Sex Variant Women in Literature

Book excerpt: "Fascinating in its account of famous Lesbians throughout the years, analyzing the books they wrote, their efforts to achieve publication and their lives with other Lesbians. Ranging from the Biblical Ruth and Sappho through creative works in all languages of Western Europe (Italian, French, German, Spanish, English, and Portuguese), Jeanette Howard Foster analyzes poetry, drama and fiction for all reference to Lesbians and Lesbianism. A lengthy section discusses such famous women as the Ladies of Llangollen, Emily Dickinson, Louise Labe, Margaret Fuller, George Sand, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot, Adah Isaacs Menken, and "Michael Field." Another section includes analysis of the vital works of the renaissance of Lesbian literature from 1900 through mid-twentieth century that laid the groundwork for today's burgeoning Lesbian literary world including Kay Boyle, Djuna Barnes, Renee Vivien, Natalie Clifford Barney, Virginia Woolf, Isak Dinesen, Colette, Vita Sackville-West, Radclyffe Hall, Dorothy Richardson, Henry Handel Richardson, Christa Winsloe, Frances Brett Young, Lillian Hellman, Dorothy Baker, Helen R. Hull, Rosamond Lehmann, Shirley Jackson, Katherine Mansfield and others too numerous to mention."--Publisher's description.