{"id":45699,"date":"2026-08-30T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/"},"modified":"2026-09-30T01:03:48","modified_gmt":"2026-09-30T01:03:48","slug":"to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/","title":{"rendered":"To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div style=\"font-size: 17px;\">\r\n\r\nTo Love and Be Wise (1950) was written by Elizabeth MacKintosh under her famous pen name, Josephine Tey (the &#8216;Tae&#8217; in your query likely stems from a phonetic spelling or a scanner typo).<br><br>While it is structured as a classic Golden Age British detective mystery featuring Inspector Alan Grant, the entire plot hinges directly on trans-masculine presentation, female gender fluidness, and sapphic attraction. The mystery revolves around a dashing, beautiful young American male photographer named Leslie Searle who arrives in an English artistic colony, charms everyone, and then vanishes. It is ultimately revealed that Leslie Searle is actually a woman presenting seamlessly as a young man. The book heavily explores the homoerotic tension and intense infatuations that both men and women in the village develop toward Leslie before her true sex is revealed.<br><br>A seminal text in the history of queer detective fiction, Josephine Tey s 1950 mystery subverts Golden Age tropes by centering its narrative on gender transgression and same-sex attraction. When the devastatingly handsome young American photographer Leslie Searle vanishes from a tight-knit English arts colony, Inspector Alan Grant is called in to investigate a suspected murder. The investigation uncovers a web of intense romantic fixation, revealing that Leslie had systematically charmed and manipulated the colony&#8217;s residents disrupting both heterosexual engagements and sparking latent homoerotic desires. The novel s eventual resolution hinges on a radical mid-century depiction of female masculinity, cross-dressing, and gender performance, making it a crucial historical piece for studying sapphic subtext and gender fluidity in classic crime fiction.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n<hr \/>\r\n\r\n<div>\r\n<h2>Details<\/h2>\r\n<table class=\"TFtable\">\r\n<tbody>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Title: <\/strong>\u00a0To Love and Be Wise<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Author: <\/strong>\u00a0Josephine Tey<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>ISBN: <\/strong>\u00a09781980000000<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Subtitle: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Genre: <\/strong>\u00a0Crime; Mystery<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Subject(s): <\/strong>\u00a0<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Publication Date: <\/strong>\u00a043092<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Original Publication Date: <\/strong>\u00a0<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Publisher: <\/strong>\u00a0Independently published<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Language: <\/strong>\u00a0English<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Format: <\/strong>\u00a0Paperback<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Pages: <\/strong>\u00a0190<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Rating: <\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 <\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Notes: <\/strong>\u00a0Cover may not match edition.<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<tr>\r\n<td><strong>Book_ID: <\/strong>\u00a0107020<\/td>\r\n<\/tr>\r\n<\/tbody>\r\n<\/table>\r\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>To Love and Be Wise (1950) was written by Elizabeth MacKintosh under her famous pen name, Josephine Tey (the &#8216;Tae&#8217; in your query likely stems from a phonetic spelling or a scanner typo).<\/p>\n<p>While it is structured as a classic Golden Age British detective mystery featuring Inspector Alan Grant, the entire plot hinges directly on trans-masculine presentation, female gender fluidness, and sapphic attraction. The mystery revolves around a dashing, beautiful young American male photographer named Leslie Searle who arrives in an English artistic colony, charms everyone, and then vanishes. It is ultimately revealed that Leslie Searle is actually a woman presenting seamlessly as a young man. The book heavily explores the homoerotic tension and intense infatuations that both men and women in the village develop toward Leslie before her true sex is revealed.<\/p>\n<p>A seminal text in the history of queer detective fiction, Josephine Tey s 1950 mystery subverts Golden Age tropes by centering its narrative on gender transgression and same-sex attraction. When the devastatingly handsome young American photographer Leslie Searle vanishes from a tight-knit English arts colony, Inspector Alan Grant is called in to investigate a suspected murder. The investigation uncovers a web of intense romantic fixation, revealing that Leslie had systematically charmed and manipulated the colony&#8217;s residents disrupting both heterosexual engagements and sparking latent homoerotic desires. The novel s eventual resolution hinges on a radical mid-century depiction of female masculinity, cross-dressing, and gender performance, making it a crucial historical piece for studying sapphic subtext and gender fluidity in classic crime fiction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":45700,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4342,4324],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-mystery"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.9 (Yoast SEO v28.