Life History of a Lesbian: Mary Casal 
  by Barbara Grier alias Gene Damon

-from Lesbian Lives, Reproduced with permission by author

Apparently this is an undoctored life history of a Lesbian.
Mary Casal wrote her life story in a casual conversational and
entirely frank manner.  Since Miss Casal was born in 1864 and 
was at the time of writing 65 years old, the complete detail of 
her love affair is almost amazing.  Miss Casal was born in New
England on a farm and apparently was a part of the class
described as upper middle class.  Her parents were a rather odd
mixture, her mother a descendent of the very pure Puritans and
her father a descendent of a distinguished English family of
artists and musicians.  She was the youngest of nine children and
her childhood friends were all male...  By the time she had
completed her college education she had had three or four ... 
crushes and one of them had apparently been physically 
satisfactory.  In her effort to make her autobiography utterly 
untraceable, Miss Casal has obscured the sequence of her life to 
an extent that makes dates impossible to find in relation to her
big love affair.  However, somewhere in her middle thirties she 
met and fell in love with a girl two years younger.  The affair
was entirely complete and very happy for both women for many 
years, approximately fifteen years or a little more.  During 
these happy years the women discovered many other women of like 
temperament and the authoress expresses her initial surprise at 
this, because previously Mary and her friend Juno had thought 
they were the only women in the world who loved another woman.

  Miss Casal's revelations about the Lesbian world of New York 
and Paris around the turn of this century are most interesting. 
Although Miss Casal tries to give the impression that she was 
never a professional author, it is hard to believe in view of the
quality of writing in her memoirs.  I heartily recommend this as
almost a class case of Lesbianism.  Unfortunately the book is 
very rare and quite expensive.  Those willing to take the trouble
can borrow the book through the Library of Congress. (I believe 
the book is much more available now.  I found a copy in my local
library.  If not available locally it is available through
interlibrary loan)

Mary Casal.  The Stone Wall: An Autobiography, Chicago: 
Eyncourt Press, 1930.