Checklist A complete, cumulative Checklist of lesbian, variant and homosexual fiction, in English or available in English translation, with supplements of related material, for the use of collectors, students and librarians.

Part 3

Chapter 33,344 wordsPublic domain

These are all hardcover risque novels retailing for about $3 in bookstores which deal in that sort of thing for the adult trade only; I don't know, not being a postal inspector, whether they can legally be sent through the U S Mails. On the whole I would think not. They are all fairly well written for books of their kind, amusing and entertaining, and bear about the same relationship to the paperback scv--evening wasters that ESQUIRE does to the average cheaper girly magazine. They are, however, strictly for a male audience; the "lesbian" content in all of them is presented from a strip-tease point of view and in every case the girl involved is "cured" of this perversion by male seduction--in some cases, by brutality. The plot of _Non Stop Flight_ is typical; hero Eric Leighton discovers his wife dallying with a lesbian, so he beats up and rapes the lesbian (juicily described) whereupon his wife commits suicide. Then Eric gets involved with Celia, a stereotype "dish" with an ineffectual husband; when Celia tires of him he beats her up and rapes her (juicily described) then runs across the lesbian who has seduced his wife _and_ Celia, so he beats her up and rapes her again (juicily described) after which Eric and the lesbian get married and live very happily forever after. I don't know precisely what to call these books, but lesbiana is hardly descriptive. You have been warned.

DEISS, JAY. _The Blue Chips._ Simon & Schuster 1957, pbr Bantam 1958. fco. In an excellent novel of medical laboratory workers, a very very minor lesbian character.

DE FORREST, MICHAEL. _The Gay Year._ N. Y., Woodford Press, 1949, (m). Happily untypical of this publisher's racy trash, this story of a young man searching for self-knowledge in New York's Bohemia is very good of its kind.

DELL, FLOYD. _Diana Stair._ Farrar & Rinehart, 1932. Long novel of the early 19th century. Diana is a woman writer, but also explores life as mill-girl, schoolteacher and abolitionist. Though attracted to, and attractive to men, she is never without "some older woman to adore and emulate, or some younger woman to teach and inspire." Delightful, ironic novel of the trouble women can get into when they refuse to fall neatly into the ruts laid down by conventional society for women's lives.

DE MEJO, OSCAR. _Diary of a Nun._ pbo Pyramid 1955. Just what it sounds like--fictional diary of a young girl in a convent warding off scandalous advances. Mediocre.

+ DENNIS, NIGEL FORBES. _Cards of Identity._ Vanguard, 1955. Hilarious novel of confused identity, dealing with both male and female homosexuality.

DES CARS, GUY. _The Damned One._ pbo Pyramid, 1956. A member of French aristocracy, ambiguously sexed enough to be classified as female at birth, grows up unequivocally male but retains the name, dress and character of a female to avoid scandal--which comes anyhow when _she_ carries on with an eccentric Englishwoman.

DEUTSCH, DEBORAH. _The Flaming Heart._ Boston, Bruce Humphries, 1959, (m).

DEVLIN, BARRY. Acapulco Nocturne. Vixen Press, 1952.

Fire and Ice. Vixen Press, 1952.

Golf Widow. Vixen Press, 1953.

Lovers and Madmen. Vixen Press 1952.

Madame Big. Vixen Press 1953.

Moon Kissed. Green Farms, Conn. Modern Pubs 1957, Vixen Press 1953, pbr tct _Forbidden Pleasures_ Beacon Books 1959.

Too Many Women. Vixen(?) 1953, Beacon pbr 1959.

These are all the same sort of thing, evening wasters or scv, depending on taste. Big handsome men of incredible stamina, engaging incessantly in that one activity besides which all else is as naught, with a succession of beautiful women, blonde, brunette and redhead. Now and then this procession of affairs is varied a little by letting the girls sport with one another to give the heroes a breathing spell. In short, sexy books for people who like reading sexy books. Adults only, please.

