{{Short description|Subgenre of literature with lesbian themes}} [[File:Amanda Brewster Sewell, Sappho, 1891.jpg|thumb|300x300px|''Sappho'' by Amanda Brewster Sewell, 1891. Sappho of Lesbos gave the term ''lesbian'' the connotation of erotic desire between women.<ref name=Oxford-Lesbian>{{Cite web |title=Lesbian |url=http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100100998 |website=Oxford Reference: A Dictionary of Psychology |publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=25 January 2024 |archive-date=10 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210410214103/https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100100998 |url-status=live }}</ref>]] {{Lesbian feminism sidebar}} <!--Editors: cite sources with Wikipedia templates. WP:CITET > cite web | cite news | cite book | cite journal. You can use automatic templates on formatting bar within "Cite".-->
'''Lesbian literature''' is a subgenre of literature addressing lesbian themes. It includes poetry, plays, and '''fiction''' addressing lesbian characters; '''non-fiction''' about lesbian-interest topics; and works by lesbian writers. A similar term is '''sapphic literature''', encompassing works that feature love between women that are not necessarily lesbian.<ref>{{Cite thesis |title=Sapphic Representations in Contemporary Young Adult Literature |publisher=Western Norway University of Applied Sciences |year=2021 |degree=master's |first=Ida Sofie Sverkeli |last=Nygård |hdl=11250/2992128 |hdl-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Peyre |first=Henri |author-link=Henri Peyre |date=1979 |title=On the Sapphic Motif in Modern French Literature |journal=Dalhousie French Studies |volume=1 |pages=3–33 |issn=0711-8813 |jstor=40836208}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Hackett |first=Robin |url= |title=Sapphic Primitivism: Productions of Race, Class, and Sexuality in Key Works of Modern Fiction |date=2004 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-3347-6 |language=en}}</ref> Lesbian and sapphic literature are types of LGBTQ literature.
Fiction that falls into this category may be of any genre, such as historical fiction, science fiction, fantasy, horror, and romance.
==Overview== Lesbian literature includes works by lesbian authors, as well as lesbian-themed works by heterosexual authors. Even works by lesbian writers that do not deal with lesbian themes are still often considered lesbian literature. Works by heterosexual writers which treat lesbian themes only in passing, on the other hand, are not often regarded as lesbian literature. {{Citation needed|date=January 2017}}
The fundamental work of lesbian literature is the poetry of Sappho of Lesbos. From various ancient writings, historians have gathered that a group of young women were left in Sappho's charge for their instruction or cultural edification.<ref>Foster, Jeannette H. (1985). ''Sex Variant Women in Literature'', Naiad Press. {{ISBN|0-930044-65-7}}, p. 18.</ref> Not much of Sappho's poetry remains, but that which does demonstrates the topics she wrote about: women's daily lives, their relationships, and rituals. She focused on the beauty of women and proclaimed her love for girls.<ref>Aldrich, Robert, ed. (2006). ''Gay Life and Culture: A World History'', Thames & Hudson, Ltd. {{ISBN|0-7893-1511-4}}, p. 47–49.</ref>
Certain works have established historical or artistic importance, and the world of lesbian fiction continues to grow and change as time goes on. Until recently, contemporary lesbian literature has been centered around several small, exclusively lesbian presses, as well as online fandoms.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Seajay|first1=Carol|author-link=Carol Seajay|date=December 1994|title=The Backlash and the Backlist|url=|journal=The Women's Review of Books|volume=12|issue=3|pages=18–19|doi=10.2307/4022017|jstor=4022017}}</ref> However, since the new millennium began, many lesbian presses have branched out to include the works of trans men and women, gay and bisexual voices, and other queer works not represented by the mainstream press. Additionally, novels with lesbian themes and characters have become more accepted in mainstream publishing.{{Citation needed|date=January 2017}}
==Early literature== ===Medieval Christian mysticism=== The European Middle Ages lacked a specific term for lesbians, but medieval French texts, under the influence of the Arabic literature of the period, featured literary depictions of love and sexual desire between women. Such expressions are found in devotional texts to the Virgin Mary or the hagiography of Ida Louvain, by Beguines, or the writings of female Christian mystics, including Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch, Margery Kempe, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Amer|first1=Sahar|title=Crossing Borders: Love Between Women in Medieval French and Arabic Literatures|date=2008|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|pages=9–11|edition=1st|chapter=1. Crossing Disciplinary Boundaries: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Same-Sex Love Between Women|isbn=978-0812240870|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uO_SBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1}}</ref>
===13th century Japan=== One of the oldest Japanese stories involving a romance and implied sexual relations between women appears to be the 6th volume of ''Waga mi ni tadoru himegimi|'' ({{Langx|ja|わが身にたどる姫君}}) (''The Princess in Search of Herself'') which was created between 1259 and 1278 (author unknown).<ref>{{cite book|author1=Daniele Durante |editor1-last=Casalin |editor1-first=Federica |editor2-last=Miranda |editor2-first=Marina |title=Percorsi in Civiltà dell'Asia e dell'Africa I: Quaderni di studi dottorali alla Sapienza |date=2021 |chapter=Cross-Gender Female Same-Sex Love as Women's Solidarity in ''Torikaebaya monogatari'' and ''Ariake no wakare'' |pages=37–55 |publisher=Sapienza Università Editrice |location=Rome, Italy |doi=10.13133/9788893771993 |isbn=978-8893771993 |url=https://iris.uniroma1.it/retrieve/e383532e-c5c2-15e8-e053-a505fe0a3de9/Durante_Cross-gender_2021.pdf}}</ref>
=== 16th-18th century Europe === Renaissance-era translations of Greek and Roman texts uncovered their references to desire and sexual practices between women. Terry Castle credits these translations as the trigger for increased lesbian themes in European literature. Influences included fragments of poetry by Sappho, Ovid's ''Metamorphoses'' and ''Heroides'', Martial's ''Epigrams'', and Juvenal's ''Satires''. In particular, Sappho's legend and poetry sparked numerous adaptations over the next centuries in Italy, France, England, and Germany. However, many commenters denied the homoerotic content of the original works.<ref name=":02">{{Cite book |title=The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall |date= |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2003 |isbn=0-231-12510-0 |editor-last=Castle |editor-first=Terry |location=New York}}</ref><sup>:12-15</sup>
During the 17th and 18th centuries, many British women published works with queer or homoerotic themes and varying degrees of explicitness. One school of British women wrote poetry for other women inspired by earlier themes of "romantic" friendship. These writers included Katherine Philips, Anne Killigrew, Anne Finch, and Anna Seward.<ref name=":02" /><sup>:2,48</sup>
===19th century: forerunners=== [[File:Anne Lister.jpg|right|150px|thumb|Diarist Anne Lister]]
In the early 19th century, Chinese poet Wu Tsao gained popularity for her lesbian love poems.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Miller |first1=Meredith |title=Historical Dictionary of Lesbian Literature |date=2006 |pages=151, 218 |edition=1st |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=0-8108-4941-0}}</ref> Her songs, according to poet Kenneth Rexroth, were "sung all over China".<ref>Kenneth Rexroth, Women Poets of China, New Directions Publishing, 1972, p. 135</ref> In 1849, Leona Florentino was born in the Philippines during the brutal patriarchal Spanish colonial regime. Known as the mother of Philippine women's literature and a pioneer in Philippine lesbian literature, her poems, both written and oral, during her 35-year life brought about feminism in the archipelago which influenced many of the revolutionaries before the Philippine revolution.<ref>Blanton, S. (2016). A Threshold of Flowers: Public and Private Eroticism in the Poems of Leona Florentino. University of North Carolina.</ref><ref>Mabanglo, R. E. (2020). Leona Florentino: Mother of Filipina poetry. Philippine Graphic.</ref><ref>[https://www.bulatlat.com/2005/12/08/writing-lesbian-lesbian-writing/ Writing Lesbian, Lesbian writing] (Cruz, Jhoanna Lynn, Bulatlat News), 2005.</ref>
Though lesbian literature had not yet evolved as a distinct genre in English in the 19th century, lesbian writers like the essayist and supernatural fiction writer Vernon Lee sometimes hinted at lesbian subtexts in their work<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/tag/violet-paget/|title=Violet Paget Archives – The Paris Review|work=The Paris Review|access-date=2017-01-13|archive-date=2017-01-16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170116151032/https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/tag/violet-paget/|url-status=live}}</ref> or, like Lee's lover Amy Levy, wrote love poems to women using the voice of a heterosexual man.<ref>Naomi Hetherington, Nadia Valman, Amy Levy: Critical Essays Ohio University Press, Apr 6, 2010</ref> Others wrote, but kept their writing secret. Beginning in 1806, English landowner and mountaineer Anne Lister kept extensive diaries for 34 years, which included details of her lesbian relationships and seductions, with the lesbian sections written in secret code. The diaries were not published until the 1980s.<ref name=BBCBradford>{{Citation | title = The life and loves of Shibden Hall's Anne Lister | work = BBC News | publisher = BBC | date = 25 May 2010 | url = https://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bradford/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8388000/8388858.stm | access-date = 13 January 2017 | archive-date = 7 March 2023 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230307173754/http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/bradford/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8388000/8388858.stm | url-status = live }}</ref> In 2010, they were the basis for a BBC television production, ''The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister''.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/11_november/11/lister.shtml |title=BBC Two announces brand new drama: The Secret Diaries Of Miss Anne Lister |date=11 November 2009 |work=BBC Press Office |publisher=BBC |access-date=1 February 2010 |archive-date=2 February 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210202192302/http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2009/11_november/11/lister.shtml |url-status=live }}</ref>
Twenty-first century writer and editor Susan Koppelman compiled an anthology titled ''Two Friends and Other 19th-century American Lesbian Stories: by American Women Writers'',<ref name=Koppelman>{{cite book|editor1-last=Koppelman|editor1-first=Susan H.|title=Two Friends and Other 19th-century American Lesbian Stories: by American Women Writers|date=1994|edition=1st|publisher=Meridian Books|location=New York|isbn=978-0452011199|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780452011199}}</ref> which includes stories by Constance Fenimore Woolson, Octave Thanet, Mary Eleanor Wilkins Freeman, Kate Chopin and Sarah Orne Jewett that were originally published in periodicals of their time. Of these stories, which range "from the explicit to inferentially lesbian", Koppelman said, "I recognize these stories as stories about women loving women in the variety of romantic ways that we wouldn't even have to struggle to define if we were talking about men and women loving each other."<ref>{{cite web|title=Two Friends and Other 19th-Century American Lesbian Stories: By American Women Writers|url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-452-01119-9|website=Publishers Weekly|date=August 1, 1994|access-date=August 29, 2019|archive-date=July 25, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210725162433/https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-452-01119-9|url-status=live}}</ref>
Since the 1970s, scholars of lesbian literature have analyzed as lesbian relationships that would not have been labeled as such in the 19th century due to different conceptions of intimacy and sexuality. For example, Christina Rossetti's 1862 poem "Goblin Market" has been widely read as a narrative of lesbianism, even though it attempts to paint itself as a narrative of sisterly love.<ref name="Lesbianism 2003">The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Ed. Terry Castle. New York: Columbia University Press 2003.</ref> Additionally, scholars have engaged in queer readings of the novels of Charlotte Brontë, particularly ''Shirley'' and ''Villette'', in which the female main characters engage in close or even obsessive relationships with other women. Some have even speculated that Brontë herself may have been in love with her friend Ellen Nussey; Vita Sackville-West called the letters between the two "love letters pure and simple."<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.out.com/art-books/2015/6/16/was-charlotte-bronte-gay |title=Was Charlotte Brontë Gay? |last=Lutz |first=Deborah |date=16 June 2015 |website=Out |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150617125257/https://www.out.com/art-books/2015/6/16/was-charlotte-bronte-gay |archive-date=June 17, 2015}}</ref>
Scholars have similarly speculated on whether the 19th-century poet Emily Dickinson might have been in love with her sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert, a possibility that encourages queer readings of Dickinson's many love poems.<ref>Mason, Janet. "The American Sappho: In Pursuit of a Lesbian Emily Dickinson". ''Harrington Lesbian Fiction Quarterly'', 3(3), Sept. 2002, p. 91.</ref>
Michael Field was the pseudonym used by two British women, Katherine Bradley and Edith Cooper, who wrote poetry and verse-dramas together. Bradley was Cooper's aunt, and the two lived together as lovers from the 1870s to their deaths in 1913 and 1914. Their poetry often took their love as its subject, and they also wrote a book of poems for their dog, Whym Chow.<ref>Donoghue, Emma. We Are Michael Field. Bello 2014</ref>
==Modern history== {{see also|History of lesbianism in the United States#Lesbians in literature|l1=American lesbian literature in the early 20th century}} ===1900–1950: Beginnings=== [[File:Natalie Barney in Fur Cape.jpg|160px|thumb|Natalie Barney hosted an early 20th century Parisian salon frequented by lesbian writers.]] [[File:The Well Of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall - Permabooks P112 1951.jpg|thumb|160px| Radclyffe Hall's 1928 novel ''The Well of Loneliness'' faced censorship in the U.S. and Britain.]]
