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.
General
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.
Fiction -- Bibliography; Paraphilias in literature -- Bibliography
FOSTER, Jeannette Howard; _Sex Variant Women in
Literature._ N. Y. Vantage Press, 1956.
Although now officially out of print, this book can occasionally be
obtained second hand, and copies will soon be offered for sale through
the Daughters of Bilitis publication, THE LADDER. (See appendix.) We
have made no effort to give more than cursory reviews of titles which
are discussed at length in Dr. Foster’s work. However, since the
publication of the Foster book, many new novels of lesbianism have been
published, and the diligent search of many collectors, working with the
Checklist editors, has brought many old ones to light.
We have tried to review in some detail the novels which were omitted
from Dr. Foster’s work, and to strive for completeness, even at the
expense of discriminatory judgment about the excellence or otherwise of
the works included. Therefore this Checklist includes many works whose
lesbian content was too slight, too subtle—or too “trashy”—to have
come within the scope of the scholarly studies of Dr. Foster or the
running column, _Lesbiana_, conducted by junior editor Gene Damon in
the pages of THE LADDER.
It is our further contention that many novels dealing with male
homosexuality come also within the province of the serious collector of
lesbiana. We make, however, no claim for completeness for novels which
fall within the homosexual, rather than the lesbian province. In
general, the male titles included in this list—clearly defined, in each
case, by the sign (m)—have been included because they were of special
interest to the editors and therefore are presumably of interest to
other collectors of lesbiana.
For those who wish a complete list of works dealing with male
homosexuality, we suggest the comprehensive bibliography compiled by
Noel I. Garde, discussed in the Appendix of Related Publications. Mr.
Garde has indexed virtually every homosexual work from antiquity to the
latest paperback shocker, and has also performed the mighty task of
separating them into categories ... a task from which the Checklist
editors have shrunk, though we have made some attempt at classification
in our reviews and by awarding a plus sign to books of exceptional
value. (For further discussion of this division, please consult the
“List of Symbols and Abbreviations” on page 2.)
Most of the reviews in the present listing were written by one of the
editors; no attempt has been made to divide the reviews written by MZB
from those written by Damon. In general, these reviews have been
gathered from so many sources that the awarding of individual credit
would be impossible.
This Checklist, 1960, is the last of the cumulative Checklists. Plans at
present are to publish brief supplements annually, listing only new
titles, new reprints of old titles, or new discoveries of overlooked
titles. Since this is the case, we feel that some brief history of the
Checklist might be of interest to the readers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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