DE VOTO, BERNARD. _Mountain Time._ Little, Brown & Co 1946--47, fco. One very brief overt lesbian episode.

DE VRIES, PETER. _The Tents of Wickedness._ Little, Brown & Co, 1959, Minor episode in a very funny literary satire--Army colonel who talks pure Hemingway turns out to be a WAC in disguise.

DIBNER, MARTIN. _The Deep Six._ Doubleday 1953, pbr Permabooks 1957, (m).

DIDEROT, DENIS. _Memoirs of a Nun._ (trans from French by Frances Birrell). London, Rutledge & Sons 1928, hcr London, Elek Books, Book Centre Ltd, N. Circular Road, Neasden, London, N. W. 10, England. Classic French novel _La Religieuse_, written in 1760, published in 1796. Reflects the very bitter anti-clerical sentiment of the times just before the Revolution. A "cornerstone" title.

DINESEN, ISAK. _Seven Gothic Tales._ N. Y., Smith & Haas, 1943, hcr Modern Library n.d.

"The Invincible Slave Owners", ss in _A Winter's Tales_, Random House 1942.

DIXON, CLARISSA. _Janet and her dear Phebe._ Stokes, 1909. Girls story of two loving little chums, separated by a misunderstanding between their families, and re-united as women. Though never explicit, the story is emotional and intense. It is highly unlikely the author was quite aware of the type of attachment she was portraying.

DJEBAR, ASSIA. _The Mischief._ Simon & Schuster 1958, pbr Avon 1959 tct _Nadia_. Very brief but well-written novel of a young girl who falls in love with a former schoolgirl friend, now married.

+ DONISTHORPE, SHEILA. _Loveliest of Friends_, Claude Kendall 1931, pbr Berkley 1956, 1957, 1958, due for another. Boyish Kim captivates young happy-housewife Audrey and wrecks her life. Preachy outburst against lesbians toward the end. Read it with a hanky handy. (Curiously enough, in spite of the anti-lesbian bias of the ending, and the overdone sentimentality of the Swinburnian writing, everybody seems to enjoy this one--all the Checklist editors included.)

DOWD, HARRISON. _The Night Air._ Dial Press, 1950, (m).

DRESSER, DAVID. _Mardigras Madness._ Godwin 1934. One lesbian episode in an evening waster about Carnival.

DRUON, MAURICE. _The Rise of Simon Lachaume._ Dutton, 1952; hcr as part of the trilogy _The Curtain Falls_, Scribner 1960. One episode in lengthy novel of a French family involves the duping of an elderly roue by a pair of young lesbians.

+ DU MAURIER, ANGELA. _The Little Legs._ Doubleday, 1941. Sad and devastating results from a long variant enslavement. "This is a lovely book if you enjoy crying, and I do," says one reviewer.

DURRELL, LAWRENCE. _Justine._ N. Y., Dutton, 1957.

_Balthazar._ N. Y., Dutton, 1958, (m).

_Mountolive._ N. Y., Dutton, 1959, (m).

_Clea._ N. Y. Dutton, 1960. The last volume of now-famous tetralogy, just released, winds up all of the loose ends of the other three. The lesbian element is minor, but all four novels are excellent.

EICHRODT, JOHN. "Nadia Devereaux", ss in _Sextet_, ed by Whit & Hallie Burnett. N. Y., McKay Co. 1951.

EISNER, SIMON. (pseud of Cyril Kornbluth). _The Naked Storm._ pbo, Lion Library, 1952, 1956. Mixed bag of passengers on a transcontinental train, including a lesbian who tries to captivate a young girl and is murdered by another passenger to give her intended victim "a chance at real happiness with a man."

ENGSTRAND, STUART. _More Deaths than One._ Julian Messner 1955, pbr Signet 1957. Mannish woman defending effeminate husband against charge of rape by kidnapping his victim and hiding her out, goes through a nervous breakdown involving a morbid and macabre attachment to the girl; horrible.

