Lost Lesbian Lives by Marjorie Conn

It includes THE HONEYMOON YEARS OF ELEANOR ROOSEVELT & LORENA HICKOK, MISS LIZZIE A. BORDEN INVITES YOU FOR TEA, THAR SHE BLOWS! DISGUISED AS A BOY SHE WENT A'WHALING

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These works and others represent Marj's unwavering commitment to recording and restoring the lives of lesbians, lives which have been all too often erased from history. The plays in this book focus on three very different women:

Lorena Hickok was a pioneering journalist and the lover of Eleanor Roosevelt. By some she was considered the woman behind the woman, the first Lady's lady. Their relationship is documented by thousands of letters that Hickok donated to the FDR Library in Hyde Park, NY. 'I want to put my arms around you. I ache to hold you close. I look at your ring and think she does love me or I wouldn't be wearing it,' wrote Eleanor to Hick. 'Most clearly I remember you eyes, with that kind of teasing smile in them and the feeling of that soft spot just northeast of the corner of your mouth against my lips,' wrote Hick to Eleanor.

Lizzie Borden took an ax and gave her mother 40 whacks and when she saw what she had done she gave her father 41, goes the rhyme. Did she or didn't she? Lizzie tells all including her lesbian relationship with one of the great Shakespearian actresses of the time, Nance O'Neil. Lizzie was the subject of the 19th Century Trial of the Century.

Isabella Chase is a fictional character patterned after the real women who disguised themselves as men and served on whaling and other ships in the mid-19th Century. Now we revere whales yet we are decimating other species. This is a powerful play still relevant today.

Each of the plays encompasses a part of the North American lesbian experience, and thus is a part of our history.