The first novel in the English language recognised as having a lesbian theme is ''The Well of Loneliness'' (1928) by Radclyffe Hall, which a British court found obscene because it defended "unnatural practices between women". The book was banned in Britain for decades; this is in the context of the similar censorship of ''Lady Chatterley's Lover'', which also had a theme of transgressive female sexuality, albeit heterosexual. In the United States, ''The Well of Loneliness'' survived legal challenges in New York and the U.S. Customs Court.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Smith|first1=David|title=Lesbian novel was 'danger to nation'|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/jan/02/books.gayrights|website=The Guardian|date=January 1, 2005|access-date=March 16, 2017|archive-date=July 24, 2008|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080724043829/http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1382051,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last1=Machlin|first1=Sherri|title=Banned Books Week: The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall|url=https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/09/26/banned-books-week-well-loneliness|website=New York Public Library|date=September 26, 2013|access-date=March 16, 2017|archive-date=April 17, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200417015333/https://www.nypl.org/blog/2013/09/26/banned-books-week-well-loneliness|url-status=live}}</ref>
Elsa Gidlow, who was born in England and grew up in Quebec, Canada, co-edited, published, and contributed literary work to the first known North American lesbian/gay-themed periodical, ''Les Mouches fantastiques'', published in Montreal from 1918 to 1920. She later moved to the United States, where she continued her literary output by publishing, in 1923, the first volume of openly lesbian love poetry to be produced in that country, titled ''On a Grey Thread''.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Rumble|first1=Walker|title=Publishing Elsa: Will Ransom's Grey Thread|url=https://printinghistory.org/gidlow-ransom/|work=Printing History|publisher=American Printing History Association|date=March 21, 2016|access-date=3 June 2018|archive-date=21 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921161952/https://printinghistory.org/gidlow-ransom/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|last1=Troy|first1=Gil|title=How the American Sappho Published the First Book of Lesbian Love Poetry|url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-american-sappho-published-the-first-book-of-lesbian-love-poetry|website=The Daily Beast|date=December 9, 2017|access-date=3 June 2018|archive-date=6 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200806155136/https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-american-sappho-published-the-first-book-of-lesbian-love-poetry|url-status=live}}</ref>
In the early 20th century, an increasingly visible lesbian community in Paris centered on literary salons hosted by French lesbians as well as expatriates like Nathalie Barney and Gertrude Stein, who produced lesbian-themed works in French and English, including ''Nightwood'' by Djuna Barnes, ''Idyll Saphique'' by Liane de Pougy, poetry by Renee Vivien, Barney's own epigrams, poetry, and several works by Stein. Radclyffe Hall also spent time in Paris at Barney's salon and modeled one of her characters in ''The Well of Loneliness'' after her.<ref>Nicole G Albert, "De la topographie invisible à l'espace public et littéraire :les lieux de plaisir lesbien dans le Paris de la Belle Époque".</ref>
In Spain, there was also a timid awakening of lesbian literature in the early 20th century. The first work to deal with the subject was ''Zezé'' (1909)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://amsacta.unibo.it/id/eprint/8283/1/Zeze.pdf |title=Zeze: Introduzione e traduzione di Vincenzo Quaranta |language=Italian |publisher=Universita di Bologna |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250401202156/https://amsacta.unibo.it/id/eprint/8283/1/Zeze.pdf |archive-date=April 1, 2025}}</ref> by Ángeles Vicente.<ref>{{cite web|last=Cabré |first=María Ángeles |date=26 May 2010| url=http://www.lavanguardia.es/cultura/noticias/20100526/53933371893/biblioteca-lesbica.html|title=Biblioteca lésbica|website=La Vanguardia|access-date=23 September 2024|archive-date=29 May 2010| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100529155322/http://www.lavanguardia.es/cultura/noticias/20100526/53933371893/biblioteca-lesbica.html|url-status=dead|language=es|trans-title=Lesbian Library}}</ref> The only one who dared to publish homoerotic verses was Lucía Sánchez Saornil, although under the male pen name Luciano de San Saor.<ref>{{cite book|last=Kowal|first=Donna M.|chapter=Anarcha-Feminism|editor-last1=Adams|editor-first1=Matthew S.|editor-last2=Levy|editor-first2=Carl|year=2019|title=The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism|location=London|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|isbn=978-3319756196|page=271|doi=10.1007/978-3-319-75620-2_15|s2cid=242073896 }}</ref> Other authors, such as Carmen de Burgos, made references to lesbianism in a more veiled manner.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Fernández |first1=June |author1-link=June Fernández |title="Tener referentes serios de lesbianas elimina estereotipos" |url=https://elpais.com/diario/2007/12/06/paisvasco/1196973608_850215.html |website=El País |access-date=23 September 2024 |language=Spanish |date=6 December 2007 |trans-title=Having serious lesbian references eliminates stereotypes |archive-date=12 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200512055410/https://elpais.com/diario/2007/12/06/paisvasco/1196973608_850215.html |url-status=live }}</ref>
In Japan, there were several love suicides involving school girls in 1911 and it was in this context of greater awareness of female-female love that one of the most commercially successful female writers of the period Nobuko Yoshiya published '' Flower Tales '' (1916–1924) ({{Langx|ja|花物語}}) which were fifty-two stories of romantic friendship between young women within the Class S genre.<ref name=Anan2016>{{cite book|last1=Anan |first1=Nobuko |title=Contemporary Japanese Women's Theatre and Visual Arts: Performing Girls' Aesthetics (Contemporary Performance InterActions) |date=2016 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |location=London, England, UK |isbn=978-1137372970 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RgfeCgAAQBAJ}}</ref> In her later work “Two Virgins in the Attic” (1919) ({{Langx|ja|屋根裏の二處女}}), she describes a female-female love experience, which ended with their decision to live together as a couple.<ref name=Suzuki>{{cite journal|last1=Suzuki |first1=Michiko |title=Writing Same-Sex Love: Sexology and Literary Representation in Yoshiya Nobuko's Early Fiction |journal=The Journal of Asian Studies |date=2006 |volume=65 |issue=3 |pages=575–599 |doi=10.1017/S0021911806001148 |s2cid=162524708 |issn=0021-9118}}</ref> Tamura Toshiko published works with same-sex love between women: ''Resignation'' (1911) ({{Langx|ja|あきらめ}}) and ''The Fresh Heart'' (1916) ({{Langx|ja|若い心}}).<ref name=Wu>{{cite journal|last1=Wu |first1=Peichen |title=Performing Gender along the Lesbian Continuum: The Politics of Sexual Identity in the Seit∂ Society |journal=U.S.-Japan Women's Journal. English Supplement |date=2002 |issue=22 |pages=64–86 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/42772182 |publisher=University of Hawaiʻi Press |jstor=42772182 |oclc=884781202 |issn=1059-9770}}</ref>
Virginia Woolf's 1928 novel of a high-spirited gender-bending poet who lives for centuries, ''Orlando'', which was said to be based on her lover, Vita Sackville-West, was re-examined in the 1970s as a 'subversive' lesbian text.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/10/11/virginia-woolf-orlando-lesbian-readings/|title=How Virginia Woolf's Orlando Subverted Censorship and Revolutionized the Politics of LGBT Love in 1928|first=Maria|last=Popova|date=11 October 2013|access-date=13 January 2017|archive-date=3 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200803155108/https://www.brainpickings.org/2013/10/11/virginia-woolf-orlando-lesbian-readings/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Eileen Barrett, ''Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings'', NYU Press, Jul 1, 1997</ref>
A key piece of modern Greek lesbian literature was ''Her Lover'', published in 1929 in Alexandria, Egypt. It was written by the Alexandrian Greek author Dora Rosetti and published without her permission by two male friends of hers when she was eighteen. The book elicited a large scandal in Greece, resulting in the destruction of almost all of its copies. The publication contained photos and details about Rosetti and her partner, outing them publicly. This caused Rosetti to not release any more of her writing until one of her readers, Eleni Bakopoulou, sought her out in 1984. Rosetti agreed to let Bakopoulou study her writing for posthumous publication.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bakopoulos |first=Natalie |date=August 21, 2025 |title=On Discovering My Aunt Eleni’s Place in Queer Greek Literature |url=https://lithub.com/on-discovering-my-aunt-elenis-place-in-queer-greek-literature/ |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=Literary Hub |language=en}}</ref>
During the Weimar Republic, not only did lesbian social life flourish in Germany, especially in Berlin, but lesbian literature also emerged. Pioneering magazines such as ''Die Freundin'', ''Die BIF'', and ''Frauenliebe'', which were founded specifically for a lesbian audience, supported lesbian literature focused on middle-class experiences. Some, like ''Die Freundin'', regularly published trans authors, although other magazines specifically focused on trans literature. During this era there were over 25 queer publications produced in Berlin, with over six targeting lesbian readers.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Steinkopf-Frank |first=Hannah |date=June 7, 2023 |title=Publishing Queer Berlin |url=https://daily.jstor.org/publishing-queer-berlin/ |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=JSTOR Daily |language=en-US}}</ref> Although the literary level was rarely high, the authors succeeded in presenting lesbian lifestyles as utopias, thus offering opportunities for identification and affirmation of one's own identity. Especially Selli Engler stands out among the dozens of authors who wrote for magazines.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}
Separately, writers as Maximiliane Ackers, Ruth Margarete Roellig and Anna Elisabet Weirauch, whose lesbian trilogy ''Der Skorpion'' (The Scorpion) was even translated into English, achieved some fame as lesbian voices.{{citation needed|date=July 2023}}