_Sling and the Arrow._ Creative Age 1947, hcr Sun Dial n.d., pbr Signet ca. 1951, (m).

EMERY, CAROL. _Queer Affair._ pbo Beacon Books, 1957. Dancer Draga moves in with mannish Jo, runs into complications when she tries to desert Jo for a man. Evening waster but very good nevertheless ... the author got in some good attitudes and philosophies when the publisher wasn't looking.

ENTERS, ANGNA. _Among the Daughters._ Coward McCann, 1955. Autobiographical novel of a girl who, like the author, finally becomes a dancer and choreographer. A good deal of space is devoted to a friendship between Lucy and another girl; the story is tinged with variance but never explicit.

ESTEY, NORBERT. _All My Sins._ A. A. Wyn, 1954. pbr Crest 1956. fco. Few very minor variant episodes in a long novel of the French courtesan Ninon l'Enclos.

EUSTIS, HELEN. _The Horizontal Man._ Harper 1946, pbr Pocket Books 1955. Offbeat psychological murder mystery.

EVANS, LESLEY. _Strange are the Ways of Love._ pbo Crest 1959. Love among the guitar-playing, folk-singing beatniks, with the lesbians playing Musical Beds. Evening waster.

EVANS, JOHN (pseud. of Howard Browne). _Halo in Brass._ Bobbs-Merrill 1949, pbr Bantam 1958. Hardboiled detective story; private eye Paul Pine is hired to locate runaway girl with no boy friends and many girl friends. Suspenseful, nice way to spend (not waste) a lazy evening.

EWERS, HANNS HEINZ. _Alraune._ John Day, 1929. Alraune is Evil incarnate--symbol of the Mandrake Root, destroying love in everyone with whom she comes in contact, bringing out their innate evil. Among those destroyed by Alraune are a pair of lesbian lovers. High-quality fantasy, unfortunately rare and rather expensive.

FADIMAN, EDWIN JR. _The 21 Inch Screen._ Doubleday 1958, pbr Signet 1960. TV bigshot Rex Lundy has woman trouble--his wife, his mistress, and his teen-age daughter. The latter is seeking the love she doesn't get at home from a Greenwich Village lesbian friend. Excellent modern fiction.

_The Glass Play Pen._ pbo Signet 1956. Rich girl loses her parents, loses her money, and turns expensive call girl. One lesbian episode, treated with tenderness and sympathy.

see also EDWINA MARK.

FAIR, ELIZABETH. _Bramton Wick._ Funk & Wagnalls 1954. fco. Cozy little story of cozy little English village, including two maiden ladies who have lived together for many years. "It is all very light and airy and your old-maid aunt wouldn't think it at all odd." Apt to be in libraries.

FAREWELL, NINA. _Someone to Love._ Messner 1959, pbr Popular Library, 1960. One brief, incomplete lesbian episode in a long, interesting novel of a woman's continual search for real love in a life filled with fleeting liaisons.

+ FERGUSON, MARGARET. _The Sign of the Ram._ London, Philadelphia, The Blakiston Co, 1944-45. Sherida comes as companion-secretary to crippled Leah, passionately adored by her whole family including sixteen-year-old Christine. Subtly playing on Christine's emotions, Leah spurs her to the point where she attempts to murder Sherida. On the surface, the motivation is simply the love of power, but Christine's emotions are clearly variant; when the book was filmed, they carefully cast Christine as a girl of eleven, to make it unmistakable that her adoration was only "childish."

FIRBANK, RONALD. _The Flower Beneath the Foot._ in Five Novels, New Directions, 1949. "Light and fluffy ... pure fun".

_Inclinations._ in Three Novels. New Directions 1951, (m).

FITZROY, A.T. _Despised and Rejected._ London, C W Daniel, 1918. Lesbian incidents in a novel which is, however, mainly about persecution of Conscientious Objectors in World War I.

