Part 5

LORD, SHELDON. _A Strange Kind of Love._ N. Y., Midwood-Tower Pubs pbo 1959. Evening waster about a writer who discovers that two of his (dozens of) girl friends are involved with one another.

_69 Barrow Street._ Midwood-Tower pbo 1959, scv. Love, if you can call it that, in Greenwich Village.

+ LOUYS, PIERRE. _Aphrodite._ (Many editions, of which the standard English translation seems to be The Collected Works of Pierre Louys, Liveright, 1926, still in print. Also various Avon paperbacks.) The beautifully written story of an Alexandrian courtesan also includes the story of two young Greek girls, Rhodis and Myrtocleia, no more than children, who wish to marry one another.

_The Adventures of King Pausole._ As above. Fine, funny, highly risque story of the king of a strange country, who has a thousand wives, like Solomon, and believes in freedom for everybody except his daughter, Aline--who eventually runs away with a "boy" who is really a girl.

_The Songs of Bilitis._ As above. Prose or poetry, depending on translation, and perhaps the classic story of lesbianism in an ancient setting.

LUCAS, RICK. _Dreamboat._ pbo, Berkley, 1956, 1957. scv.

LYNDON, BAREE, and Jimmie Sangster. _The Man who Could Cheat Death_, based on the screenplay, for the recent movie, which in turn was based on a play, The Man in Half Moon Street. Without the fantastic photography which made the movie superb, this is a remarkably silly pseudo-science thing about a man who finds away to survive indefinitely by glandular transplants. To camouflage his deathlessness he pulls up his roots and moves every ten years and during one such interlude he falls for beautiful Avril Barnes, who turns out to be a lesbian. He converts her, and she becomes such a pest that he murders her. Shocker, silly.

MacCOWN, EUGENE. _The Siege of Innocence._ Doubleday, 1950, (m). And minor lesbian element.

MacKENZIE, COMPTON. _Extraordinary Women._ Martin Secker, London; Macy-Masius N. Y. 1928, hcr New Adelphi 1932. The Winston Book Service offered this for sale quite recently. Amusing, satirical and well-known novel of lesbians.

_The Vestal Fire._ N. Y. Doran, 1927, (m). However, in this novel of Americans living abroad, there are also important lesbian characters.

MacRAE, KEVIN. _Nikki._ Vantage. 1955. Not to be confused with the rubbishy book by the same title by Stuart Friedman, this is a story of Nikki, who loses her beloved in an air raid in London and nearly cracks up before finding a home in a lesbian "colony" in Southern California; silly, but a lot of fun.

+ MacINNES, COLIN. _Absolute Beginners._ London, MacGibbon & Rae, 1959. A novel about London teen-agers, told in Soho idiom--a sort of bastard hip-talk. The characters in this novel include several male homosexuals, and one lesbian, Big Jill. Enough space is devoted to social problems, by an author who is quite obviously one of the "angry young men", to give this novel real status.

McMINNIES, MARY. _The Visitors._ Harcourt, Brace 1958. A diplomat's wife abroad, fancying herself as Madame Bovary, attempts to use everyone around her for her own purposes. She has an affair with an American correspondent and also captivates Sophie, a countess, and an extremely well-portrayed character. One of the most sympathetic portraits of a lesbian in recent fiction, as well as a ruthless portrayal of women who enjoy flirting in both fields.

+ MAHYERE, EVELINE. _I Will not Serve._ Dutton 1959, 1960. This book, boycotted by many major reviewers, was written by a young Frenchwoman who committed suicide before its publication. Precocious, nonconformist Sylvie has been expelled from a convent for writing, in a letter, that she loves one of the nuns. The story deals with the unfolding pattern of Sylvie's meetings with Julienne, an older novice in the convent. The conflict is clear; Sylvie's creed is "I will not serve"--a statement of her refusal to become a good wife and mother--and she wants nothing of life but Julienne. Julienne, has given herself to God. Refusing to accept this, Sylvie commits suicide. The book is profound and sincere, and on the basis of this one work the author's premature death was a loss to the field of literature.

MAINE, CHARLES ERIC. _World Without Men._ pbo, Ave Books 1958. Science fiction of a world thousands of years in the future, where the men have all died out, reproduction is scientific and the women, having no one else to love, love one another. In defiance of all conceivable theories of heredity and environment, a few women still think this state of affairs is "unnatural" and band together to create a male birth, assuming everyone will turn normal overnight. Silly.