Other examples of 1920s lesbian literature include poems by Amy Lowell about her partner of over a decade Ada Dwyer Russell.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Castle|first1=Terry|title=The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall|date=13 December 2005|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=0231125119|page=649|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8dBWMz-FpZcC&pg=PA649}}</ref> Lowell wanted to dedicate her books to Dwyer who refused as they had to hide the nature of their relationship<ref name="Moon" /> except for one time in a non-poetry book in which Lowell wrote, "To A.D.R., This, and all my books. A.L."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Bradshaw|first1=Melissa|last2=Munich|first2=Adrienne|title=Amy Lowell, American Modern|date=9 February 2004|publisher=Rutgers University Press|location=New Brunswick, NJ|isbn=0813533562|page=62|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u5AXdTOuGy4C&pg=PA59}}</ref> Examples of these love poems to Dwyer include ''the Taxi'', ''Absence'',<ref name="Anew" >{{cite book|last1=Rollyson|first1=Carl|title=Amy Lowell Anew: A Biography|date=8 August 2013|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1442223929|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=w2JpJMwo0okC&pg=PP1}} Preface reprinted at the [http://www.carlrollyson.com/_i_amy_lowell_anew__a_biography__i__118603.htm author's website] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726003411/http://www.carlrollyson.com/_i_amy_lowell_anew__a_biography__i__118603.htm |date=2020-07-26 }}.</ref>{{rp|xxi}} ''In a Garden'', ''Madonna of the Evening Flowers'',<ref name="Songs">{{cite journal|last1=Hamer|first1=Diane|title=The Love Songs of Amy Lowell|journal=The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide|page=48|date=30 December 2013|volume=21|issue=1|url=http://www.glreview.org/article/the-love-songs-of-amy-lowell/|archive-date=19 March 2021|access-date=15 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210319003751/https://glreview.org/article/the-love-songs-of-amy-lowell/|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Opal'',<ref>{{cite web|last1=Faderman|first1=Lillian|title=About Amy Lowell's Poetry|url=http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/amylowell/about.htm|website=english.illinois.edu|publisher=University of Illinois|access-date=2018-11-15|archive-date=2019-03-25|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190325152602/http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/g_l/amylowell/about.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> and ''Aubade''.<ref name="Moon">{{cite journal|last1=Karami|first1=Siham|title=In the Manner of Amy Lowell|journal=The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide|date=July–August 2016|volume=23|issue=4|page=39|url=http://www.glreview.org/wp-content/uploads/DigitalEditions/July-Aug%202016/files/assets/common/downloads/page0039.pdf|archive-date=2021-04-12|access-date=2018-11-15|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210412104309/http://glreview.org/wp-content/uploads/DigitalEditions/July-Aug%202016/files/assets/common/downloads/page0039.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> Lowell admitted to John Livingston Lowes that Dwyer was the subject of her series of romantic poems titled "Two Speak Together".<ref>{{cite web|last1=Faderman|first1=Lillian|title=Amy Lowell (1874-1925)|url=http://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/lowella.html|website=faculty.georgetown.edu|publisher=Georgetown University|access-date=2018-11-15|archive-date=2020-01-28|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200128175935/http://faculty.georgetown.edu/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/lowella.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hamer|first1=Diane Ellen|title=Amy Lowell wasn't writing about flowers|journal=The Gay & Lesbian Review Worldwide|date=1 July 2004|volume=11|issue=4|url=http://www.glreview.org/article/article-1347/|archive-date=18 March 2021|access-date=15 November 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210318194007/https://glreview.org/article/article-1347/|url-status=live}} Reprinted at [https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Amy+Lowell+wasn%27t+writing+about+flowers.-a0119024529 thefreelibrary.com] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200726003302/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Amy+Lowell+wasn%27t+writing+about+flowers.-a0119024529 |date=2020-07-26 }}.</ref> Lowell's poems about Dwyer have been called the most explicit and elegant lesbian love poetry during the time between the ancient Sappho and poets of the 1970s.<ref name="Moon" /> Unfortunately, most of the primary document romantic letters of communication between the two were destroyed by Dwyer at Lowell's request, leaving much unknown about the details of their life together.<ref name="Anew" />{{rp|47}}
Most American literature of the 1930s, 40s, and early 50s presented lesbian life as tragedy, ending with either the suicide of the lesbian character or her conversion to heterosexuality.<ref name="outhistory.org">[http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Diana_Frederics:_Diana,_A_Strange_Autobiography,_1939 Diana Frederics: Diana, A Strange Autobiography, 1939] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110727161617/http://www.outhistory.org/wiki/Diana_Frederics%3A_Diana%2C_A_Strange_Autobiography%2C_1939 |date=July 27, 2011 }}. OutHistory (September 26, 2010). Retrieved on November 30, 2010.</ref> This was required so that the authorities did not declare the literature obscene.<ref name="ReferenceA">Gallo, p. 67</ref> This would generally be achieved by placing the death or conversion in the last chapter or even paragraph.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Fonseca |first1=Sarah |title=Reality Is a Drag: I'd Rather Live In Lesbian Pulp Fiction |url=https://www.them.us/story/lesbian-pulp-fiction |website=Them |date=March 1, 2019 |access-date=22 December 2021 |archive-date=22 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211222131301/https://www.them.us/story/lesbian-pulp-fiction |url-status=live }}</ref> For example, ''The Stone Wall'', a lesbian autobiography with an unhappy ending, was published in 1930 under the pseudonym Mary Casal.<ref name="outhistory.org"/> It was one of the first lesbian autobiographies. Yet as early as 1939, Frances V. Rummell, an educator and a teacher of French at Stephens College, published the first explicitly lesbian autobiography in which two women end up happily together, titled ''Diana: A Strange Autobiography''.<ref name="pbs.org">[https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/diana/ History Detectives . Investigations – Diana] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250609202218/https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigation/diana/ |date=2025-06-09 }}. PBS. Retrieved on 2010-11-30.</ref> This autobiography was published with a note saying, "The publishers wish it expressly understood that this is a true story, the first of its kind ever offered to the general reading public".<ref name="pbs.org"/> However, literary critics have since called the autobiography 'fictional'.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Miller |first1=Meredith |title=Historical Dictionary of Lesbian Literature |date=2006 |pages=51, 110 |edition=1st |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=0-8108-4941-0}}</ref>
Jane Bowles' only novel, ''Two Serious Ladies'', published in 1943, told the story of a romance between an upper class woman and a prostitute in a run-down Panamanian port town.<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-madness-of-queen-jane|title=The Madness of Queen Jane|magazine=The New Yorker|date=12 June 2014|access-date=13 January 2017|archive-date=14 August 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814015738/https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-madness-of-queen-jane|url-status=live}}</ref>
===1950 to 1970: Pulp fiction and beyond=== [[File:Cover of Spring Fire - Vin Packer Marijane Meaker 1952.jpg|thumb|150px|Lesbian pulp fiction, like ''Spring Fire'' by Vin Packer (Marijane Meaker 1952), was popular during the 1950s and 60s.]] [[File:The Ladder, October 1957.jpg|thumb|150px|''The Ladder'' magazine (1956–1972), founded by the Daughters of Bilitis, was the first national lesbian periodical published in the United States.]]
Lesbian fiction in English saw a huge explosion in interest with the advent of the dime-store or pulp fiction novel. Lesbian pulp fiction became its own distinct category of fiction in the 1950s and 60s,<ref name=Grier_Barbara>{{cite book |last1=Grier |first1=Barbara |title=The Lesbian in Literature |date=1981 |edition=3rd |publisher=Naiad Press |location=Tallahassee, Florida |isbn=0930044231}}</ref> although a significant number of authors of this genre were men using either a male or female pen name.<ref name=Grier_Barbara /> Many of these men did not intend to write for women, so they did not give their characters happy endings and their writing was often homophobic. Publishing and legal restrictions additionally limited the genre's representation. However, lesbian pulp fiction's popularity enabled many women to read books with some lesbian representation, and lesbian writers could eventually publish in the genre as well.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=da Costa |first=Mariana Dias |date=October 20, 2022 |title=The History of Lesbian Literature: An Exploration on the Evolution of the Genre |url=https://link.springer.com/10.1007/s12109-022-09917-x |journal=Publishing Research Quarterly |language=en |volume=38 |issue=4 |pages=642–652 |doi=10.1007/s12109-022-09917-x |issn=1053-8801 |via=|url-access=subscription }}</ref>
Tereska Torrès is credited with writing the first lesbian pulp novel, ''Women's Barracks'', a fictionalized story about women in the Free French Forces during World War II. The 1950 book sold 2 million copies in its first five years of publication.<ref name="Smallwood">{{Cite news|last=Smallwood|first=Christine|title=Sapphic soldiers|url=https://www.salon.com/2005/08/09/torres_3/|website=Salon|date=August 9, 2005|access-date=1 September 2018|archive-date=5 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201105120158/https://www.salon.com/2005/08/09/torres_3/|url-status=live}}</ref> ''Spring Fire'', published in 1952 by Marijane Meaker under the pseudonym Vin Packer, sold 1.5 million copies. Meaker later stated she was embarrassed by the book's unhappy ending, which her publisher had prompted her to add.<ref name=":4" /> One notable female author of lesbian pulp fiction, who came out later in life as a lesbian, was Ann Bannon, who created the Beebo Brinker series.
