_Miss Ogilvy Finds Herself._ Harcourt, Brace 1934. A lesbian finds her true destiny after a lifetime of serving her country.
Overtones of science fiction.
_A Sat.u.r.day Life._ London, Falcon Press, 1952 (orig. pub 1925). An attempt at farce, not overt anywhere.
HALL, OAKLEY M. _Corpus of Joe Bailey._ Viking 1953, Permabooks 1955, (m). Also contains a pathetic pair of lesbians, one camouflaging her true leanings by pretending to be the campus wh.o.r.e.
HARDY, THOMAS. _Desperate Remedies._ Harper 1896; still in print, London, the Macmillan Co, 1951 ($3.00). Brief but relevant episode in a novel by a cla.s.sic English novelist.
+ HARRIS, SARA. _The Wayward Ones._ Crown 1952, pbr Signet 1956,57 One of the few really good treatments of lesbian attachments in a girl"s reform school. Bessie, a wayward girl, is sent to a "good"
reform school; at this stage she is naive, fairly innocent and presumably redeemable. The loneliness, the s.a.d.i.s.tic persecution by the corrupt or hardened matrons, and the "racket"-the enforced division of the school into "moms" and "pops", by hardened young girl hooligans who like the power it gives them, and permitted by the matrons under the self-deception that these attachments are normal, schoolgirlish crushes-finally complete the girl"s corruption until it is certain that she will come out of school a confirmed young criminal, Sara Harris is herself a social worker; this painfully accurate picture of what our juvenile authorities contend with may, at least, give some insight into why the police and social agencies tend to be so violently anti-lesbian. It is hard to forget the picture painted in this book of the frightened Bessie insisting "I don"t never do no lovin" with girls.""-and the threats made to her. An absolute MUST book-on the other side.
HARRIS, WILLIAM HOWARD. _The Golden Jungle._ Doubleday 1957, pbr Berkley 1958. Brittle novel about a wall street banker; his beautiful wife is a lesbian, but he naively believes her faithful because she prefers the company of women.
+ HASTINGS, MARCH. _Demands of the Flesh._ Newsstand Library pbo, 1959. Ellen, a young widow suffering from physical frustration, goes through a period of promiscuity involving several men and a brief affair with a lesbian, Nita. Oddly enough for this sort of borderline-risque stuff, the lesbian character is well and realistically drawn; realizing that Ellen is basically normal, she helps keep her on an even keel until she remarries. Good of kind.
_Three Women._ pbo Beacon Books 1958. Good and sympathetic story of a young girl involved with a basically decent older woman, a lesbian, Byrne. Unfortunately Byrne is deeply involved with, and obligated to, her insane cousin Greta, and the affair ends in tragedy, leaving young Paula to marry her faithful boy friend. The lesbian interlude, however, is treated not as a "twisted love in the shadows" or any such cliche matter, but simply as a human relationship, in its total effect on Paula"s personality; and she always remembers Byrne with affectionate regret. Excellent of kind.
_The Obsessed._ Newstand Library Magenta Books, 1959. The psychoa.n.a.lysis of a nymphomaniac, including an affair with her boy-friend"s lesbian sister. Not nearly as good as March Hastings"
other books, and much more dedicated to s.e.xy scenes at the expense of character and situation. Evening waster-almost scv. (It should be noted that some paperback publishers insist on a specified number of s.e.x scenes, and in such a book as this one can almost hear the weary sigh with which the author abandons his story, which is going well, and stops everything for another measured dose of s.e.xy writing for the nitwit audience.)
HECHT, BEN. _The Sensualists._ Messner, 1959, pbr Dell 1959. A great deal of advance publicity built this up to a best-seller.
Highly sensational shock-stuff; a supposedly happily-married woman discovers her husband is having an affair with a singer, Liza.
When she comes in contact with Liza, however, she realizes that Liza is a lesbian, having affairs with men for camouflage purposes, and is soon herself captivated by Liza. From here events build up to highly shocking climaxes, including a ghastly murder.
Not to be read after dark.
HEMINGWAY, ERNEST. "The Sea Change" ss in _The Fifth Column and the First 49 Stories_, P. F. Collier & Son, 1938. This volume also contains two stories dealing with male h.o.m.os.e.xuality: "A Simple Inquiry" and "Mother of a Queen."
h.e.l.lMAN, LILLIAN. _The Children"s Hour._ Knopf, 1934. Also Random House 1942; also in Burns-Mantle, Best Plays of 1934-35. A rumor of lesbianism (unfounded) wrecks a school, and the lives of the women who own and manage it.
HENRY, JOAN. _Women in Prison._ Doubleday 1952, pbr Permabooks 1953. This is non-fiction, autobiographical account of a woman"s experience in two English prisons. Very good.
HEPPENSTALL, RAYNER. _The Blaze Of Noon._ Alliance 1940, pbr Berkley 1956, (m) minor, fco and BAYOR.
HESSE, HERMAN. _Steppenwolf._ Henry Holt 1929. qpb Frederick Ungar, 1960. Symbolic (and cla.s.sic) novel of man"s disintegration, caused by society"s ignorance. Contains highly sympathetic h.o.m.os.e.xual characters (male and female).
HIGHSMITH, PATRICIA. _The Talented Mr. Ripley._ Coward, 1955, pbr Dell 1959. (m, minor)
_Strangers on a Train._ Harper & Bros. 1950. (m, minor)
see also CLAIRE MORGAN
HILL, PATI. _The Nine Mile Circle._ Houghton, Mifflin 1957 fco.