MALLET, FRANÇOISE. _The Illusionist._ (Trans. by Herma Briffault). Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, 1952 tct _The Loving and the Daring_, Popular 1953. (pbr). Now well-known novel, by a young French writer, of a girl captivated by her father's mistress.

_The Red Room._ (trans. by Herma Briffault). Farrar, Strauss & Cudahy 1956, pbr Popular 1958. Sequel to the above.

MALLOY, FRED. _The End of the Road._ Woodford Press 1952, pbr Berkley tct _Wicked Woman_, 1959. Good evening waster about a girl who is picked up by Charlotte, a truck-driver "dike" type; Charlotte gives Alice a home, but eventually Alice runs off with a man who is worse than she is. Surprisingly, for this type of thing, the author implies that there _is_ a fate worse than lesbianism.

MANNING, BRUCE. _Triangle of Sin._ Intimate Novel (Universal Pub.) 1952, pbr Beacon Books 1959; same title, but author listed as Manning Stokes. Evening waster.

MANNIX, DANIEL P. _The Beast._ pbo Ballantine Books 1959, (m).

MARECHAL, LUCIE. _The Mesh_ (trans. by Virgilia Peterson.) Appleton 1949, pbr Bantam, 1951, 1953, 1959. Excellent novel of a Belgian family; the weakling son marries, brings his bride into home dominated by his mother, shadowed by his lonely sister. Eventually sister takes the young woman away from her brother.

MARLOWE, STEPHEN. _Homicide is My Game._ Gold Medal 1959 pbo. Hardboiled murder mystery involving a teen-age sex club--a businessman is involved of running it, but the real culprit is his daughter, Liz. She is also a lesbian. Evening waster.

MARK, EDWINA. (pseud of Edwin Fadiman jr). _My Sister, my Beloved._ Citadel 1955, pbr Berkley 1956. Two young sisters, daughters of a drunken lush of a mother, fall into a too-close relationship as Eve, the older, protects young Sheila from their mother's beatings and tantrums. Sheila plays around and gets pregnant; mother, at the stage where alcohol will kill her, is given a big drink by Eve, who then arranges for Sheila to have an abortion and the two of them to live happily ever after; instead, Sheila marries the boy and Eve is whipped half to death by one of her mother's gigolos. One of _those_ books--where anything from abortion to rape is preferable to lesbianism.

+ _The Odd Ones._ Berkley pbo, 1959. Jean, small-town girl running away, comes to New York and falls in with Sherri, tied to a crazy husband. Rather good and not condemnatory at all; rather restrained for a pbo, although of course it has the obligatory sexy stuff.

MARR, REED. _Women without Men._ Gold Medal pbo, 1956. Naive, if not too intelligent girl sent to a woman's reformatory, encounters the usual hardening experiences--corrupt matrons, police-court-type lesbians, trusties and well-meaning officials who have their lives to live and can't or won't do anything to better conditions. Good of its kind.

MARSHE, RICHARD. _A Woman Called Desire._ (Orig. pub. 1950 under title of _Wicked Woman_) Berkley pbr 1959, scv.

MARSTON, JOHN. _Venus With Us; a Tale of the Caesars._ N. Y. Sears, 1932. pbr Universal Pub. 1953 tct _The Private Life of Julius Caesar_. Fast, funny, risque historical novel--or romance--with approximately six historical errors per chapter, but a lot of fun nevertheless. The scenes laid in the College of Vestals are exclusively lesbian; there are both serious, emotional affairs between women, and funny light-hearted ones in the manner of King Pausole. Good of kind.

+ MARTIN, KENNETH. _Aubade._ London, Chapman & Hall 1957, (m).

MASEFIELD, JOHN. _Multitude and Solitude._ Macmillan 1909, 1916.

MASSIE, CHRIS. _The Incredible Truth._ Random, N. Y., 1958, pbr Berkley 1959. Victorian husband narrates, many years afterward, his wife's successive attachment to two woman friends.

MAUGHAM, SOMERSET. _Theatre._ Doubleday 1937, Bantam pbr tct _Woman of the World_, 1951, pbr Bantam tct _Theatre_ 1959. Theatrical novel of a worldly actress, Julia, contains brief mention of a fat, elderly lesbian admirer who finances her works; one amusing scene where Julia's husband advises her on how to manipulate Dolly's feelings. Smart, brittle.

MAUPASSANT, GUY DE. _Paul's Mistress._ ss in various collections including Cory, _21 Variations on a Theme_.

MAYHALL, JANE. _Cousin to Human._ Harcourt, Brace 1960. Valeda, friend of the heroine, has a sad, depressing affair with an adolescent schoolgirl athlete friend, named Mildred.