''The Price of Salt'' by Patricia Highsmith, considered the first lesbian novel with a happy ending,{{efn|Marijane Meaker stated in her 2003 memoir: "[''The Price of Salt'' ] was for many years the only lesbian novel, in either hard or soft cover, with a happy ending."<ref>{{cite book|last1=Meaker|first1=Marijane|title=Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s|date=2003|publisher=Cleis Press|edition=1st|chapter=One|page=[https://archive.org/details/highsmithromance0000meak/page/1 1]|isbn=1573441716|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/highsmithromance0000meak/page/1}}</ref>}} was groundbreaking for being the first where neither of the two women has a nervous breakdown, dies tragically, faces a lonely and desolate future, commits suicide, or returns to being with a male. The manuscript was rejected by Highsmith's publisher Harper & Brothers and published in hardcover by Coward-McCann in 1952 under the pseudonym "Claire Morgan", followed by the Bantam Books lesbian pulp fiction paperback in 1953. The paperback editions sold almost 1 million copies.<ref name="rich">{{cite web|last=Rich|first=Frank|title=Loving Carol|url=http://www.vulture.com/2015/11/frank-rich-carol-invisibility-of-lesbian-culture.html|work=Vulture|publisher=New York|date=November 18, 2015|access-date=March 16, 2017|archive-date=June 27, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220627233730/https://www.vulture.com/2015/11/frank-rich-carol-invisibility-of-lesbian-culture.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first=Patricia|last=Highsmith|title=Happily ever after, at last: Patricia Highsmith on the inspiration for Carol|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/carol/patricia-highsmith-price-of-salt-novel/|work=The Daily Telegraph|date=November 11, 2015|access-date=March 16, 2017}}</ref> In 1990, it was republished by Bloomsbury under Highmith's own name with the title changed to ''Carol'' <ref>{{cite book|last1=Highsmith|first1=Patricia|title=Carol|date=1990|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing|edition=1st|isbn=0747507198}}</ref><ref name="rich" /> (the novel was adapted as the 2015 film of same name).
In the 1950s, parts of French author Violette leDuc's novel ''Ravages'' were censored because they contained explicit lesbian passages. The deleted passages were published in the 1960s as ''Therese and Isabelle'' and made into the 1968 film of same title.<ref>Stockinger, Jacob (4 February 2006). "Leduc, Violette". ''glbtq: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer Culture''</ref>
Jane Rule's ''Desert of the Heart'' was able to break out of the pulp fiction category when it was published as a hardback by Macmillan Canada in 1964. Several publishers turned it down beforehand however, with one telling Rule, "If this book isn't pornographic, what's the point of printing it?...if you can write in the dirty parts we'll take it but otherwise no".<ref name="hannon">{{cite web |url=http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=1&STORY_ID=3980&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=1 |title=Jane Rule: The woman behind Lesbian Images |last=Hannon |first=Gerald |publisher=Xtra |date=December 30, 1975 |access-date=June 19, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828053014/http://www.xtra.ca/public/viewstory.aspx?AFF_TYPE=1&STORY_ID=3980&PUB_TEMPLATE_ID=1 |archive-date=August 28, 2008}}</ref> The novel was loosely adapted into the 1985 film ''Desert Hearts''.
When publishing her novel ''Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing'' in 1965, the novelist May Sarton feared that writing openly about lesbianism would lead to a diminution of the previously established value of her work. "The fear of homosexuality is so great that it took courage to write ''Mrs. Stevens Hears the Mermaids Singing,''" she said, "to write a novel about a woman homosexual who is not a sex maniac, a drunkard, a drug-taker, or in any way repulsive, to portray a homosexual who is neither pitiable nor disgusting, without sentimentality ..."<ref>''Journal of a Solitude'', 1973, pp. 90-91.</ref>
The first English contemporary novelist to come out as a lesbian was Maureen Duffy, whose 1966 book ''Microcosm'' explored the subcultures of lesbian bars.<ref name="theguardian.com">{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/aug/08/gayrights.gender|title=A literature of our own|first=Julie|last=Bindel|date=7 August 2008|newspaper=The Guardian|archive-date=14 July 2020|access-date=12 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200714171150/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/aug/08/gayrights.gender|url-status=live}}</ref> Also in 1966, June Arnold's first novel ''Applesauce'' was published by McGraw Hill. It received mixed reviews due to its experimental style, and Arnold believed that critics misunderstood the feminist and lesbian themes.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Kester-Shelton |first=Pamela |date=1996 |title= June (Davis) Arnold |encyclopedia=Feminist Writers |location= |publisher=St. James Press|isbn=9781558622173}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Morgan |first1=Ellen |title=The Feminist Novel of Androgynous Fantasy |journal=Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies |date=1977 |volume=2 |issue=3 |pages=40-49 |doi=10.2307/3346348 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/3346348 |access-date=March 20, 2026|url-access=subscription }}</ref> ''Applesauce'' received broader recognition when it was republished in 1977 by Daughters, Inc., an independent press Arnold cofounded to support the development of a uniquely lesbian feminist avant-garde aesthetic.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Harker |first1=Jaime |title=The Lesbian South: Southern Feminists, the Women in Print Movement, and the Queer Literary Canon. |date=2018 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |isbn=9781469643359|page= 18, 33}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last1=Riley |first1=Jocelyn |title=Changing Names Shedding Skins |work=Sojourner |volume=3 |issue=12 |date=1978}}</ref>
===1970 to the present: Second wave feminism, mainstream acceptance, and diversification=== [[File:Audre Lorde.jpg|150px|thumb|Lesbian feminist and womanist Audre Lorde wrote several books from the 1970s to the 1990s.]]
The feminist movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s saw the development of a more politicized voice in lesbian literature and more mainstream acceptance of lesbian-themed literature that moved away from the 'tragic lesbian' theme that had dominated earlier works. A pioneering autobiographical novel of this era was the picaresque 1973 novel ''Rubyfruit Jungle'' by Rita Mae Brown, which became a national best-seller.<ref>Kim Emery, The Lesbian Index: Pragmatism and Lesbian Subjectivity in the Twentieth-Century United States, SUNY Press, 2002</ref><ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ep6pDAAAQBAJ&q=rubyfruit%20jungle&pg=PT18|title=A Study Guide for Rita Mae Brown's "Ruby Fruit Jungle"|date=12 July 2016|publisher=Gale Cengage Learning|isbn=9781410357069}}</ref> It was innovative for accepting and valuing its protagonist's lesbianism, departing from the tropes of prior lesbian literature rooted in ''The Well of Loneliness''.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=MacPike |first=Loralee |date=2022 |title=Brown Publishes Rubyfruit Jungle |url=https://www.ebsco.com/ |access-date=2026-04-08 |website=EBSCO |language=en}}</ref> Jill Johnston argued for lesbian separatism in her 1973 book ''Lesbian Nation''. In the 1970s, the voices of American lesbians of color began to be heard, including works by Audre Lorde, Jewelle Gomez, Paula Gunn Allen, Cherrie Moraga, and Gloria Anzaldua. One of the foundational texts of black lesbian literature is Ann Allen Shockley’s novel, ''Loving Her''. Published in 1974, ''Loving Her'' is widely considered to be one of the first, if not the first, published pieces of black lesbian literature.<ref name="Shockley:0">{{Cite journal|last=Van Ausdall|first=Mimi Iimuro|date=Spring 2010|title=Loving Her Without Class: The Politics of Feminist Love in Ann Allen Shockley's Lesbian Novel|journal=Feminist Formations|volume=22|issue=1|pages=57–75|doi=10.1353/nwsa.0.0116 |jstor=40835344| s2cid=201796772 }}</ref> Joanna Russ's 1975 novel ''The Female Man'' contains an alternative universe inhabited solely by lesbians. The 1970s also saw the advent of feminist and LGBTQ publishing houses, such as Naiad Press, and literary magazines like ''Sinister Wisdom'',<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wmhFCQAAQBAJ|title=Encyclopedia of Contemporary LGBTQ Literature of the United States|last=Nelson|first=Emmanuel S.|date=2009-07-14|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=9780313348600|page=203|language=en}}</ref> and ''Conditions''<ref name="Busia, Abena P. A. 1993">Busia, Abena P. A. ''Theorizing Black Feminisms: The Visionary Pragmatism of Black Women'', Routledge, 1993, {{ISBN|0-415-07336-7}}, p. 225n.</ref> which published lesbian works. Adrienne Rich and Judy Grahn were important poets and essayists of the era. ''Patience and Sarah'' by Alma Routsong, published under the pen name "Isabel Miller" in 1971, examined the historical confines of a romance between two 19th-century women in a Boston Marriage.
There had existed a popularity within the science fiction and fantasy genres the idea of all-women utopias since the 19th century (such as “Herland” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman in 1915, or “Mizora” by Mary Bradley Lane in 1880), though they lacked sexual elements and possibilities of lesbian sexuality until the late 1960s, 70s, and 80s. It was then that more erotic and lesbian instances emerged in science fiction stories, alongside women being outside of, or at war with, the patriarchy and heteronormativity. An example of this growth in the women-utopia subgenre is French feminist writer Monique Wittig’s “Les Guérillères,” published in 1969, which portrayed an experimental and erotic world where “women outside of the matrix of heterosexuality would have the potential to become something entirely different than women defined in relationship to men.”<ref>{{cite book |last=Lothian |first=Alexis |date=February 5, 2015 |chapter=Feminist and Queer Science Fiction in America |url=https://www.queergeektheory.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CC-FQSF-proofs.pdf |title=The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction |pages=70–82 |doi=10.1017/CCO9781107280601.008|isbn=978-1-107-28060-1 }}</ref>
After the birth of an explicitly gay and lesbian literature in the 1970s, the following decades saw a tremendous rise in its production. While gay male novels had more crossover appeal and often became mid-list sellers in mainstream publishing houses; lesbian literature, depending on smaller presses, developed smaller but 'respectable' audiences.<ref>Scott Herring, ''The Cambridge Companion to American Gay and Lesbian Literature'', Cambridge University Press, May 26, 2015</ref> In the 1980s, with the advent of sex-positive feminism, a few lesbian literary magazines began to specialize in more explicitly erotic work, such as ''On Our Backs'', a satirical reference to the feminist 1970s magazine, ''Off Our Backs''.<ref name="sides">Josh Sides, "Erotic City: Sexual Revolutions and the Making of Modern San Francisco", Oxford University Press US, 2009, {{ISBN|0-19-537781-8}}, p.219</ref> The 1988 founding of the Lambda Literary Award, with several lesbian categories, helped increase the visibility of LGBT literature.<ref name="Lambda">{{cite web|last=Dewey|first=Charlsie|title=Lambda Literary Foundation marks 25 years of LGBT writers|url=http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Lambda-Literary-Foundation-marks-25-years-of-LGBT-writers/42961.html|work=Windy City Times|date=May 28, 2013|access-date=February 6, 2015|archive-date=August 14, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200814085820/http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Lambda-Literary-Foundation-marks-25-years-of-LGBT-writers/42961.html|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:Alison Bechdel at Politics and Prose.jpg|150px|left|thumb|Alison Bechdel, who has been praised for her cartoons and graphic memoir, ''Fun Home'', exemplifies the increasing diversification of lesbian literature in the 21st century.]]