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>To Love and Be Wise<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"To Love and Be Wise (1950) was written by Elizabeth MacKintosh under her famous pen name, Josephine Tey (the &#039;Tae&#039; in your query likely stems from a phonetic spelling or a scanner typo).While it is structured as a classic Golden Age British detective mystery featuring Inspector Alan Grant, the entire plot hinges directly on trans-masculine presentation, female gender fluidness, and sapphic attraction. The mystery revolves around a dashing, beautiful young American male photographer named Leslie Searle who arrives in an English artistic colony, charms everyone, and then vanishes. It is ultimately revealed that Leslie Searle is actually a woman presenting seamlessly as a young man. The book heavily explores the homoerotic tension and intense infatuations that both men and women in the village develop toward Leslie before her true sex is revealed.A seminal text in the history of queer detective fiction, Josephine Tey s 1950 mystery subverts Golden Age tropes by centering its narrative on gender transgression and same-sex attraction. When the devastatingly handsome young American photographer Leslie Searle vanishes from a tight-knit English arts colony, Inspector Alan Grant is called in to investigate a suspected murder. The investigation uncovers a web of intense romantic fixation, revealing that Leslie had systematically charmed and manipulated the colony&#039;s residents disrupting both heterosexual engagements and sparking latent homoerotic desires. The novel s eventual resolution hinges on a radical mid-century depiction of female masculinity, cross-dressing, and gender performance, making it a crucial historical piece for studying sapphic subtext and gender fluidity in classic crime fiction.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"To Love and Be Wise (1950) was written by Elizabeth MacKintosh under her famous pen name, Josephine Tey (the &#039;Tae&#039; in your query likely stems from a phonetic spelling or a scanner typo).While it is structured as a classic Golden Age British detective mystery featuring Inspector Alan Grant, the entire plot hinges directly on trans-masculine presentation, female gender fluidness, and sapphic attraction. The mystery revolves around a dashing, beautiful young American male photographer named Leslie Searle who arrives in an English artistic colony, charms everyone, and then vanishes. It is ultimately revealed that Leslie Searle is actually a woman presenting seamlessly as a young man. The book heavily explores the homoerotic tension and intense infatuations that both men and women in the village develop toward Leslie before her true sex is revealed.A seminal text in the history of queer detective fiction, Josephine Tey s 1950 mystery subverts Golden Age tropes by centering its narrative on gender transgression and same-sex attraction. When the devastatingly handsome young American photographer Leslie Searle vanishes from a tight-knit English arts colony, Inspector Alan Grant is called in to investigate a suspected murder. The investigation uncovers a web of intense romantic fixation, revealing that Leslie had systematically charmed and manipulated the colony&#039;s residents disrupting both heterosexual engagements and sparking latent homoerotic desires. The novel s eventual resolution hinges on a radical mid-century depiction of female masculinity, cross-dressing, and gender performance, making it a crucial historical piece for studying sapphic subtext and gender fluidity in classic crime fiction.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lesbian Bibliography\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-30T00:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-09-30T01:03:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ToLoveandBeWiseJosephin1070202ONX_f.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1170\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1848\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"NorthShore Noir Press\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/47475bc37f43183328c7cf208b3d817f\"},\"headline\":\"To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-30T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-30T01:03:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":300,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/ToLoveandBeWiseJosephin1070202ONX_f.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Crime\",\"Mystery\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/\",\"name\":\"To Love and Be Wise\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/lesbianfunworld.com\\\/books\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/09\\\/ToLoveandBeWiseJosephin1070202ONX_f.