MEAGHER, MAUDE. _The Green Scamander._ Houghton Mifflin, 1933. A novel of the Trojan war, largely concerned with the passionate friendship between Penthesilea, co-queen with the Amazon tribe, and her co-ruler Camilla. Beautifully written, available in most medium-sized libraries.

MEEKER, RICHARD. _The Better Angel._ Greenberg 1933, pbr Universal Pub. tct _Torment_ ca. 1952, (m).

+ MEREZOWSKII, DMITRI. (Trans. from Russian by Natalia A. Duddington) London, J. M. Dent & Co, 1925, 1926. _Birth of the Gods._ A fine novel of Crete and the bull-dancers (and perhaps the first of its kind). Dio, a strangely bisexual young girl, priestess of the Great Mother, though attracted and attractive to men, is vowed to remain a virgin in the service of the Goddess; much of the novel is devoted to her passionate friendship for her young novice, Eoia. One of Dio's rejected lovers, believing that the "little witch" has cast a spell on Dio to prevent her loving him, plots to have Eoia killed in the ring; instead Eoia's death nearly destroys Dio as well.

_Akhnaton, King of Egypt._ (as above) London, Dent, 1927. Continues and concludes the story of Dio.

MERGENDAHL, CHARLES. _The Girl Cage._ pbo Gold Medal 1953, 1959. Brief, minor lesbian episode in a novel about war widows.

MERRITT, A(braham); _The Metal Monster._ Copyright Munsey Magazines, (this ran serially in Argosy ca. 1920) Revised version, Frank A. Munsey 1941, pbr Avon, 1946. Offbeat variant episode in an adventure-fantasy; Norhala, pagan slave of the "metal people" steals the explorer's sister, Ruth, to "play with her"; after her death Ruth weeps, saying "she loved me dearly, dearly," but significantly can remember nothing of their time together. Wildly fantastic, good of type.

METALIOUS, GRACE. _Return to Peyton Place._ Messner 1959, pbr Dell 1959. Another sexy "expose" of a small town. In one episode, the unpleasant wife of a local boy recalls her schooldays, when she taunted and enslaved a lesbian schoolmate.

MEYER, GLADYS ELEANOR, _The Magic Circle._ Knopf, 1944. fco Subtle novel of close friendship between two women; never explicit, and on the borderline for variant interest.

+ MILLAY, KATHLEEN. _Against the Wall._ Macaulay, 1929. College novel by the sister of the well-known poet (see poetry supplement).

MILLER, WALTER M. "The Lineman" ss in Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1957, (m). Excellent attitudes on homosexuality in general, in short story of isolated men.

MILLER, HENRY. _Plexus._ Paris, Olympia Press 1953, 2 vols. Chapter 16 of the 2nd Volume is supposed to be devoted to a variant affair. Most of Henry Miller's books cannot be legally imported into the USA--this is one--and your editors haven't been to Paris yet. When you go, tell us.

MISHIMA, YUKIO. _Confessions of a Mask._ New Directions 1958, (m).

+ MITCHELL, S. WEIR. _Constance Trescott._ N. Y., Century 1900. The plus is to draw attention to an old, overlooked title. Major (for its date) treatment of variant enslavement between two half sisters.

+ MITCHISON, NAOMI. _The Delicate Fire._ Harcourt, N. Y. 1932. A major writer, and scholar, presents a collection of lovely short stories of ancient Greece; the title story deals with Sappho and her group of girl lovers.

_The Corn King and the Spring Queen._ Harcourt, 1931, (m).

"Black Sparta" and "Krypteia" in _Greek Stories_, Harcourt, 1928, (m).

MORAVIA, ALBERTO. _The Conformist._ Farrar, Straus & Young 1951, pbr Signet 1954. Penetrating study of a fascist whose compulsive drive for power destroys everyone he loves. An interlude between his wife and a friend provides a brief diversion before the macabre ending.

MOORE, HAL. _The Naked and the Fair._ pbo, Beacon, 1958, scv.

MOORE, PAMELA. _Chocolates for Breakfast._ Rinehart 1956, pbr Bantam 1957. Candid, shocking story of a young girl's disintegration; the opening episodes involve her rejection by a teacher on whom she has a crush, and there are variant overtones in her prolonged friendship with a school roommate, Janet's suicide being the spur which makes Courtney resolve to pull herself together.

MORELL, LEE. _Mimi._ pbo Beacon Books 1959. Unusually good evening waster about night-club and theatrical people, with both male and female homosexual episodes; handled with subtlety and lightness almost unknown in this publisher's paperbacks.

