Lesbian Pulp Fiction. The Sexually Intrepid World of Lesbian Paperback Novels, 1950 - 1965
signed
2005 · San Francisco, CA
by FORREST, KATHERINE V. (ED.)
San Francisco, CA: Cleis Press, Inc, 2005. Paperback Original. Signed by the author, Ann Bannon, a novelist of this lesbian paperback original golden age who is known as the Queen of Lesbian Fiction, to whom the book is dedicated. A big book of 415 pages, 6” x 9”. Illustrated. Brand new. Paperbound. A survey of the brave and provocative sub-genre of lesbian pulp fiction. With titles like Odd Girl Out, Women’s Barracks, The Dark Side of Venus, These Curious Pleasures, The Girls in 3-B, etc. it’s clear that the target audience from the publisher’s point of view was male, but for many lesbians of the time these books offered a welcome chance to identify with a community. Includes works by Ann Bannon, Tereska Torres, Valerie Taylor, Paula Christian, Artemis Smith, and more. From the introduction by the editor, Katherine V. Forrest: “The courage of the authors of these books also cannot be overstated, pseudonyms be damned. Anyone who has ever written a book can testify to the feeling of personal risk we experience, the sense of stark exposure. The writers of these books laid bare an intimate, hidden part of themselves and they did it under siege, in the dark depths of a more than metaphorical wartime, because there was desperate urgency inside them to reach out, to put words on the page for women like themselves to read. Their words reached us, they touched us in different and deeply personal ways, and they helped us all.” (Inventory #: 15654E)