In the 1980s and 90s, lesbian literature diversified into genre literature, including fantasy, mystery, science fiction, romance, graphic novels, and young adult.<ref>George Haggerty, Bonnie Zimmerman, ''Encyclopedia of Lesbian and Gay Histories and Cultures'', Taylor & Francis, Sept. 2, 2003</ref> Influential genre-based books of the time included ''Trouble and her Friends'' by Melissa Scott, ''Gossamer Axe'' by Gael Baudino, ''Dancing Jack'' by Laurie Marks, and ''Speaking Dreams'' by Severna Park.<ref name=":4" /> A graphic novel is ''Blue Is the Warmest Color'' by Jul Maroh.<ref name="Maroh">{{cite book|last1=Maroh |first1=Jul |title=Le bleu est une couleur chaude |date=2010 |publisher=Glénat Éditions |location=Grenoble, France |language=fr |isbn=978-2723467834 |oclc=718456763 |trans-title=Blue Is the Warmest Color |url=https://archive.org/details/lebleuestunecoul0000maro}}</ref>
In 1983, Anita Cornwell wrote the first published collection of essays by an African-American lesbian, ''Black Lesbian in White America'', published by Naiad Press.<ref name=Nickels>{{Cite book|last=Nickels |first=Thom |title=Gay and Lesbian Philadelphia |year=2002 |page=74 |publisher=Arcadia Publishing |location=Charleston, South Carolina |isbn=978-1531606336}}</ref>
The influence of late 20th-century feminism and greater acceptance of LGBT work was felt in Mexico, with the emergence of lesbian poets Nancy Cardenas, Magaly Alabau, Mercedes Roffe, and others. In Argentina and Uruguay, Alejandra Pizarnik and Cristina Peri Rossi combined lesbian eroticism with artistic and sociopolitical concerns in their work.<ref>Bonnie Zimmerman, ''Encyclopedia of Lesbian Histories and Cultures'', Routledge, Aug 21, 2013, p. 439</ref>
[[File:Cristina Peri.jpg|150px|thumb|Uruguayan writer Cristina Peri Rossi has written about the eroticism of lesbian relationships.]]
After an almost complete silence in the 1960s, lesbian literature in Germany grew quickly again as a result of the new lesbian movement in the 1970s and 1980s. Important early renowned voices were Johanna Moosdorf, Marlene Stenten, and Christa Reinig, while the most influential works were ''Häutungen'' (1975) by Verena Stefan and ''Sonja'' (1980) by Luise F. Pusch.
In Asia, Singaporean playwright Eleanor Wong and Taiwanese writer Qiu Miaojin have written about lesbian relationships, as have Chinese writers Lin Bai and Chen Ran.<ref>{{cite web |author=Leng Lin Leung Ping-kwan |url=http://contemporary_chinese_culture.academic.ru/425/lesbianism_in_literature |title=lesbianism in literature |publisher=Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture |access-date=2017-06-27 |archive-date=2018-08-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829142445/https://contemporary_chinese_culture.academic.ru/425/lesbianism_in_literature |url-status=live }}</ref> ''Spinning Tropics'' by Aska Mochizuki. ''Real World'' by Natsuo Kirino explores lesbian love in Japan.<ref name="fuckyeahlesbian">{{cite web |author1=Lesbrary |title=(Japanese) Lesbian Literature Recommendations |url=http://fuckyeahlesbianliterature.tumblr.com/post/102813834509/japanese-lesbian-literature-recommendations |website=fuck yeah Lesbian & Bi Literature |publisher=Tumblr |date=2015 |access-date=January 16, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170621081413/http://fuckyeahlesbianliterature.tumblr.com/post/102813834509/japanese-lesbian-literature-recommendations |archive-date=June 21, 2017 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Indian novelist Abha Dawesar's 2006 ''Babyji'' won a Stonewall Award and the Lambda Award.
In the 21st century, lesbian literature has emerged as a genre in Arabic speaking countries, with some novels, like ''Ana Hiya Anti'' (I Am You) by Elham Mansour, achieving best-seller status.<ref>{{cite web |author=Samir Habib |url=https://www.brunel.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/185872/ET53HabibEd.pdf |title=The Historical Context and Reception of the First Arabic-Lesbian Novel, I Am You, by Elham Mansour |publisher=Brunel University London |access-date=2017-06-27 |archive-date=2018-08-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180829072419/https://www.brunel.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0004/185872/ET53HabibEd.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |last1=Al-Ghafari |first1=Iman |title=The Lesbian Subjectivity in Contemporary Arabic Literature: 'An Absent Presence' Disciplined by the Gaze |journal=Al-Raida Journal |date=1 January 1970 |pages=6–18 |doi=10.32380/alrj.v0i0.89 |doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first1=Jolanda |last1=Guardi |title=Female Homosexuality in Contemporary Arabic Literature |journal=DEP |year=2014 |volume=25 |pages=17–30 |s2cid=198903176 }}</ref> This century has also brought more attention to African literary works and authors, such as Cameroonian novelist Frieda Ekotto and Ghanaian writer Ama Ata Aido.<ref name=Diabate>{{cite journal |last1=Diabate |first1=Naminata |last2=Ekotto |first2=Frieda |s2cid=163660662 |title=From Women Loving Women in Africa to Jean Genet and Race: A Conversation with Frieda Ekotto |journal=Journal of the African Literature Association |date=January 2009 |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=181–203 |doi=10.1080/21674736.2009.11690138 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2012/04/06/a-look-at-lgbt-literature-in-sub-saharan-africa/|title=A Look at LGBT Literature in sub-Saharan Africa|date=6 April 2012|access-date=16 January 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180312055047/http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2012/04/06/a-look-at-lgbt-literature-in-sub-saharan-africa|archive-date=12 March 2018|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Miller |first1=Meredith |title=Historical Dictionary of Lesbian Literature |date=2006 |page=3 |edition=1st |publisher=Scarecrow Press |isbn=0-8108-4941-0}}</ref>
Meanwhile, English-language novels which have continued to garner national awards and mainstream critical acclaim, like ''The Color Purple'' (1982) by Alice Walker, ''Bastard out of Carolina'' (1992) by Dorothy Allison, ''Fingersmith'' (2002) by Sarah Waters and ''Lost and Found'' (2006) by Carolyn Parkhurst.<ref>{{cite book|last=Parkhurst|first=Carolyn|title=Lost and Found|url=https://archive.org/details/lostfound00park|url-access=registration|publisher=Back Bay Books|year= 2007|isbn= 978-0-316-06639-6}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|last=Savage|first=Guy|title=Carolyn Parkhurst: ''Lost and Found''|url=http://mostlyfiction.com/humor/parkhurst.htm|website=MostlyFiction Book Reviews|date=September 30, 2006|access-date=May 20, 2014|archive-date=September 5, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150905085340/http://www.mostlyfiction.com/humor/parkhurst.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref>
As literature including lesbian characters and relationships has become more accepted in mainstream Western society, some writers and literary critics have questioned why there needs to be a separate category for lesbian literature at all. "I've never understood why straight fiction is supposed to be for everyone, but anything with a gay character or that includes gay experience is only for queers," said Jeanette Winterson, author of the best-selling 1985 novel ''Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit.''<ref name="theguardian.com"/><ref name=interview>{{cite web|last=Winterson|first=Jeanette|title=Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit|url=http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=50|website=jeanettewinterson.com|date=March 21, 1985|access-date=August 20, 2010|archive-date=August 31, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130831051353/http://www.jeanettewinterson.com/pages/content/index.asp?PageID=50|url-status=dead}}</ref> Others have stressed the continuing need for LGBT-themed literature, especially for younger LGBT readers.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol16/SLR_LGBTQThemedLiteratureforTeens_V16.pdf |issn=2165-1019 |title=(Volume 16, 2013) Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ)-Themed Literature for Teens: Are School Libraries Providing Adequate Collections? |journal=School Library Research SLR; Research Journal of the American Association of School Librarians |publisher=American Library Association |date=August 24, 2012 |access-date=2017-06-27 |archive-date=2021-06-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210624230822/https://www.ala.org/aasl/sites/ala.org.aasl/files/content/aaslpubsandjournals/slr/vol16/SLR_LGBTQThemedLiteratureforTeens_V16.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
==Young adult fiction== <!-- Deleted image removed: thumb|250px| --> ===1970s=== In ''Ruby'' (1976) by Rosa Guy, the main character is a girl from the West Indies. The novel tells the story of her relationship with another girl. Other young adult novels with lesbian characters and themes that were published during this time include ''Happy Endings Are All Alike'' (1978) by Sandra Scoppettone. According to the author, it "barely got reviewed and when it did it wasn't good", unlike Scoppettone's novel about gay boys, which was better received.<ref name="EH">{{cite web|last=Hart|first=Ellen|title=ELLEN INTERVIEWS SANDRA SCOPPETTONE|url=http://www.ellenhart.com/int_scop.html|website=EllenHart.com|access-date=June 24, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070610091409/http://www.ellenhart.com/int_scop.html|archive-date=2007-06-10|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1979, Lollipop Power published ''When Megan Went Away'', a small-run stapled book that may have been the first U.S. children's book to feature a character with lesbian parents.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Winter |first=Jessica |date=July 11, 2022 |title=What Should a Queer Children’s Book Do? |url=https://www.newyorker.com/news/annals-of-education/lgbt-books-kids-ban |access-date=2026-04-09 |work=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref>
Frequent themes in books published during the 1970s are that homosexuality is a "phase", or that there are no "happy endings" for gay people, and that they generally lead a difficult life.<ref name="targeted">{{cite web|last=Murphy|first=Julia|title='Targeted' young adult fiction: the need for literature speaking to gay/lesbian and African-American youth|url=http://www.crowbold.com/homepage/topic5.htm|website=crowbold.com|access-date=March 4, 2007|archive-date=October 8, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071008131918/http://www.crowbold.com/homepage/topic5.htm|url-status=live}}</ref>
[[File:JudyBlume2009(cropped).jpg|180px|thumb|Judy Blume has been cited as a catalyst for the inclusion of 'taboo' subjects, including homosexuality, in children's and YA books.]]
