Checklist.
by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
THE PURPOSE AND HISTORY OF THE CHECKLIST
Here, in a single volume, it has been our intention to list, doc.u.ment and review every novel dealing, however slightly, with female variance, lesbianism or intense emotional relationships between women. We have also included a majority of the better known novels which, dealing primarily with male h.o.m.os.e.xuality, are of interest to the collector of variant fiction in general.
In related supplements we have compiled lists of variant poetry, variant films, of the major book services and publishing houses where these books can be obtained, and of the h.o.m.os.e.xual press.
The t.i.tles in the major portion of the Checklist are listed in a single comprehensive index by author. Information includes date published, number of reprints and publisher"s name. Brief reviews are included of most t.i.tles. An effort has been made in each case to distinguish whether the work under discussion is a novel about lesbianism, whether the variant content has been included mostly for shock effect, or whether (as in some excellent modern novels) h.o.m.os.e.xual characters appear incidentally to the other main themes of action in the book.
In such a comprehensive listing, reviews must of necessity be brief. For further discussion of many of the t.i.tles listed here, with excellent and complete critical a.n.a.lysis of their variant content, the serious student or collector is earnestly urged to invest in the definitive and major work on the subject:
FOSTER, Jeannette Howard; _s.e.x Variant Women in Literature._ N. Y. Vantage Press, 1956.
Although now officially out of print, this book can occasionally be obtained second hand, and copies will soon be offered for sale through the Daughters of Bilitis publication, THE LADDER. (See appendix.) We have made no effort to give more than cursory reviews of t.i.tles which are discussed at length in Dr. Foster"s work. However, since the publication of the Foster book, many new novels of lesbianism have been published, and the diligent search of many collectors, working with the Checklist editors, has brought many old ones to light.
We have tried to review in some detail the novels which were omitted from Dr. Foster"s work, and to strive for completeness, even at the expense of discriminatory judgment about the excellence or otherwise of the works included. Therefore this Checklist includes many works whose lesbian content was too slight, too subtle-or too "trashy"-to have come within the scope of the scholarly studies of Dr. Foster or the running column, _Lesbiana_, conducted by junior editor Gene Damon in the pages of THE LADDER.
It is our further contention that many novels dealing with male h.o.m.os.e.xuality come also within the province of the serious collector of lesbiana. We make, however, no claim for completeness for novels which fall within the h.o.m.os.e.xual, rather than the lesbian province. In general, the male t.i.tles included in this list-clearly defined, in each case, by the sign (m)-have been included because they were of special interest to the editors and therefore are presumably of interest to other collectors of lesbiana.
For those who wish a complete list of works dealing with male h.o.m.os.e.xuality, we suggest the comprehensive bibliography compiled by Noel I. Garde, discussed in the Appendix of Related Publications. Mr.
Garde has indexed virtually every h.o.m.os.e.xual work from antiquity to the latest paperback shocker, and has also performed the mighty task of separating them into categories ... a task from which the Checklist editors have shrunk, though we have made some attempt at cla.s.sification in our reviews and by awarding a plus sign to books of exceptional value. (For further discussion of this division, please consult the "List of Symbols and Abbreviations" on page 2.)
Most of the reviews in the present listing were written by one of the editors; no attempt has been made to divide the reviews written by MZB from those written by Damon. In general, these reviews have been gathered from so many sources that the awarding of individual credit would be impossible.
This Checklist, 1960, is the last of the c.u.mulative Checklists. Plans at present are to publish brief supplements annually, listing only new t.i.tles, new reprints of old t.i.tles, or new discoveries of overlooked t.i.tles. Since this is the case, we feel that some brief history of the Checklist might be of interest to the readers.
Nearly 10 years ago, in the mailing of the Fantasy Amateur Press a.s.sociation, a very bitter discussion was raging on the subject of censorship-pro and con. Complicating this discussion, a man who is now dead, and shall therefore be nameless, published a scathing attack on h.o.m.os.e.xuals. By way of subtle reproof, and partially as a deadpan joke on this man, your senior editor, with Royal Drummond (whose "Digression"
was highly praised by Checklist readers last year ...) published a 12-page offset leaflet, with editorials attacking censorship, and extensive reviews of perhaps a dozen of the best known h.o.m.os.e.xual novels. This leaflet had a cartoon cover and the general light-hearted tone of the publication was indicated by the t.i.tle, which was _Fairy Tales for Fabulous Faps_. Reaction to this leaflet was mixed, but in general the readers enjoyed it, and said, "Do this again some time - ".