+ MORGAN, CLAIRE. (pseud of Patricia Highsmith) _The Price of Salt._ Coward-McCann, 1952, pbr Bantam 1953, 1959. Fine novel of an affair between two very nice, very courageous, very well-adjusted women whose initial attraction becomes the mainspring of both their lives. The author does not use one single stereotype or cliche; this is probably _the_ American novel of the lesbian.

MORGAN, NANCY. _City of Women_, pbo Gold Medal 1952, 1959. Lesbian episodes in a novel of women living in barracks at Pearl Harbor.

MORLEY, IRIS. _The Proud Paladin._ N. Y. Morrow 1936. Lesbian content vague and doubtful, BAYOR and fco.

MORRO, DON. _The Virgin._ pbo Beacon 1955, released in 1959. scv.

MOSS, GEOFFREY. _That Other Love._ Doubleday, 1930. A long-continued affair between Phillida and an older friend breaks off because of the younger woman's desire for children.

MOTLEY, WILLARD. _Knock on Any Door._ N. Y., Appleton-Century, 1947, pbr Signet 1953, (m).

+ MURDOCH, IRIS. _The Bell._ N. Y. Viking 1958, (m). A fine, occasionally funny novel of an Anglican lay church-community centers around Michael Meade, a man of honor, intelligence, and integrity--and a homosexual. His hopes of being ordained as a priest were destroyed when, as a schoolteacher, he became entangled with young Nick; Nick's appearance at the community destroys Michael's peace of mind thoroughly, and an obliquely handled relationship between Nick, Michael and a guileless youngster, Toby, spending the summer at the community, eventually destroys the community entirely. But it isn't all gloom and doom; the level of the writing is highly competent, sometimes wildly hilarious, and through all his difficulties Michael is able to realize that eventually he will "experience again ... that infinitely extended requirement which one human being makes on another." A book which emphasizes the triumph of love, and one of the recent best. ((Editor's note; why are the best novels of male homosexuality written by women? Mesdames Renault and Murdoch are giving their best to the men. Is it a question of detachment?))

MURPHY, DENNIS. _The Sergeant._ Viking 1958, pbr Crest 1959, (m).

MURRAY, WILLIAM. _The Fugitive Romans._ pbo, Popular Library 1955. Brief variant episode among a Hollywood location crew abroad.

NEILSEN, HELEN. _The Fifth Caller._ Morrow, 1959. Dr. Lillian Whitehall, metaphysician, is murdered; as each of her five callers is interviewed to find the guilty party, it develops that the dead woman was a cruel, domineering repressed lesbian. Well written, though unsympathetic.

NEFF, WANDA FRAIKEN. _We Sing Diana._ Boston, Houghton 1928. Story of a girl too inhibited to face her own nature.

NILES, BLAIR. _Strange Brother._ N. Y. Liveright 1931, pbr Harris Publications 1949, pbr Avon 1952, 1958, 1959.

NIN, ANAIS. _Winter of Artifice._ Paris, Obelisk Press 1939, also in _Under a Glass Bell_, Dutton, 1948. The first edition has 100 pages or so, not included in later editions, in which she recounts her liaison with a famous American writer and his wife, all disguised, of course. (All of this writer's work seems to be vaguely tinged with variance.)

_Ladders to Fire._ Dutton, 1945, 1946.

NORDAY, MICHAEL. _Stage for Fools._ Vixen Press 1955. pbr tct _Strange Thirsts_, Beacon 1959. Evening waster about a lush actress making a comeback on a college campus, who revenges herself on an indifferent male by entrapping his girl into a drunken lesbian episode and inviting him to watch the show. A shocker.

_Warped._ Beacon pbo 1955, 1960. Very apt title; evening waster about a crooked fight game. One sympathetically portrayed lesbian character in the many mixed affairs.

NORMANDIE, ROGER. _The Lion's Den._ N. Y., Key 1957. scv.

+ O'BRIEN, KATE. _As Music and Splendor._ Harper. 1958. Novel of two very different young Irish girls sent to study music on the Continent during the great age of Italian opera; their personal lives differ as widely as their careers. One, Clare Halvey, drifts into a love affair with Luisa Carriaga, a Spanish contralto; their relationship is treated delicately, but with warmth and impersonal sympathy. Excellent for opera lovers and for those who are tired to death of books where every last detail is spelled out as frankly as the law allows.

+ O'DONOVAN, JOAN. _Dangerous Worlds._ Morrow, 1958. Collection of excellent short stories.