FISHER, MARY (PARRISH). _Not Now but NOW._ Viking 1947. Novel of an ageless, ruthless woman. A long episode on a college campus is lesbian in emphasis.

FISHER, VARDIS. _The Darkness and the Deep._ Vanguard, 1943, fco, a novel of the Stone Age.

FLAGG, JOHN. _Dear, Deadly Beloved._ Gold Medal pbo 1954.

_Murder in Monaco._ pbo Gold Medal 1957.

Both of these are fast-moving mysteries, in Mediterranean setting, both involving lesbian characters.

FLAUBERT, GUSTAVE. _Salammbo._ Classic French Novel in many editions and translations. A very long novel of a Babylonian High Priestess; some psychological and literary authorities consider it variant. The editors all say with one voice that it isn't. BAYOR.

FLEMING, IAN. _Goldfinger._ Macmillan 1959. No data, BAYOR.

FLORA, FLETCHER. _Desperate Asylum._ pbo Lion Library 1955, pbr Pyramid 1959, tct _Whisper of Love_. An unhappy lesbian and a neurotic man who hates women because his mother was promiscuous, marry to find a mutual "asylum". Predictably the marriage is unsuccessful, ending in murder and suicide.

_Strange Sisters_, pbo Lion Library 1954, pbr Pyramid 1960. Weird novel of a girl's mental breakdown, indirectly blamed on her affairs with three cruel and sadistic women.

_Take me Home._ Monarch Books, pbo 1959. A young writer's slow captivation with a strange girl just escaping from the domination of an evil lesbian cousin. All three of these books, though anti-lesbian in bias, are very well and slickly written, and entertaining.

FORREST, FELIX. _Carola._ Duell, 1948. Brief recall of a lesbian episode in the heroine's girlhood.

FORTUNE, DION. (pseud. of Violet B. Firth). _Moon Magic._ London, Aquarian Press, 1958, fco. Fascinating, funny novel of a modern sorceress and an inhibited, bad-tempered doctor. It is implied that his marriage failed because his wife, a hysteric shamming invalidism, prefers being cosseted by her faithful companion to reassuming marital duties.

FOSTER, GERALD. _Strange Marriage._ N. Y., Godwin 1943. Transvestite, rather than lesbian; heroine in man's clothing actually marries a fantastically naive girl.

FOWLER, ELLEN T. _The Farringdons._ N. Y., Appleton, 1900. Three intense variant attachments by a motherless girl under twenty, which subside when she falls in love with a man.

FRANKEN, ROSE. _Intimate Story._ Doubleday, 1955. A novel by the author of the popular Claudia series.

+ FREDERICS, DIANA. (pseud); _Diana, a Strange Autobiography._ Dial 1939, pbr Berkley Books 1955, 1957, 1958. Well known story of a young musician/teacher's discovery and slow acceptance and adjustment to her lesbian personality.

FRANK, WALDO. _The Dark Mother._ N. Y., Boni & Liveright, 1920, (m). A too-possessive mother ruins her son's life.

FRIEDMAN, STUART. _Nikki._ Monarch Books, 1960, scv.

_The Revolt of Jill Braddock._ Monarch Books 1960. scv. Male and female homosexuality in a ballet company, with Jill in the middle. "Not as bad as _Nikki_, but still a pretty raw evening waster."

GARLAND, RODNEY. _The Heart in Exile._ Coward McCann 1954, pbr Lion 1956, (m). Because of courageous approach to the basic problem of relations between the homosexual and his family, this story of a young homosexual in an unconventional household deserves shelfspace everywhere.

GARNETT, DAVID. _A Shot in the Dark._ Little, Brown 1959, pbr tct _The Ways of Desire_. Popular Library 1960. Complex, fast-moving adventure story, involving a great number of lesbians.

