Girl. pbo, Beacon 1959, scv. Just what it sounds like. Among her many “affairs” is a brief episode with another girl.

ASQUITH, CYNTHIA. “The Lovely Voice”. ss, in This Mortal Coil. Arkham House, Sauk City, Wisconsin. Fantasy, 1947

BAKER, DENYS VAL. A Journey With Love. Bridgehead Books, 1955, pbr Crest Books 1956. fco. The hero’s first marriage fails because of his wife’s insistence that a woman friend shall share their home. Nothing is explicit.

BAKER, DOROTHY. Trio. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co, 1943, hcr Sun Dial 1945, pbr Penguin Books 1946. Tells of the captivation of a young woman by an unscrupulous literary agent who also happens to be a lesbian. Highly defamatory.

Young Man with A Horn. Boston; Houghton Mifflin, 1938, pbr Signet 1953. Very minor lesbian incident in a jazz novel.

+ BALDWIN, JAMES. Giovanni’s Room. Dial 1956, pbr Signet 1959, (m). An American boy in Paris fights against his affair with a young Italian, Giovanni; his fear and resistance to this relationship leads to separation, tragedy and their separate destruction. A powerful, tender and tragic book.

BALDWIN, MONICA. The Called and the Chosen. Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, N. Y., 1957, pbr Signet 1958. A good study of repression and frustration in convent life, containing passim the story of Sister Helena, novice-mistress; although her behavior was strictly correct even for a nun, she once inspired such violent passions in her juniors that she was removed from this office. The heroine refers to Sister Helena, after her death, as “the one human being I ever loved”.

BALZAC, HONORE DE. Cousin Bette. Classic; many standard editions and translations. The story of a neurotic spinster’s half-realised passion for a woman friend.

The Girl with the Golden Eyes. Many standard editions and translations, including; pbr Avon Books 1957, (trans. Ernest Dowson.) Shocker of the 19th century, dealing with the passion of the Chevalier de Marsay for a strange, unspoilt girl, Paquita—who is virtually enslaved to a sinister lesbian Countess.

Seraphita. London, J.W. Dent & Sons, 1897; also as above. A romance of an angelic hermaphrodite. All of these are classics of world literature, as well as the literature of variance, and are apt to be available even in small libraries.

+ BANNON, ANN.

Odd Girl Out. pbo, Gold Medal, 1957, 1960.

I am a Woman. pbo, Gold Medal, 1959.

Women in the Shadows. pbo, Gold Medal, 1959.

These three form a single, connected narrative, although any of the three novels can be read as a self-contained story. The first volume introduces the heroine of the series, Laura Landon, at college; where, in undergoing an affair with her room-mate, lovely but frigid Beth, she discovers her homosexuality. Softened by the affair, Beth marries, and Laura runs away. In the second book, Laura, in Greenwich Village, is sharing an apartment, with Marcie, a divorcee, entirely “straight” who plays Laura along strictly for kicks; Laura suffers under this treatment for a long time, then runs away again to shack up with a butch-type Village character, Beebo. In the third book, Laura and Beebo have been living together for two years; Laura is tiring of this lengthy affair and cheats on Beebo with a colored dancer named Tris, while Beebo, to win Laura back, resorts to such trickery as staging a phony “rape” ... inflicting wounds on herself in search of sympathy. Tiring of this life, Laura runs away again, this, time to marry a male homosexual friend, Jack, in a search for stability and permanence. The whole story invites comparison with Weiraugh’s THE SCORPION: homosexuality per se is not attacked, but the drawbacks of the life, and the dangers and difficulties to anyone trying to adjust him-or-herself to that life, are frankly and brutally delineated; there is a pervasive air of dissatisfaction, or resignation, and gradual withdrawal; and the ending of the third book is unsatisfactory and hardly complete. Nevertheless, the impact of these books, particularly when read all together, is considerable; Miss Bannon’s grasp of character, technique and construction improve with each novel. Despite wild improbabilities and gimmicky, contrived situations, these are perhaps the major contribution to lesbian literature in the paperback field anywhere.

+ BARNES, DJUNA. “Dusie”, ss in American Esoterica, NY, Macy-Masius, 1927. This collection also contains short stories of (m) interest.

Nightwood. N. Y., Harcourt 1937, her New Directions n. d. A well-known and excellent lesbian novel laid in Paris.

+ BARR, JAMES. Derricks. NY, Greenberg 1951, (m) hcr Pan, 1957. Although those short stories all deal with male homosexuality, their coherent, fresh and constructive philosophy make this a book of primary importance for every reader.

Quatrefoil. N. Y., Greenberg, 1950, (m).

Game of Fools. ONE, 1954, 1955.

BARRY, JEROME. Malignant Stars. N. Y., Doubleday, 1960. Signe, a handsome Valkyrie-type girl, is found dead, and the note beside her body is apparently a love letter from her roommate Lyn; the suspicion that Lyn is her lover and murderer forms the main theme of the plot. Well done.

BAUM, VICKI. Theme for Ballet. N. Y., Doubleday 1958, pbr Dell 1959, (m). Minor but excellent.

The Mustard Seed. Dial 1953, pbr Pyramid 1956 (m minor).

BEER, THOMAS. Mrs Egg and Other Barbarians. Knopf, 1933. Rarer than hen’s teeth—lesbian humor.

BELLAMANN, HENRY. King’s Row. N. Y., Simon & Schuster, 1940, (m).

BELOT, ADOLPHE. Mademoiselle Giraud, My Wife. Paris, Dentu 1870, Chicago, Laird & Lee 1891. The wife remains a “miss”, refusing her husband’s approaches because of her attachment to another woman. Typically the husband drowns this monstrous creature (other woman) during an ostensible seaside rescue.

BENNETT, ARNOLD. Elsie and the Child. N. Y., Doran, 1924. “Common sense” treatment of an attachment between Elsie the housemaid, and a girl of twelve, which subsides when the little girl is sent to school.

The Pretty Lady. N. Y., Doran 1918. A subtle picture of indirect variance between two women in wartorn Paris.

BERKMAN, SYLVIA. Blackberry Wilderness. N. Y., Doubleday, 1959. Esoteric, melancholy, beautifully written short stories, of which two are overtly lesbian in content.

BERTIN, SYLVIA. The Last Innocence. (Trans. by Marjorie Dean). N. Y. McGraw Hill, 1955. Story of Paula, a member of a French provincial family. “The refreshing thing is that Paula is treated as a matter of course ... that she wears trousers, hates men, etc. is presented with no more excuse or explanation than the individual foibles of the rest of the family.”

BESTER, ALFRED. Who He? N. Y., Doubleday 1955, pbr Berkley 1956, (m) tct. The Rat Race. Tense, tightly plotted novel of split personality. The hero’s housemate is a deeply sublimated homosexual who cracks up when Jake gets a girl; this episode snaps the high pitch of tightrope tension and precipitates the denouement of the novel. Excellent.

BISHOP, LEONARD. Creep Into thy Narrow Bed. Dial 1954, pbr Pyramid 1956. Story of a vicious abortion