However, soon after this, Mr. Drummond dropped out of the Fantasy Amateur Press a.s.sociation, and your present editor had no impetus to continue the series single-handed.
Early in the history of the publication known as THE LADDER, your senior editor had the privilege of reviewing the Foster book mentioned above, while the junior editor was in charge of the _Lesbiana_ column. After reading the Foster work, your editor (MZB) resolved to publish a list of the omitted t.i.tles; when I began cutting the mimeograph stencils, however, I resolved to review not only the t.i.tles which Dr. Foster had omitted, but all of those which I had read, for the purpose of putting into print my own personal opinions and reactions. This first Checklist was called _Astra"s Tower #2_, and the number 2 seems to have baffled a good many people-they all wrote in, inquiring about #1. Number 1, however, was a mimeographed booklet of my own fiction, published during my late teens for the FAPA, mentioned above.
Through this first Checklist, I came into contact with Miss Damon, and because paperback lesbiana was blossoming on all the stands, we quickly resolved to publish another Checklist. I had fully intended to give Miss Damon full credit for her work last year; however, the mimeograph work on last year"s list was so poor, the quality of the paper so bad, and some unreliable reviewers fouled me up so badly on data, that I refused to foist off any portion of the blame on other shoulders.
The relaxing of censorship of recent years-as doc.u.mented in the Supreme Court judgment relevant to _Lady Chatterley"s over_, etc.-has meant, in recent fiction, fewer taboos and in general a franker treatment of s.e.xual themes. On the whole this is a good thing. However and unfortunately, it has also released a flood of trash and borderline erotica, of no literary worth and "interesting" only for the s.e.xual content. Your editors have conscientiously waded through all this newsstand slush (and believe me, we get no kick out of it) because experience has taught us that even the worst peddlers of commercialized s.e.x-trash sometimes come up with exceptionally well-written, honest and sincere work. For instance, Beacon Books (a subsidiary of Universal Publishing and Distributing Company)-some of whose paperback originals can be called printable only by the uttermost charity,-are currently also publishing the work of Artemis Smith, one of the major writers in the variant field today.
However, actually reviewing the majority of this stuff is impossible.
Most of these books are not novels at all. They have impossibly complex plots-or no plots at all-since the story exists only as an excuse for the characters to jump into amorous exercise with the closest male, or female, or sometimes both. This sort of thing, "lesbian" only remotely, belongs more properly to the field of curiosa. One can, of course, display a Place Pigalle post card in a gallery with the Botticelli Venus, and cla.s.sify them both as "nudes". I personally consider this an insult to the Venus, and the devotee of "feelthy peectures" will find the restraint and taste of fine art too tame for his jaded tastes.
We are unalterably opposed to most censorship-but after wading through almost a hundred books whose only excuse for existence is to provide phony "thrills" for people too inhibited, too ignorant or too fearful to provide their own, well-we think wistfully of some self-imposed standards of taste.
We also realize, flatly and realistically, that too much license in this stuff is going to bring on a wave of public reaction which may impose a sure-enough censorship-making the standards of the 1940s and 1950s look liberal.
Now obviously the field of h.o.m.os.e.xual literature is going to place a certain emphasis on the s.e.xual problems of humanity which will be quant.i.tatively greater than that of-say-the Western novel, or the detective story. s.e.x alone has not been made an excuse for consigning any novel to the trashbin. If the treatment is honest, the characters even remotely believable and the purpose of the book seems reasonably genuine, then the quant.i.ty of s.e.x is purely a matter for the author"s discretion; and be it much, as in the works of March Hastings, Artemis Smith or Henry Miller, or little, as in Iris Murdoch"s delicate and subtle THE BELL, or Shirley Jackson"s THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE,-we give the book judgment only on its merits as a book.
