The Odd Kind by Arthur Adlon is a lesbian pulp novel set in the world of high-fashion modelling, first published in 1961. The story centres on La Modena, a model who has reinvented herself from humble origins, and Pam Elliott, another model drawn between desire for a woman and the material rewards a wealthy man … Read more
Satan’s Harvest by Sanford Aday is a pulp novel first published in hardcover by Vantage Press in 1953. The story follows Lupe, a young Mexican girl from a broken home who ends up in a brothel with her older sister, where she is claimed by the lesbian madame. The book was subsequently reprinted multiple times … Read more
Sapphica by Stephanie Adams is a series of annual lesbian astrology guides published between 2003 and 2006. The original volume, subtitled Astrology for Lesbians, covers all twelve signs with attention to love, health, family, compatibility, and personal growth, and includes a section of lesbian poetry. Subsequent annual editions narrow the focus to love readings specifically, … Read more
The Rise of a Gay and Lesbian Movement by Barry D. Adam is a sociological history of gay and lesbian political organisation across two centuries and multiple countries. First published in 1987 by Twayne Publishers, the book traces the formation of movements in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, France, Canada, Scandinavia, Australia, and beyond, … Read more
Nancy Mitford: A Memoir by Harold Acton is a portrait of the novelist and wit drawn by her lifelong friend. Nancy Mitford was the eldest and most famous of the six Mitford sisters — author of Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, and a journalist whose acid observations on English upper-class … Read more
For Sylvia: An Honest Account by Valentine Ackland is an autobiographical essay written for her long-time companion, the novelist Sylvia Townsend Warner. Ackland traces her desperately unhappy childhood, her emotionally turbulent adolescence, her lesbian relationships, a disastrous marriage, her return to the Catholic church, and her long battle with alcoholism. Above all it is the … Read more
Our History in New York by Linsey Abrams follows a single year in the lives of narrator Chloe, her long-time lover Helen, and their mostly lesbian and gay friends. The novel moves through pregnancy by insemination, a political campaign, AIDS, romance, and aging — the full texture of a community navigating life at the end … Read more
Sappho Was a Right-On Woman: A Liberated View of Lesbianism by Sidney Abbott and Barbara Love is a two-part study of lesbianism written from the inside. The first part examines how lesbians navigate a society that disapproves of their existence — the techniques of passing, the costs of concealment, and the pressures of living at … Read more
Linsey Abrams‘ debut novel chronicles one girl’s coming of age from a 1950s childhood into the New York of the 1960s. A love affair with another woman sets off a profound reckoning with identity and self. Ms. Magazine compared it to Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing, and The New York Times praised Abrams’ distinctive voice, calling her … Read more
Beebo Brinker follows a young, handsome butch woman who travels from rural Wisconsin to New York City, still wearing a dress, naive about the world she is about to enter. In Greenwich Village she discovers a community of women, falls hard for the femme Paula, and then becomes entangled with Venus Bogardus, a wealthy, secretly … Read more