about a year ago, starring Kim Stanley, shows the life of an unwanted child who grows up to be a movie queen and ends up living with her secretary, obviously a lesbian; the relationship is portrayed with unusual frankness. This movie is still playing in specialty theatres around the big cities.
NO EXIT, a French film of the play by Jean-Paul Sartre; setting, limbo; one of the characters, a lesbian who fell in love with a married woman and drove her to suicide by spooking her.
OPEN CITY, realistic Italian film of 10 years or so ago, had a recognizable lesbian type-cast in it.
PIT OF LONELINESS, a French film based on the novel OLIVIA and starring Simone Simon. “Something of a disappointment” says LJE.
QUEEN CHRISTINA, 1934. This famous screen classic starred Greta Garbo; the variant bits were minor, but they were there. (GD)
ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE 1939. Now-dated tear-jerker starring Alice Faye; in one long scene the heroine sings standing by a piano, while a clearly seen, very mannish and extremely obvious “type” drools over her. Not imagination; this one was the veddy veddy correct, monocled type. (GD)
SIGN OF THE RAM, a filming circa 1947 of the Margaret Ferguson novel, starred Susan Peters as the wheelchaired heroine; the “crush” between Leah and Christine was treated vaguely but recognizably to anyone who had read the book.
TIME OF DESIRE. “Much has been made of the Uranian aspect of this film but personally I couldn’t see it....” LJE
TORST (“Thirst”) directed by Ingmar Bergman, is supposed to tell the lives of three women strangely in love, including a lesbian. As yet none of your editors or contributors have seen the film.
TURNABOUT, the Thorne Smith sex-farce where a man’s ego is transmuted into a woman’s body.
TITLE UNKNOWN; 1950 or 1951; French with English subtitles; action took place in a girl’s reformatory, much reference to lesbianism and some overt scenes; one where a girl caressed the breast of another and whispered love words to her, another where a tough street type tells a young innocent “See these marks on my thighs, they are each the marks of a lover, the left leg for boys and the right for girls.” I don’t see any other way to interpret that scene. (GD)
Information about the following publishers in the field of homosexual studies was supplied by the editors; we at the Checklist assume no responsibility for this information. We have, however, been constant readers of all three of these magazines and can recommend them as dignified, worthwhile and occasionally scholarly pioneering in a neglected field; they deserve support.
ONE, INCORPORATED. 232 South Hill Street, Los Angeles 12, California. Non-profit organization, established in 1952, concerned with the problems and interests of homosexual men and women; publishers of;
ONE Magazine, monthly. Five dollars per year, fifty cents per copy. Sent first class, sealed. Editor Don Slater; Woman’s editor, Alison Hunter. Editorials, fiction, poetry, articles, book reviews, letters, artwork. Special attention given to the Feminine Viewpoint. Fiction, articles, poetry by and about the lesbian.
ONE Institute Quarterly; Homophile Studies. Official Organ of One Institute, a university-level facility presenting classes on the history, biology, sociology and psychology of homosexuality. Articles include scholarly evaluation of literary figures such as Gertrude Stein, Walt Whitman, homosexuality and religion, etc. Five dollars per year, $1.50 single copy. Editor James Kepner, Jr.
THE DAUGHTERS OF BILITIS, INC. 165 O’Farrell St, Room 405, San Francisco, Calif. A woman’s organization for promoting the integration of the homosexual into society; membership limited to woman. Emphasis on education of the variant to promote adjustment and self-understanding, and education of the public at large through acceptance of the individual. Publishers of;
THE LADDER. Monthly, $4.00 a year, 50¢ single copy, mailed first class sealed. Editor, Del Martin. Fiction and poetry of special interest, letters from readers, book reviews and a running column of lesbiana managed by Gene Damon, reports on special study and discussion groups, and the conductors of a recent survey on lesbians personally.
THE MATTACHINE SOCIETY, 693 Mission Street, San Francisco, California. Founded 1950, Incorporated 1954; purpose, to conduct projects of education, research and social service in sex problems, particularly those of homosexual adults. Publishers of;
MATTACHINE REVIEW, monthly, offset printed, circulation 2250; $5 a year, 50¢ single copy, mailed sealed; issued annually in bound volumes, indexed at end of each year. Reflects the policies and purpose of the Mattachine Society with scientific articles, research reports, news of sexological trends, book reviews, letters from readers, a small amount of fiction and annual poetry supplement. Hal Call, Editor.