The ''School Library Journal'' reported: {{Blockquote|Throughout the 1970s, there was, on average, a single young adult title per year dealing with gay issues. Although many of these early books were well written—and well reviewed—gay characters were at best a sidekick or foil for the straight protagonist and at worst a victim who would face violence, injury, or death (fatal traffic accidents were commonplace). Young protagonists who worried that they might be gay would invariably conclude that their same-sex attraction was simply a temporary stage in the journey toward heterosexual adulthood.<ref name="SLJ"/>}}
Judy Blume has been cited as a catalyst in the 1970s for an increase in inclusion of "taboo" topics in children's literature, which include homosexuality.<ref name="Tacoma">{{cite web|last=Goodnow|first=Cecelia|title=Tacoma writer's gay-theme teen novel offers insights to young adults|url=http://www.brenthartinger.com/pi.html|date=April 7, 2003|access-date=February 25, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070707032318/http://www.brenthartinger.com/pi.html|archive-date=July 7, 2007|url-status=dead }}</ref>
===1980s=== ''Annie on My Mind'' (1982) by Nancy Garden tells the story of two high school girls who fall in love. The novel, which has never been out of print, was a step forward for homosexuality in young adult literature.<ref name="SLJ">{{cite web|last=Jenkins |first=Christine A. |title=Annie on Her Mind: Edwards Award–winner Nancy Garden's groundbreaking novel continues to make a compelling case for sexual tolerance |url=http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA300723 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023174349/http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleid=CA300723 |url-status=dead |archive-date=October 23, 2007 |publisher=School Library Journal |date=June 1, 2003 |access-date=February 25, 2007 }}</ref> It was published in hardback and by a major press. In the book, homosexuality is seen as something permanent and to be explored, not "fixed."<ref name="targeted"/> In Kansas, a minister led a public burning of ''Annie on My Mind'' following a controversy after it was donated to a school library.<ref name="NCAC">{{cite web|title=Books in Trouble: Annie on My Mind |url=http://www.ncac.org/literature/related/19960501~USA~Books_in_Trouble_2.cfm |publisher=National Coalition Against Censorship |date=May 1996 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101118083427/http://www.ncac.org/literature/related/19960501~USA~Books_in_Trouble_2.cfm |archive-date=2010-11-18 |url-status=dead }}</ref>
''Annie John'' (1985) by Jamaica Kincaid tells the story of a young girl coming of age in Antigua. The protagonist often finds herself falling in love with girls in her class, neighborhood, and general surroundings.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/19/home/kincaid-annie.html |title=Paradise with Snake |last=Kenney |first=Susan |date=April 7, 1984 |website=New York Times |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180807220537/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/19/home/kincaid-annie.html |archive-date=August 7, 2018}}</ref>
In 1989, Lesléa Newman published ''Heather Has Two Mommies'', soon re-published by Alyson Publications to intense media attention, controversy, and book ban campaigns.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |date=December 16, 1989 |title=Lesléa Newman Publishes Groundbreaking Children’s Book "Heather Has Two Mommies" |url=https://jwa.org/thisweek/dec/16/1989/leslea-newman |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=Jewish Women's Archive |language=en}}</ref> It was a dense and didactic book, but gained popularity as an unprecedented children's book to focus on positive lesbian representation. Other children's books, like ''Three Days on a River in a Red Canoe'', by Vera B. Williams, were popular among some lesbian families for their lesbian subtext and entertaining stories.<ref name=":2" />
===1990s=== During this decade the number of lesbian-themed young adult novels published rose. Nancy Garden published two novels with lesbian protagonists, ''Lark in the Morning'' (1991) and ''Good Moon Rising'', and received positive sales and reviews. In 1994, M.E. Kerr published ''Deliver Us From Evie'', about a boy with a lesbian sister, which was well received by the public. Other books published during this decade include ''Dive'' (1996) by Stacey Donovan,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Donovan Books |url=https://donovanedits.com/books/ |website=Donovan Edits}}</ref> ''The Necessary Hunger'' (1997) by Nina Revoyr, ''The House You Pass On the Way'' (1997) by Jacqueline Woodson, ''Girl Walking Backwards'' (1998) by Bett Williams (who intended the novel for an adult audience though it was popular among teens), ''Hard Love'' (1999) by Ellen Wittlinger and ''Dare Truth or Promise'' (1999) by Paula Boock.
===2000s=== The 1990s represented a turning point for young adult novels that explored lesbian issues, and since 2000, a flood of such books has reached the market. The public attitude towards lesbian themes in young adult literature has grown more accepting.
In the past, most books portrayed gay people as "living isolated lives, out of context with the reality of an amazingly active community."<ref name="targeted"/> Today, books also show gay characters not as stigmatized and separate.
In 2000, the ''School Library Journal'' included ''Annie on My Mind'' in its list of the top 100 most influential books of the century.<ref name="SLJ 100">{{cite web|last=Staff |title=One Hundred Books that Shaped the Century |url=http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleId=CA153035 |publisher=School Library Journal |date=January 1, 2000 |access-date=February 25, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071023174338/http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/index.asp?layout=article&articleId=CA153035 |archive-date=October 23, 2007 }}</ref>
Eileen Myles, a self-described "lesbian poet",<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.pbs.org/video/eileen-myles-vauptf/ |title=Prolific lesbian poet and novelist Eileen Myles recounts their life and artistic growth in New York and Marfa |website=PBS |access-date=2024-07-17 |archive-date=2024-07-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240717205627/https://www.pbs.org/video/eileen-myles-vauptf/ |url-status=live }}</ref> published 'Cool for You' at the turn of the century. The novel explores a fictionalized version of Eileen's working-class childhood and young adulthood as a lesbian in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The novel deals with themes of sexuality, gender, class, family, death, and addiction.
A popular young adult novel of 2012, ''The Miseducation of Cameron Post'' by Emily M. Danforth, tells the story of a 12-year-old girl who is sent to a de-gaying camp in Montana.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Sittenfeld |first=Curtis |title=The Best Novel About a "De-Gaying Camp" Ever Written |url=http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/02/the_miseducation_of_cameron_post_by_emily_danforth_a_conversation_between_the_writer_and_novelist_curtis_sittenfeld_.single.html |magazine=Slate |date=8 February 2012 |access-date=21 January 2017 |archive-date=11 February 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190211105356/http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2012/02/the_miseducation_of_cameron_post_by_emily_danforth_a_conversation_between_the_writer_and_novelist_curtis_sittenfeld_.single.html |url-status=live}}</ref> A film adaptation was made in 2018.
There are fewer books about female homosexuality than male homosexuality,<ref name="libraryhandbook">{{cite book|last1=Woolls|first1=Blanche|last2=Loertsche|first2=David V.|title=The Whole School Library Handbook|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZcjyWHAHuRMC&q=%22gay+young+adult+fiction%22%7C%22books+for+gay+teenagers%22&pg=RA1-PA110|publisher=American Library Association|date=2005|pages=109–112|isbn = 0-8389-0883-7}}</ref> and even fewer books on bisexuality are published. Despite the fact that availability of books with teen lesbian and bisexual themes has increased since the 1960s, books with non-white characters are still difficult to find.<ref name="targeted"/> One exception is the 2021 young adult novel, ''Last Night at the Telegraph Club'', which describes the coming-of-age of a teenage daughter of Chinese immigrants in 1950's San Francisco.
==Lesbian themes written by men== [[File:Carmilla.jpg|thumb|Illustration by D. H. Friston From the first publication of the lesbian vampire novella ''Carmilla'' (1872) by Sheridan Le Fanu<ref name="Garber">{{cite book |last=Garber |first=Eric |author2= Lyn Paleo |title=Uranian Worlds: A Guide to Alternative Sexuality in Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror |url=https://archive.org/details/uranianworldsgui0000garb |url-access=registration |chapter=''Carmilla'' |publisher=G. K. Hall|year=1983 |isbn=978-0-8161-1832-8 |page=[https://archive.org/details/uranianworldsgui0000garb/page/76 76]}}</ref><ref name="Carmilla 1">{{cite book |chapter=Carmilla |title=In a Glass Darkly|last=LeFanu |first=J[oseph] Sheridan |author-link=Sheridan le Fanu |location=London |publisher=R. Bentley & Son |year=1872|title-link=In a Glass Darkly}}</ref><ref name="Carmilla 2">{{cite book |last=LeFanu |first=J[oseph] Sheridan |chapter=Carmilla |title=Daughters of Darkness: Lesbian Vampire Stories |url=https://archive.org/details/daughtersofdarkn00kees |url-access=registration |editor=Pam Keesey |location=Pittsburgh, PA |publisher=Cleis Press |year=1993}}</ref>]]
Certain canonical male authors of the 19th century incorporated lesbian themes into their work. At the beginning of the century, Samuel Taylor Coleridge published his unfinished narrative poem "Christabel". Scholars have interpreted the interactions in this poem between the titular character and a stranger named Geraldine as having lesbian implications.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Grossberg |first1=Benjamin Scott |s2cid=23693074 |title=Making Christabel: Sexual Transgression and Its Implications in Coleridge's 'Christabel' |journal=Journal of Homosexuality |date=10 July 2001 |volume=41 |issue=2 |pages=145–165 |doi=10.1300/J082v41n02_08 |pmid=11482425 }}</ref> Algernon Charles Swinburne became known for subject matter that was considered scandalous, including lesbianism and sadomasochism. In 1866, he published ''Poems and Ballads'', which contained the poems "Anactoria" and "Sapphics" concerning Sappho of Lesbos and dealing explicitly with lesbian content.<ref name="Lesbianism 2003"/> Henry James portrayed a Boston marriage, considered an early form of lesbian relationship, between the feminist characters Olive Chancellor and Verena Tarrant in his 1886 novel ''The Bostonians''.<ref name="Lesbianism 2003"/>
Scholars have seen lesbian potential in characters such as Marian Halcombe in Wilkie Collins's 1859 novel ''The Woman in White''. Marian is described as masculine and unattractive, and her motivation throughout the story is her love for her half-sister, Laura Fairlie.<ref>Heller, Tamar. ''Dead Secrets: Wilkie Collins and the Female Gothic''. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1992</ref>