GARRETT, ZENA. _The House in the Mulberry Tree._ Random House, 1959 Sensitive story of a girl of eleven, fascinated by an innocently appealing neighbor, a married woman. The mother, observing innocent caresses between the two, separates them.

+ GARRIGUE, JEAN. "The Other One" ss in _Cross Section_, ed. by E. Seaver, Simon & Schuster, 1947.

GAUTIER, THÉOPHILE. _Mademoiselle de Maupin._ Many editions, including Modern Library, n. d. also pbr Pyramid Books 1956, 1957, 1958. Classic novel of lesbianism.

GENET, JEAN. _The Maids._ Grove Press qpb 1954. Offbeat existentialist drama; involuted love among women.

GEORGIE, LEYLA. _The Establishment of Madame Antonia._ Liveright, 1932. Light entertainment about inhabitants of a high-class European bordello, including a young recruit protected by an older woman.

GIDE, ANDRÉ. _The School for Wives._ N. Y., Knopf, 1950

_The Immoralist._ Knopf 1930, hcr 1948, (m).

_The Counterfeiters._ Knopf 1927, (m).

GILBERT, EDWIN. _The Hot and the Cool._ Doubleday 1953, pbr tct

_See How They Burn_, Popular Library, 1959, (m). Minor and subtle homosexual overtones in a novel of jazz musicians.

GODDEN, RUMER. _The Greengage Summer._ Viking 1957, fco.

_A Candle for St. Jude_, Viking 1948, fco.

GOLDMAN, WILLIAM. _The Temple of Gold._ Knopf 1957, pbr Bantam 1958, (m) minor fco.

GOLDSTON, ROBERT. _The Catafalque._ Rinehart 1957, 1958. High-quality thriller about ill-fated archaeological expedition to Spain; crisis precipitated when a sinister Countess takes young Stephanie, the expedition leader's daughter, to a grotto where a pagan goddess has been worshipped with lesbian rites and attempts to seduce her there.

GREENE, GRAHAM. _The Orient Express._ Doubleday 1933, pbr Bantam 1955. Trainful of mixed adventurers includes a lesbian between girl-friends but still trying.

GUDMUNDSSON, KRISTMANN. _Winged Citadel._ Holt, 1940, (m). Brief but very explicit homosexual interlude in a fine historical novel of Crete and the Bull-dancers.

GUNTER, ARCHIBALD. _A Florida Enchantment._ Home Pubs 1892. No data available, BAYOR.

HACKETT, PAUL. _Children of the Stone Lions._ G. P. Putnam 1955. An important lesbian character in a novel which has had good reviews.

+ HAGGARD, SIR HENRY RIDER. _Allan's Wife._ First published, 1889; now in print in Five Novels of H. Rider Haggard, Dover Press, 1951. A strange story, and this year's special "find". Allan, hero of the famous adventure-novelist's KING SOLOMON'S MINES, is here shown as a young man, in love with Stella Carson--an English girl reared in the unspoilt beauty of a lost valley in Darkest Africa. The romance is complicated by the passionate jealousy of Hendrika--stolen in infancy by gorillas, reared as a female Tarzan, and rescued to be Stella's companion, foster-sister and adorer. Hendrika first attempts to murder Allan; the scene in which she rages insanely at Allan for stealing Stella's love, and Allan's quiet acceptance of the "curious" fact that the strongest loves are not always between those of different sexes, places this book almost alone in forthright English treatment of variance for its date. From this high level of psychological realism, the story reverts to Haggard-type melodrama; Stella is kidnapped by Hendrika's gorilla friends; dramatically rescued in a thrilling jungle battle; her death from exposure and Hendrika's remorseful suicide complete the story. Strange, romantic, and quite in a class by itself.

HALES, CAROL. _Wind Woman._ Woodford Press 1953, pbr tct _Such is My Beloved_, Berkley 1958. Sad, sad, sad story of the psychoanalysis of a young lesbian such as was never seen on sea or land. Harmless and nitwitted ... read it and weep, or giggle.