If variant poetry burgeoned suddenly with the turn of the present century, new developments in fiction were equally apparent. Between 1900 and 1950, novels with female variance as either a central or a major theme averaged more than two per year. A rather larger additional group used variance as a minor motif or in a telling incident or two. Of this generous crop a good half was the work of English and American authors; an equal proportion was written by women; and although active championship of lesbianism or variance was comparatively rare, better than half the fictional presentations were either sympathetic or neutral. These counts are based upon a hundred-odd volumes available for examination, plus an additional score or so of unequivocal reviews. The new century’s characteristic changes were least evident in France, where for a couple of decades variant fiction had appeared in quantity, and where at least two or three women (Rachilde, Jane de LaVaudère, Camille Pert) had contributed. We have seen that Pierre Louÿs between 1896 and 1901 even struck a new note of cheerful insouciance, but his _Aphrodite_ and _Bilitis_ pictured courtesans of the classical era, and the adventures of his three girls in _King Pausole_ were set in a zany fantasy well removed from reality. From reviews and publishers’ records we know that during the century’s first decade fully as many inferior lesbian novels appeared as in the one preceding, a few of which will be mentioned later. The outstanding work, however, was that done by the couple signing themselves Colette-Willy, who opened a new era by portraying their own times with both frankness and sympathy. Willy was the established music critic and light novelist Henry Gauthier-Villars. Sidonie Gabrielle Colette has since been recognized as the foremost French woman writer of her time, but in 1900 she was merely a piquant personality who, a decade earlier, at seventeen, had come to Paris from the provinces and married Gauthier-Villars. Consequently, when _Claudine à L’Ecole_ appeared (1900), it was taken to be mainly a work of Willy based upon his wife’s girlhood experiences. Critics have since established that it and its three successors, _Claudine à Paris_ (1901), _Claudine en Ménage_ (1902) and _Claudine s’en Va_ (1903) were less his than Colette’s own, and the fifth volume, _La Retraite Sentimentale_ (1907) was recognized at the time of its appearance as hers, since by then she had separated from her husband. The first four of the series have been translated as _Claudine at School_, _Young Lady of Paris_, _The Indulgent Husband_, and _Innocent Wife_, and are fairly well-known.