Editions & Revisions
Surplus (1924) is an early and significant work of lesbian fiction that predates better-known novels like Radclyffe Hall’s “Well of Loneliness.” The novel follows Sally Wraith, a young woman navigating life after serving as an ambulance driver during World War I. When Sally meets Averil, whom she considers her “dream girl,” she falls deeply in love and dreams of spending her life with her. Unlike many contemporaneous works, Surplus presents Sally’s love for another woman not as deviant or pathological, but as a genuine romantic attachment, albeit one that faces social obstacles.
(1985 cover shown)