One of the more explicitly lesbian works of the 19th century is the Gothic novella ''Carmilla'', by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, first published in serial form in 1871-72. Considered a precursor to and an inspiration for Bram Stoker's ''Dracula'', ''Carmilla'' tells the story of the relationship between the innocent Laura and the vampire Carmilla, whose sucking of Laura's blood is clearly linked to an erotic attraction to Laura. This story has inspired many other works that take advantage of the trope of the lesbian vampire.<ref>Jones, David J. ''Sexuality and the Gothic Magic Lantern: Desire, Eroticism and Literary Visibilities from Byron to Bram Stoker''. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan 2014</ref> It was also adapted into a YouTube web series of the same name beginning in 2014.<ref>{{cite news |id={{ProQuest|1961623865}} |last1=Pfeiffer |first1=Dean |title='Carmilla': From web series to film, a review |url=https://easttennessean.com/2017/11/08/carmilla-from-web-series-to-film-a-review/ |work=East Tennessean |date=8 November 2017 |archive-date=13 September 2020 |access-date=21 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200913004701/http://easttennessean.com/2017/11/08/carmilla-from-web-series-to-film-a-review/ |url-status=live }}</ref>
In 1894, Belgian poet Pierre Louÿs published his Songs of Bilitis, a collection of prose poems with strong lesbian themes claimed to be written by a contemporary of Sappho. The collection was praised for its sensuality and refined style, as well as for the author's compassionate portrayal of lesbian sexuality. Some of the poems were later adapted by Claude Debussy, and proved an inspiration for the name of the 1950s lesbian rights organisation Daughters of Bilitis.<ref>{{Cite journal |date=October 1958 |title=And Now We Are 3... |journal=The Ladder |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=4}}</ref>
In Spain, the first theatrical work dealing with lesbianism, ''Un sueño de la razón'' by Cipriano Rivas Cherif, premiered in 1929.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Mira Nouselles |first1=Alberto |title=Para entendernos: diccionario de cultura homosexual, gay y lésbica |date=1999 |publisher=Ediciones La Tempestad |location=Barcelona |isbn=84-7948-038-6 |language=Spanish|page=619|trans-title=To Understand Each Other: Dictionary of Homosexual, Gay, and Lesbian Culture}}</ref>
In Japan, Jun'ichirō Tanizaki included a lesbian love affair in the novel ''卍 Manji'', written in serial format between 1928 and 1930 for the magazine ''Kaizō''.{{citation needed|date=December 2025}} A Japanese novel with a substantial lesbian component is ''Beauty and Sadness'' (1961–63) by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata. The story is about a female painter, Otoko Ueno, and her relationship with her jealous lesbian lover, Keiko Sakami.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Shamoon |first1=Deborah |title=Class S: appropriation of 'lesbian' subculture in modern Japanese literature and New Wave cinema |journal=Cultural Studies |date=2021 |volume=35 |pages=27–43 |doi=10.1080/09502386.2020.1844259 |issn=0950-2386}}</ref><ref name="fuckyeahlesbian" />
''The Hours'' (1998), by American author Michael Cunningham, includes lesbian characters or relationships.{{citation needed|date=December 2025}}
==Publishers== {{Category see also|LGBTQ book publishing companies|Feminist book publishing companies}} [[File:Elizabeth Sims writing 2013 photo by Tom Bender.jpg|150px|thumb|Alyson Books published a lesbian detective series by Elizabeth Sims, seen here]]
=== First lesbian-focused presses === The first lesbian publisher devoted to publishing lesbian and feminist books was Daughters, Inc.<ref>{{cite web|title=Daughters, Inc.|url=http://www.lesbianpoetryarchive.org/node/133|website=Lesbian Poetry Archive|date=August 8, 2009|access-date=July 6, 2017}}</ref> It was founded in Plainfield, Vermont, in 1973 by June Arnold and her partner Parke Bowman. That year, they published Rita Mae Brown's ''Rubyfruit Jungle'', Arnold's ''The Cook and the Carpenter: A Novel by the Carpenter'', and Blanche McCrary Boyd's ''Nerves'', which all became lesbian classics. ''Rubyfruit Jungle'' achieved immense popularity, but Daughters, Inc. went out of business in 1977 after selling the book's rights to Bantam Books.<ref name=":0" />
Naiad Press followed, which published the seminal lesbian romance novel ''Curious Wine'' (1983) by Katherine V. Forrest and many other books.<ref name=":1" /> Naiad became the largest and most profitable lesbian press and published a wide range of genre fiction. Barbara Grier, the press's co-founder, was sometimes criticized for not focusing on more academic content, but Grier argued that her press produced books people wanted or needed to read, especially working-class women and teenagers.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web |last=Nava |first=Michael |author-link=Michael Nava |date=June 11, 2021 |title=Creating a Literary Culture: A Short, Selective, and Incomplete History of LGBT Publishing, Part II |url=https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/creating-a-literary-culture-a-short-selective-and-incomplete-history-of-lgbt-publishing-part-ii |access-date=2026-04-08 |website=Los Angeles Review of Books}}</ref> The press closed in 2003 after 31 years.<ref name=":1">Bullough, Vern L. (2003). ''Before Stonewall''. Haworth, 2003 (262).</ref> Grier handed off her books and operation to a newly established press, Bella Books.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Vitello |first=Paul |date=2011-11-14 |title=Barbara Grier, Publisher of Lesbian Books, Dies at 78 |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/books/barbara-grier-publisher-of-lesbian-books-dies-at-78.html |access-date=2023-10-14 |issn=0362-4331 |archive-date=2023-02-06 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230206090725/https://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/14/books/barbara-grier-publisher-of-lesbian-books-dies-at-78.html |url-status=live }}</ref> Established in 2001, Bella Books acquired the Naiad Press backlist, including the majority of works by Jane Rule and all the works of Karin Kallmaker.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.kcur.org/history/2025-05-21/barbara-grier-naiad-press |title=Barbara Grier wanted to read about lesbian love. So she started a publishing house in Kansas City |last=Hewitt |first=Olivia |date=May 21, 2025 |website=NPR |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250609190106/https://www.kcur.org/history/2025-05-21/barbara-grier-naiad-press |archive-date=June 9, 2025}}</ref> Their catalogue includes over 300 titles of lesbian romance, lesbian mystery and erotica.{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}}
In 1980, Felice Newman and Frederique Delacoste founded Cleis Press to highlight stories of women's resilience. They pivoted to focus on LGBTQ-inclusive sex-positive works.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kinsella |first=Bridget |date=November 30, 2009 |title=Cleis's Keys to Success: Sex, the Good Life, and No Debt |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/26079-cleis-s-keys-to-success-sex-the-good-life-and-no-debt.html |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=Publishers Weekly |language=en}}</ref> Also that year, Barbara Smith and Audre Lorde started Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, founded along with Cherríe Moraga and Hattie Gossett, in order to enable publishing by other lesbian feminist women of color.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jackson |first=Ashawnta |date=March 27, 2021 |title=How Kitchen Table Press Changed Publishing |url=https://daily.jstor.org/how-kitchen-table-press-changed-publishing/ |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=JSTOR Daily |language=en-US}}</ref> The press had a large influence on third-wave feminism and lesbian literature.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |last=Kardia |first=Diana |date=2022 |title=Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press Is Founded |url=https://www.ebsco.com/ |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=EBSCO |language=en}}</ref> They published the second edition of ''This Bridge Called My Back,'' edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa, ''Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology'' by Smith, and ''I Am Your Sister: Black Women Organizing Across Sexualities'' by Lorde.<ref name=":2" />
In 1984, Nancy K. Bereano founded Firebrand Books, which published ''Trash'' by Dorothy Allison, ''Dykes to Watch Out For'' by Alison Bechdel, works by Jewelle Gomez and Cheryl Clarke, and ''Stone Butch Blues'' by Leslie Feinberg. Alyson Books, founded by Sasha Alyson, published a wide range of literature with gay and lesbian themes, and had similarities to Naiad Press. Alyson Books published some of the first LGBTQ children's books, like ''Heather Has Two Mommies'' by Lesléa Newman.<ref name=":2" />
Other early publishers include Onlywomen Press,<ref name=":3">{{Cite news |last=Cochrane |first=Kira |date=March 14, 2013 |title=Has Virago changed the publishing world's attitudes towards women? |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/mar/14/virago-changed-publishers-attitudes-women |access-date=2026-04-09 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> Sheba,<ref name=":3" /> Spinsters Ink (which was sold and now is part of the Bella Books organization),<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20050314/34010-spinsters-ink-finds-new-home.html |title=Spinsters Ink Finds New Home |last=Kirch |first=Claire |date=March 14, 2005 |website=Publishers Weekly |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161125073548/https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/print/20050314/34010-spinsters-ink-finds-new-home.html |archive-date=November 25, 2016}}</ref> Rising Tide Press, Crossing Press, and New Victoria.{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}} In many cases, these presses were operated by authors who also published with the publication house, such as Barbara Wilson at Seal Press,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://lambdaliteraryreview.org/2021/05/a-pioneer-returns-barbara-wilsons-not-the-real-jupiter/ |title=A pioneer returns: Barbara Wilson's not the real Jupiter |last=Forrest |first=Katherine V |date=May 10, 2021 |website=The Lambda Literary Review |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250405104905/https://lambdaliteraryreview.org/2021/05/a-pioneer-returns-barbara-wilsons-not-the-real-jupiter/ |archive-date=April 5, 2025}}</ref> which became part of the mainstream company Avalon Publishing, and Joan Drury at Spinsters Ink.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/lifestyle/arts-and-entertainment/joan-drury-north-shore-writer-publisher-and-bookstore-owner-dies-at-75 |title=Joan Drury, North Shore writer, publisher, and bookstore owner, dies at 75 |first=Mary Ann |last=Grossman |date=November 12, 2020 |website=Duluth News Tribune |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250620164618/https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/lifestyle/arts-and-entertainment/joan-drury-north-shore-writer-publisher-and-bookstore-owner-dies-at-75 |archive-date=June 20, 2025}}</ref>
=== Expansion of lesbian literature === Lesbian and gay literature surged in the 1980s and 1990s, in part due to the growing number of small presses dedicated to publishing these works. The wave of publications was also due to the rise of women's, lesbian, and gay bookstores in the 1970s and 1980s that helped distribute these works. Lesbian presses also grew visibility by their involvement with annual American Bookseller Association expos during the late 1980s and 1990s. Organizations and awards like Publishing Triangle and Lambda Literary also supported the publishers and their works.<ref name=":2" />
