Click here to go back to the Historic Lesbian Couples Page To find out more about Lesbian and Gay History read: Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: a history of lesbian life in Twentieth-Century America by Lillian Faderman Out of the Past: Gay and Lesbian History from 1869 to the Present by Neil Miller Elizabeth Lapovsky Kennedy and Madeline D. Davis'sBoots of leather, slippers of gold : the history of a lesbian community published by Routledge, c1993, a history about the lesbian community in Buffalo, NY with many personal accounts. Two books about older gay couples are: Jeb and Dash : a diary of gay life, 1918-1945 edited by Ina Russell and published by Faber and Faber, c1993. Gean Harwood'sa touching personal account of the author's relationship with Bruhs Mero The Oldest Gay Couple in America: a 70 year Journey Through Same Sex America published by Carol Pub., 1997. Some Novels based on historical lesbians or featuring older or elderly lesbians: Isabel Miller's - Patience and SarahA novel based on the true story of Maryanne Willson and Sarah Brundidge who settled in Upstate NY in the 1800's. Mary Louisa Gordon's - Chase of the Wild Goose (a fictional account of the Ladies of Langollen)the Ladies wrote the Hamwood Papers, which is their diary, historic but boring, we liked Chase of the Wild Goose better. Another fictional book about the Ladies of Langollen is The Ladies by Doris Grumbach Valerie Taylor has written Prism, a novel about an elderly lesbian Long Time Passing: Lives of older lesbians by Marcy Adelman, Ph.D. is a book of accounts of older lesbians and their experiences similar to Lee Lynch'sOld Dyke Tales only based on real interviews I believe. Lee Lynch'sOld Dyke Tales Lee Lynch is a novelist who writes about lesbian culture. Judy Grahn'sAnother Mother Tongue is about Gay and Lesbian folklore, the ancient meanings of gay and lesbian symbols and other interesting myths.
Below are links to some online writings by Lee Lynch
Lee Lynch 10/93 Lee Lynch 8/93 The Following Links are Articles for Outlines Magazine by Lee Lynch Lee Lynch- December Lee Lynch- Feb '96 Lee Lynch- October Lee Lynch- March '96Here's some of our favorite wholesome lesbian reading:
Fur Person is a delightful story by May Sarton about two women and their cat, mostly about their cat. Ann Allen Shockley's- Loving Her Willa Cather's O Pioneers (She learned that she could write about her love for women if she wrote in the character of a boy. Virginia Woolf's Orlando. Another favorite of ours in Thomas Hardy's - Far From the Madding Crowd, (I always thought it was Far from the Maddening Crowd...) It's not a lesbian book, but you can always pretend ;) Right now we are reading The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade, it's a straight book, but a lot of fun. We like to pretend that we are the characters in love when we read and we replace the names of the characters with our names. And if you like science fiction Katherine Forrest's Daughters of the Coral Dawn And under Non-fiction: Lesbian Lives edited by Barbara Greir (pseud. Gene Damon) is an excellent resource of reprinted articles from the "Ladder" magazine, it's old and out of print :( but if you can get a hold of a copy it has lots of pictures of lesbians, or "possible" lesbians, and short bios of everyone from Radclyffe Hall to Amelia Earhart and Octave Thanet. Also, the Twayne author series has some good info. about the lesbian nature of M.E.Kerr who wrote lesbian pulp novels in the 50's under several famous pseudonyms such as Ann Aldrich, as well as info. Amy Lowell's poems the influence of her lesbian relationship as an inspiration for some of her poems. Notable African American Women has information on the famous blues singers Bessie Smith and Ma Rainey. Our Right to Love, the old version, is one of my favorites, with Lesbian Woman by Del Martin and Phyllis Lyons coming in at a Close second, tieing with Sappho Was A Right-on Woman (an Excellent Resource and still some what pertinent today, I was just reading it this weekend and finding it Very Useful), also Sunday's Women. I Love All those 70's dykes! Chelsea House has a very good series on gays and lesbians. They feature Willa Cather, Oscar Wilde and James Baldwin (which I have perused and enjoyed), as well as others I haven't gotten a chance to look at about Sappho and others, and some modern gays and lesbians as well, such as k.d. lang. ENJOY!