However, in self-defense, we have had to find a way to dispose of the more repet.i.tive rubbish. Allowing for differences in taste, and granting that many people like their books well-spiced, if there is a reasonably well-written story along with the s.e.x we have called it "Evening waster"-on the grounds that it may very well provide pleasant entertainment for anyone not a hopeless prude. But if the story is just a peg on which to hang up a lot of poorly written, gamy erotic episodes, with no literary value, and just evasive enough to keep the printer out of jail, then we have given it short shrift with the abbreviation "scv"-which cryptic letters are editorial shorthand for "Short Course in Voyeurism"-and have been the basis of a lot of jokes in the tedious business of pa.s.sing reviews around the editorial staff (The junior and senior editors live a thousand miles apart and have never met; the others who occasionally contribute reviews are scattered from Alabama to Oregon.). So we have to have some fun in the endless correspondence-and "scv" books are fair game.
Regrettably, we are well aware that some people are going to use this designation in precisely the opposite fashion than we intended-go through the list picking out the s.e.xy books and carefully avoiding the others. Well-we shan"t spoil your fun. Each to her own taste, as the old lady said when she kissed the cow.
We wish here to give some slight acknowledgment to all those who, over the years since the initiation of this endeavor, have contributed overlooked t.i.tles, pointed out our errors, sent comments, criticisms and sometimes cash, laboriously tracked down elusive data, worked as unpaid researchers and stencil-cutters, and in general helped us to feel we were not working in a vacuum.
Special acknowledgments are due to Dr. Jeannette Howard Foster, unfailingly generous and gracious in allowing us to pick her brains; to Leslie Laird Winston, of the Winston Book Service; to the editors of THE LADDER, Del Martin in particular, for helping us to publicize our Checklist, and for allowing us to use reviews run in the _Lesbiana_ column; to Forrest Ackerman, for endless help and encouragement; and to Kerry Dame, whose generous gift of stamps proved invaluable to the heavy load of correspondence necessary to keep this one-woman publishing house rolling. And to all those others, anonymous by choice, who have sent small gifts of cash and stamps, turned up elusive paperbacks for me in news-standless West Texas, contributed reviews and data, and, above all, provided cheer and encouraging support. We hope this Checklist is half as much fun for you to read as it was for us-all things considered-to prepare.
And here at the end I take off my editorial "We" for a special, personal THANK YOU to my collaborator and co-editor, GENE DAMON.
And now, until the first Supplement time, it"s time to turn the Checklist over to you. Comments and criticisms are invited.
Marion Z Bradley
[Ill.u.s.tration]
List of Symbols and Abbreviations
pbo-paperbacked original; first published in paperback or first English edition in paperback.
pbr-paperbacked reprint.
n.d.-no date listed or date unknown.
ss-short story.
qpb-quality paperback book (as, Grove Press or Vintage).
tct-t.i.tle changed to (as, _Torchlight to Valhalla_, pbr tct _The Strange Path_).
fco-for completists only; variant content either extremely slight or problematical.
+ before a t.i.tle indicates a book of considerable value.
Occasionally used to call attention to a fine new release or the discovery of an old t.i.tle overlooked in previous bibliographies. In general, the plus sign has been reserved for books of honest purpose, sincere if not always entirely favorable treatment of the h.o.m.os.e.xual theme, and some genuine literary merit.
In one or two cases, a plus has been given to a book of little intrinsic worth because of some major and exceptional contribution to thought on the variant theme; or to an occasional book for being extremely good entertainment of its kind, even if no masterpiece.
We have tried to avoid including only our favorites.
(m) indicates a novel concerned mostly with male h.o.m.os.e.xuality.
A very large proportion of such novels, however, contain some discussion of female variance, or lesbian characters, as well.
BAYOR-Buy at your own risk ... either no accurate data is available or the editors find themselves in hopeless disagreement about its relevance.
Evening Waster-good solid entertainment and reasonably well-written, though worthless as literature.
scv-see editorial for complete discussion of this term.
This is the literary ghetto, the gutter books, the commercialized s.e.x trash as distinguished from honest erotic realism.