During the AIDS crisis, rising politicization and visibility compelled larger publishers to sign with a few lesbian authors, but after publishers felt disappointed by the sales of these authors' works, they withdrew. A number of independent presses shrank or closed during 1990s as well, including Alyson Books, Naiad Press, Kitchen Table: Women of Color Press, and Firebrand Books.<ref name=":2" /> However, RedBone Press began in 1995 with the goal to add Black representation to lesbian publishing and support queer Black communities.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sackton |first=Laura |date=July 14, 2022 |title=Essential Indie Presses for Queer Book Lovers |url=https://bookriot.com/indie-presses-for-queer-book-lovers/ |access-date=2026-04-15 |website=Book Riot |language=en-US}}</ref>
=== Present-day === As of 2023, the current largest publishers of lesbian fiction are Bella Books, Bold Strokes Books, Bywater Books, and Flashpoint Publications, which acquired Regal Crest Enterprises (RCE) in January 2021.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} Flashpoint Publications/RCE has a catalog of lesbian romance, lesbian mystery, some erotica, sci-fi, fantasy, and sagas currently exceeding 150 works.{{citation needed|date=March 2021}} Bold Strokes Books, established in 2005, publishes lesbian and gay male mystery, thrillers, sci-fi, adventure, and other LGBT genre books, with a catalog including 130 titles.{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}} Smaller publishers of exclusively lesbian fiction include Bedazzled Ink, Intaglio Publications, Launch Point Press, Sapphire Books Publishing, Supposed Crimes, Wicked Publishing, and Ylva Publishing.{{Citation needed|date=April 2026}}
Some small publishers continue to prioritize intersectional and genre-specific lesbian literature among a broader focus on feminist or queer literature. Recently active indie publishers include BLF Press, Catapult, Feminist Press, Kensington Publishing, Queen of Swords Press, and Virago Press.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Beeck |first=Nathalie op de |date=April 28, 2023 |title=Independent Spirit: LGBTQ Voices in Publishing |url=https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/92149-independent-spirit-lgbtq-voices-in-publishing.html |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=Publishers Weekly |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Rustin |first=Susanna |date=July 20, 2013 |title=Lennie Goodings: 'Virago survived because it's a brand with a philosophy' |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jul/20/lennie-goodings-virago-40-publisher-interview |access-date=2026-04-09 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}</ref> In India, small publishers that prioritize LGBTQ works, including lesbian literature, include Yoda Press, Seagull Books, Speaking Tiger, Westland Books, and Zubaan.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Modi |first=Chintan Girish |date=April 1, 2026 |title=On publishing queer literature for Indian readers in English |url=https://www.hindustantimes.com/books/on-publishing-queer-literature-for-indian-readers-in-english-101775038752189.html |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=Hindustan Times |language=en}}</ref>
=== Self-publishing === Self-publishing has also become a common way for lesbian and transfeminine authors to share their work, due to the accessibility of online stores and the continued obstacles that mainstream publishers set for queer authors. Many self-published writers start on informal fandom-based writing platforms like AO3 and Scribble Hub, then sell novels as e-books or print-on-demand works, handling the book's marketing and distribution themselves. Alternately, some release their novels serially via subscription services like Patreon. Most online platfforms have moderation policies that disproportionately censor and allow harassment toward marginalized users like queer women, making these methods of self-publishing somewhat precarious. Callisto Khan's ''The Zeus Constant'' (part of the expanded ''Gunmetal Olympus series'') and M Zakharuk's ''Imago'' are recent works of lesbian literature published in this manner.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Bhatt |first=Talia |author-link=Talia Bhatt |date=October 16, 2025 |title=Trans women are building their own publishing world, and it’s under threat |url=https://www.theverge.com/cs/features/799836/trans-indie-authors-self-publishing-queer-fiction |access-date=2026-04-09 |website=The Verge |language=en-US}}</ref>
==Notable works== {{Main|List of lesbian fiction}}
{{div col|colwidth=22em}}
* ''The Well of Loneliness'', Radclyffe Hall (1928) * ''Zezé'', Ángeles Vicente (1909)<ref>{{cite web |url=https://amsacta.unibo.it/id/eprint/8283/ |title=Zeze |website=University of Bologna Digital Library |date=March 2025 |access-date=June 20, 2025 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250401202046/https://amsacta.unibo.it/id/eprint/8283/ |archive-date=April 1, 2025}}</ref> * ''Nightwood'', Djuna Barnes (1936) * ''The Price of Salt'', Patricia Highsmith (1952) – aka ''Carol'' (1990) * ''Spring Fire'', Vin Packer (1952) * ''Rempart des Béguines'', Françoise Mallet-Joris (1952) * ''Chocolates for Breakfast'', Pamela Moore (author) (1957) * ''The Beebo Brinker Chronicles'', Ann Bannon (1957–1962) * ''Desert of the Heart'', Jane Rule (1964) * ''Patience & Sarah'', Isabel Miller (1971) * ''Rubyfruit Jungle'', Rita Mae Brown (1973) * ''Häutungen'', Verena Stefan (1975) * ''Sonja'', Luise F. Pusch (1980) * ''The Color Purple'', Alice Walker (1982) * ''Annie on My Mind'', Nancy Garden (1982) * ''The Swashbuckler'', Lee Lynch (1983) * ''Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit'', Jeanette Winterson (1985) * ''Memory Board'', Jane Rule (1985) * ''Send My Roots Rain'', Ibis Gómez-Vega (1991) * ''Along the Journey River'', Carole LaFavor (1996) * ''Memory Mambo'', Achy Obejas (1996) * ''Tipping the Velvet'', Sarah Waters (1998) * ''Fingersmith'', Sarah Waters (2002) * ''Garis Tepi Seorang Lesbian'', Herlinatiens (2003) * ''Southland'', Nina Revoyr (2003) * ''Stone Butch Blues'', Leslie Feinberg (1993) * ''Sugar Rush'', Julie Burchill (2004) * ''Ash'', Malinda Lo (2009) {{div col end}}
==Notable authors (alphabetically)== {{div col|colwidth=20em}} * Sarah Aldridge * Dorothy Allison * June Arnold * Ann Bannon * Natalie Barney * Alison Bechdel * Rita Mae Brown * Julie Burchill * Jessie Chandler * Abha Dawesar * Ellen DeGeneres * Emma Donoghue * Sarah Dreher * Lillian Faderman * Katherine V. Forrest * Jocelyne François * Jeanne Galzy * Nancy Garden * Alicia Gaspar de Alba * Jewelle Gomez * Ibis Gómez-Vega * Nicola Griffith * Rosa Guy * Radclyffe Hall * Bertha Harris * Ellen Hart * Karin Kallmaker * Lori L. Lake * Violette Leduc * Carole LaFavor * Malinda Lo * Audre Lorde * Lee Lynch * Ann-Marie MacDonald * Marijane Meaker; also published under the pseudonyms of: ** Ann Aldrich ** Mary James ** M. E. Kerr ** Vin Packer ** Laura Winston * Cherrie Moraga * Val McDermid * Qiu Miaojin * Achy Obejas * Julie Anne Peters * Radclyffe (who also publishes as L. L. Raand) * Mary Renault * Nina Revoyr * Adrienne Rich * Alma Routsong (also publishes under the pseudonym Isabel Miller) * Jane Rule * Joanna Russ * Sappho * May Sarton * Sarah Schulman * Sandra Scoppettone * Merry Shannon * Elizabeth Sims * Gertrude Stein * tatiana de la tierra * Michelle Tea * Valerie Taylor * Tereska Torrès * Wu Tsao * Ángeles Vicente * Renée Vivien * Ebine Yamaji * Nobuko Yoshiya * Sarah Waters * Jeanette Winterson * Monique Wittig * Jacqueline Woodson * Samar Yazbek {{div col end}}
==See also== {{Portal|LGBTQ}}
* Black lesbian literature * Gay literature (historically, the term "gay literature" was often used to cover both gay male and lesbian literature) * Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction * Lesbian pulp fiction * List of lesbian fiction (For a list of individual works in chronological order.) * List of poets portraying sexual relations between women * Yuri (genre) (Japanese anime, manga, light novels, and literature featuring intimate relationships between female characters)
==Notes== {{notelist}}
==References== {{Reflist|30em}}
==Further reading== * {{cite book|editor1-last=Carbado|editor1-first=Devon W.|editor2-last=McBride|editor2-first=Dwight A.|editor3-last=Weise|editor3-first=Donald|title=Black Like Us: A Century of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual African American Fiction|date=2011|edition=2nd|publisher=Cleis Press|isbn=978-1573447140}} * {{cite book |editor1-last=Castle |editor1-first=Terry |title=The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall |date=2003 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=0231125100 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/literatureoflesb0000unse }} * {{cite news|last1=Charczun |first1=Anna |title=How Irish lesbian writing has developed over centuries |url=https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/books/how-irish-lesbian-writing-has-developed-over-centuries-1.4760167 |newspaper=The Irish Times |date=December 28, 2021}} * {{cite book|editor1-last=Medd|editor1-first=Jodie|title=The Cambridge Companion to Lesbian Literature|date=2015|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1107054004}} * {{cite book|last1=Miller|first1=Meredith|title=Historical Dictionary of Lesbian Literature|date=2006 |edition=1st |publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=0-8108-4941-0}} * {{cite book|editor-last1=Reynolds |editor-first1=Margaret |title=The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories |date=1994 |publisher=Viking Press |location=New York, New York |isbn=0670854255}}
;Thesis
* {{cite thesis|last= Frang|first=Sabrina|date=2013|title= Sexual Awakenings in Lesbian Literature|type= M.A.L.S.|publisher= Clayton State University|oclc=848013710|url=}}
==External links== * [https://www.goodreads.com/genres/lesbian-literature Lesbian Literature] at Goodreads * [http://www.bywaterbooks.com/ Lesbian Literature] at Bywater Books (lesbian books publisher, founded 2004) * [http://www.sapphirebooks.com/ Lesbian Literature] at Sapphire Books (lesbian books publisher, founded 2010) <!-- Not the same as defunct Virgin Books imprint --> * [http://www.goldencrown.org/ Lesbian Literature] at Golden Crown Literary Society * [http://www.wickedpublishing.net/lesbian-fiction-store Lesbian Fiction] at Wicked Publishing (includes lesbian literature, founded 2016) * [https://web.archive.org/web/20170619072602/http://lesbianmysteries.com/ Lesbian Mysteries] at Bee Cliff Press (archive) * [http://www.thelesbianreview.com Lesbian Books] at The Lesbian Review (book reviews and recommendations) * [https://lesbiansovereverything.com/ Lesbians Over Everything] (lesbian stories and reviews platform) * [https://web.archive.org/web/20170510085146/http://gem.greenwood.com/wse/wsePrint.jsp?id=id395 ''Lesbian Literature''] by Penelope J. Engelbrecht, from ''Women's Studies Encyclopedia'', 1999, vol. 2, pp. 852–856, Greenwood Press (2002) (archive) * [http://outhistory.org/exhibits/show/lesbian-in-literature/history ''The Lesbian in Literature''] by Barbara Grier, 1981, (3rd ed.), Naiad Press, at OutHistory * {{cite book|last1=Spence |first1=Alex |title=Asian Gay Literature: An Annotated Bibliography of Modern LGBTQ Works of Literary Fiction and Biography, Arranged by Country |date=2024 |edition=3rd |publisher=Banshan |location= |isbn= |url=https://archive.org/details/asiangayliteraturebibliography-3rd-edition-2dprinting-march-2024-webpdf/page/n1/mode/2up |url-access=registration}} (contains lesbian writers)
{{LGBTQ fiction}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lesbian literature}} Category:Lesbian literature Category:History of literature Category:Sapphism