DORIAN BOOK QUARTERLY. $2 a year, 50¢ per copy. Primarily concerned with books and periodicals on socia-sexual themes, particularly fiction and non fiction dealing with homosexuality and related themes. Purpose; to fight censorship and encourage publishing in this field. Advertising accepted, reviews and news of books in the field solicited. Controlled circulation. Harold L. Call, Editor.
collectors only
Every year, following the publication of the Checklist, we receive a number of queries. Where, they want to know, can we buy these books? We can only tell you where we buy books; and have therefore assembled the following list of reputable dealers, mail order, who handle these books and many others.
WINSTON BOOK SERVICE, 250 Fulton Avenue; Hempstead, New York. Successor to the famous Cory Book Service which was founded by Donald Webster Cory, author of “The Homosexual in America”. This is perhaps the best American source for current novels in hard covers and non-fiction. They issue catalogs and lists, give a sizable discount for large orders, and will also locate hard-to-find or out-of-print books. Leslie Laird Winston, who is the presiding genius here, is one of the nicest people to deal with that we have ever known. Every month they feature some new or special book in the field, at a special price. Getting on their mailing list is thebestthing that can happen to a collector.
DORIAN BOOK SERVICE, 693 Mission Street, San Francisco 5, California. A subsidiary of the Mattachine Review and the Pan-Graphic Press. They publish the Dorian Book Quarterly, dealt with elsewhere, and also a fat, fascinating catalogue listing several hundred titles of current hard-cover and paperback fiction. They can also furnish, or will locate, many out-of-print titles. My experience with them; prompt service, fast shipment, up-to-date information on cheap reprints of rare titles.
VILLAGE BOOKS AND PRESS, 114-116 Christopher Street, New York 14, New York. This is the outfit behind the Noel Garde bibliography of Homosexual Literature, mentioned in the editorial. They can still supply this biblio list for $1.50. They also issue lists at frequent intervals, and will search for hard-to-find and out-of-print titles. Prices seem reasonable considering the scarcity of some of the paperbacks he handles. The proprietor, Howard Frisch, is one of the most co-operative dealers in the business.
ONE Magazine, listed in “Related Publications” has published one volume of short stories, and is soon to do more publishing; they also list several dozen books sold by mail order.
THE LADDER, listed in “Related Publications”, is soon to set up a book service; their first special release will be Jeannette Howard Foster’s “Sex Variant Women in Literature”, so keep your eyes open.
THE TENTH MUSE, bookshop managed by Julia Newman, 326 West 15th St, New York 11, New York, also does some mail order business. Write for a list.
A POINTS NORTHE, unusual bookshop at 15 Robinson Street, in Oklahoma City, managed by James Neill Northe, into which your senior editor virtually stumbled during a rainstorm, specializes in very rare, esoteric and65scholarly titles, curiosa, etc. He can supply even the most fantastically rare stuff; prices are in line with the rarity of the items wanted. (It was Mr. Northe who, with disinterested kindness, supplied some biblio data on the real rarities on the list; he has our thanks and endorsement.)
BOOKPOST, C. Rogers, Box 3251, San Diego 3, California. This outfit specializes in Americana, but can supply almost anything. The prices here are the most reasonable I’ve ever encountered; if Rogers quotes you a price, there’s no point in shopping around for a lower one.
INTERNATIONAL BOOKFINDERS, P O Box 3003, Beverly Hills, California. These people are the out-of-print bookfinders par excellence. I’ve ordered many books from them; their prices are reasonable, never exorbitant; their service is good, the books they supply are always of high quality. They’re nice to deal with. I’ve never had a complaint in ten years of bookhunting.
RAYMOND TRANFIELD, Antiquarian Book Dealer, 31 Hart Street, Henley-Upon-Thames, Oxon, England, is probably the best source for older books published in England. His prices are reasonable, his service is fast (he quotes by airmail and sends his parcels insured, which is a blessing for anything which has to travel across the ocean).