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-08-30T00:00:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-09-30T01:03:48+00:00\",\"description\":\"To Love and Be Wise (1950) was written by Elizabeth MacKintosh under her famous pen name, Josephine Tey (the 'Tae' in your query likely stems from a phonetic spelling or a scanner typo).While it is structured as a classic Golden Age British detective mystery featuring Inspector Alan Grant, the entire plot hinges directly on trans-masculine presentation, female gender fluidness, and sapphic attraction. 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The mystery revolves around a dashing, beautiful young American male photographer named Leslie Searle who arrives in an English artistic colony, charms everyone, and then vanishes. It is ultimately revealed that Leslie Searle is actually a woman presenting seamlessly as a young man. The book heavily explores the homoerotic tension and intense infatuations that both men and women in the village develop toward Leslie before her true sex is revealed.A seminal text in the history of queer detective fiction, Josephine Tey s 1950 mystery subverts Golden Age tropes by centering its narrative on gender transgression and same-sex attraction. When the devastatingly handsome young American photographer Leslie Searle vanishes from a tight-knit English arts colony, Inspector Alan Grant is called in to investigate a suspected murder. The investigation uncovers a web of intense romantic fixation, revealing that Leslie had systematically charmed and manipulated the colony's residents disrupting both heterosexual engagements and sparking latent homoerotic desires. 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The investigation uncovers a web of intense romantic fixation, revealing that Leslie had systematically charmed and manipulated the colony's residents disrupting both heterosexual engagements and sparking latent homoerotic desires. 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The mystery revolves around a dashing, beautiful young American male photographer named Leslie Searle who arrives in an English artistic colony, charms everyone, and then vanishes. It is ultimately revealed that Leslie Searle is actually a woman presenting seamlessly as a young man. The book heavily explores the homoerotic tension and intense infatuations that both men and women in the village develop toward Leslie before her true sex is revealed.A seminal text in the history of queer detective fiction, Josephine Tey s 1950 mystery subverts Golden Age tropes by centering its narrative on gender transgression and same-sex attraction. When the devastatingly handsome young American photographer Leslie Searle vanishes from a tight-knit English arts colony, Inspector Alan Grant is called in to investigate a suspected murder. The investigation uncovers a web of intense romantic fixation, revealing that Leslie had systematically charmed and manipulated the colony's residents disrupting both heterosexual engagements and sparking latent homoerotic desires. The novel s eventual resolution hinges on a radical mid-century depiction of female masculinity, cross-dressing, and gender performance, making it a crucial historical piece for studying sapphic subtext and gender fluidity in classic crime fiction.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ToLoveandBeWiseJosephin1070202ONX_f.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ToLoveandBeWiseJosephin1070202ONX_f.jpg","width":1170,"height":1848},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/to-love-and-be-wise-by-josephine-tey-7\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/#website","url":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/","name":"Lesbian Bibliography","description":"The Lesbian Literature Bibliography","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/#organization","name":"Lesbian Fun World Books","url":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/cropped-LFW-HDLogo.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/cropped-LFW-HDLogo.jpg","width":1157,"height":598,"caption":"Lesbian Fun World Books"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/#\/schema\/person\/47475bc37f43183328c7cf208b3d817f","name":"NorthShore Noir Press","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a5ffb32eedf79f1cf201ae2e46198120d552a5a48e907f4d5c5e8d6087a83bba?s=96&d=mm&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a5ffb32eedf79f1cf201ae2e46198120d552a5a48e907f4d5c5e8d6087a83bba?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/a5ffb32eedf79f1cf201ae2e46198120d552a5a48e907f4d5c5e8d6087a83bba?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"NorthShore Noir Press"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45699"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47339,"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45699\/revisions\/47339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lesbianfunworld.com\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}