O'HIGGINS, HARVEY. _The Story of Julie Cane._ Harper, 1924. Explicit, for its day, story of an intense relationship between a schoolmistress and her ward.

OLIVIA (see DOROTHY BUSSY).

O'NEILL, ROSE. _The Goblin Woman._ N. Y. Doubleday 1930. Fey, symbolic novel of Helga, the Goblin Woman (who represents purity) set down in a society far from pure. There are many lesbian episodes and references to inter-feminine love. (see poetry supplement.)

O'HARA, NOEL. _The Last Virgin._ Chariot Books pb 1959. This is a reprint of David George Kin's "Women Without Men", containing six of the ten stories; new title, new author, even new copyright date--who's kidding who? It does not contain the damning introduction, and without it, appears fairly sympathetic. Curious little item.

PACKER, VIN (pseud; see also ANN ALDRICH) _Spring Fire._ pbo Gold Medal 1952. Now well-known and rather gamy novel of sorority house life and an unhappy lesbian affair between naive freshman Mitch and neurotic Lana.

_Whisper His Sin._ Gold Medal pbo 1954, (m).

+ _The Evil Friendship._ pbo Crest 1958. Viciously condemnatory novel of two little girls of fourteen who, consequent to their lesbianish attachment, plot together and carry out "a murder club". Shuddersome, but, alas, well written. (Editorial query; why must so many of the detractors of lesbianism write such good books, while those who defend it are, all to often, of the Carol Hales "quality"?)

_The Twisted Ones._ pbo, Gold Medal 1959, (m).

PARK, JORDAN. (pseud of Cyril Kornbluth). _Valerie._ pbo, Lion, 1953, 1957. Minor lesbian episodes in a novel of witch-hunting; the episodes occur at a Witches Sabbat. Evening waster.

PARKER, DOROTHY. "Glory in the Daytime" in _After Such Pleasures_, N. Y., Viking 1934.

PATTON, MARION. _Dance on the Tortoise._ N. Y., Dial 1930. Boarding-school novel; the heroine, repelled by the emotional friendships around her, throws herself with relief into the arms of a man.

PAVESE, CESARE. _Among Women Only._ Noonday Press, qpb 1959 ($1.75). Recommended, highly tragic, novel by a writer considered, until his untimely death, one of Italy's best.

+ PETERS, FRITZ. _Finistere._ Farrar, Straus & Co 1951, pbr Signet 1953, (m).

+ PETRONIUS, _The Satyricon._ (the earliest known novel, written about the time of Christ; the last flush of the pagan world.) Trans. William Arrowsmith, University of Michigan Press, 1959. This is also available in a highly expurgated Modern Library edition, n. d. Male, of course, and the Arrowsmith translation is hilarious and _very_ readable.

PEN, JOHN. _Temptation._ (trans. from the Hungarian by John Manheim,) Avon Red and Gold, 1959, (m). Fine picaresque.

PEYREFITTE, ROGER. _Special Friendships._ NY, Vanguard 1950, (m).

+ PHELPS, ROBERT. _Heroes and Orators._ N. Y., McDowell & Oblensky 1958. Fine modern novel of family relationships, containing a lesbian character described as the most real, human and sympathetic in recent years; Margot, in love with her ex-husband's sister Elizabeth. The two women live together, but any intimate relationship between them is disclaimed.

PHILLIPS, THOMAS HAL. _The Bitterweed Path._ Rinehart 1949, pbr Avon 1954, 1959, (m).

POWELL, DAWN. _A Cage for Lovers._ Boston, Houghton Mifflin 1957. Mannish, wealthy hypochondriac keeps her nurse-companion in virtual slavery until the younger girl breaks away and marries. Competent novel by a popular author.

PRIEST, J. C. _Private School._ Beacon pbo 1959 scv.

PRITCHARD, JANET. _Warped Women._ Beacon pbo 1951, 1956, 1959. Despite the lurid blurb and cover, this is a nice evening waster about an innocent young girl who goes to work for a woman's health club which is, behind the scenes, an abortion mill run by gangsters. Fronting for the group, an attractive lesbian takes a fancy to the heroine, eventually protects her against the gangster boss at the risk of her own life. The heroine then marries a nice boy who's been telling her all along that the place is rotten. Suspenseful, interesting.

PROUST, MARCEL. _Remembrance of Things Past_, the great work of the well-known French homosexual author, is available in many (virtually all except rural-provincial) libraries, numerous college editions, etc. Long sections are variant, male-homosexual or lesbian; bibliography would occupy entirely too much space. Try a stray volume in qpb and see if Proust is your cup of tea--he isn't everyone's.