Dreamy story of two teen-age girls and an idyllic summer during which they constantly pretend to be man and wife, on a girlish, unerotic level. Very nice.
HIMMEL, RICHARD. _Soul of Pa.s.sion._ Star Pub, Co 1950. pbr tct.
_Strange Desires_, Croydon Pub. 1952, pbr Avon, tct.
_The Shame_, 1959, (m). No masterpiece but an interesting story about a man spending a week with his dead Army friend"s wife and recalling his long relationship with the dead man; over the week he slowly comes to acknowledge, and come to terms with the fact that their relationship had had overtones of h.o.m.os.e.xuality.
HITT, ORRIE. _Girl"s Dormitory._ Beacon pbo 1958 scv.
_Trapped._ Beacon pbo 1954. scv.
_Wayward Girl._ Beacon pbo 1960 scv.
HOLK, AGNETE. _The Straggler._ (Trans, from the Danish by Anthony Hinton). London, Arco Pub. 1954, pbr tct.
_Strange Friends_, Pyramid Books 1955, very slightly abridged.
Boyish Scandinavian Vita adopts a "little sister" but is quite unaware of the nature of her attraction to Hilda. In her late teens Hilda, stirred but unsatisfied by this attachment, makes an unwise marriage, and Vita undergoes a period of rootless drifting, a brief affair ending in separation, and finally makes a permanent arrangement with Hilda, whose unsuccessful marriage ended in divorce. Valuable for a portrait of European gay life, very unlike the American.
HOLLIDAY, DON. _The Wild Night._ Nightstand Books 1960 (no publisher"s address listed). Composite novel of six lives which converge on New Year"s Eve in a cheap Greenwich Village strip joint. "One of those unexpectedly good stories one finds among the floods of paperback trash." One of the six characters is a lesbian.
HOLMES, (JOHN) CLELLON. _Go._ Scribner 1952, pbr Ace Books 1958, (m).
_The Horn._ Random House 1953, Crest pbr 1958, (m).
HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL. _Elsie Venner._ Burt, 1859; many editions, a cla.s.sic novel of a very strange girl, psychologically akin to poisonous snakes. In the course of this novel a curious and intense relationship develops between Elsie and a young schoolmistress named Helen; a compulsive domination, attraction and revulsion. One might suspect Dr. Holmes, whose medical writings and observations place him far ahead of his era psychologically, of genteelly camouflaging a portrait of variance, 100 years ago, by making the girl a creature of macabre fantasy.
+ HORNBLOW, LEONORA. _The Love Seekers._ Random 1957, pbr Signet 1958. The heroine"s hesitation between marriage with a steady and reliable man, and insecure excitement with a hoodlum, is resolved when her affairs are interrupted by concern for the daughter of a friend; the young lesbian, Mab, whose life has become entangled with some very shady characters.
+ HULL, HELEN R. "The Fire" ss in Century Magazine, Nov 1917; Excellent story of a small-town girl"s love for a middle-aged spinster who awakens her to a world beyond her small one.
"With One Coin for Fee", novelette in _Experiment_, Coward-McCann 1938, 1939, 1940. An introspective spinster and a lifelong friend, trapped in a New England house during the 1939 hurricane; subtle but good.
_The Quest._ Macmillan, 1922. An over-emotional girl, seeking escape from home tensions, develops crushes on a cla.s.smate and on a teacher: her mother"s over-reaction turns the girl against variant attachments just as her unhappy home turned her against marriage.
_The Labyrinth._ Macmillan, 1923. Variant attachments, among others, in a novel of a woman unhappy in domesticity and trying to find creative outlets.
_Landfall._ N. Y. Coward-McCann 1953. In a brittle and sarcastic novel of a brittle and sarcastic woman, the heroine, a capable businesswoman, alternately repulses and warms toward her adoring secretary-though she secretly scorns the girl"s devotion, she feels it would be a nuisance to break in a new secretary, so wishes to keep her captivated.
HUNEKER, JAMES. _Painted Veils._ Liveright 1920 (still in print); pbr Avon 1928. Unpleasant novel of the theatrical and literary world of that day; the heroine, Easter, (an opera singer) has a mannish satellite.
HURST, FANNIE. _The Lonely Parade._ N. Y. Harper 1942. Very minor mention of lesbians in a novel of lonely women at hotels.
+ HUTCHINS, MAUDE PHELPS McVEIGH. _A Diary of Love._ New Directions, 1950, pbr Pyramid 1952, 1960. Weird stuff, written with a detachment and delicacy reminiscent of the Colette novels.
A teen-age girl, Noel, goes through a bizarre series of experiences in a strange household where her grandfather seduces his (male) music pupils and a nymphomanic, neurotic housemaid, Freida, successively seduces everyone from Grandpa down to Noel.
Beautifully done.
_Georgiana._ New Directions, 1948. The second section of a sensitive, well-written novel is laid in a girl"s school; there are three important variant attachments, and as a result one of Georgiana"s cla.s.smates is expelled. In later life Georgiana blames her failure to find happiness on a "lesbian complex."
_My Hero._ New Directions, 1953, (m).
ILTON, PAUL. _The Last Days of Sodom and Gomorrah._ pbo, Signet, 1956, 1957, (m). Historical, Biblical setting.
JACKSON, CHARLES. _The Fall of Valor._ Rinehart & Co, 1946, pbr Signet, 1950, (m).
_The Lost Weekend._ Farrar & Rinehart 1944, pbr Berkley 1955 and others.