Request for more LGBT content

Suggest and discuss books to read (all languages welcome!)
adonis
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Post by adonis »

There's this:

This doesn't appear to be in the catalogue. PD in the USA it says and often mentioned side by side with The Sins of the Cities of the Plain. Part attributed to Oscar Wilde. Nobody knows for sure.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Teleny,_or_The_Reverse_of_the_Medal

Sincerely,
Tony A,
Cori
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Post by Cori »

That's been brought up a few times, Tony -- so far, no-one's found a PD text for it. I've read it, but in a 'modern version' printing, not of any use here.
There's honestly no such thing as a stupid question -- but I'm afraid I can't rule out giving a stupid answer : : To Posterity and Beyond!
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

Twinkle88 wrote: July 20th, 2018, 5:27 pm
ChuckW wrote: March 8th, 2017, 7:37 am Alright, look... this certainly isn't great literature by any means, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it.

The Sins of the Cities of the Plain

What is this?

Well... it's pornography.

Not sure if anyone is -- *ahem* -- adventurous enough to record this, but I thought I should throw it out there, if there's any interest. This is another one of those books with an exceedingly low print run that I'm shocked has a PDF scan out there. And it's certainly an LGBT staple... in one way or another.
Just thought I'd throw out my differing opinion: We shouldn't record pornographic works. It's not a legacy worth continuing.
Duly noted, although I disagree with you 100%.
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ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

Reading through an anthology of 19th-century LGBT literature today and found some other texts that might be worth mentioning:

Harvard Episodes by Charles Macomb Flandrau
The Cult of the Purple Rose: A Phase of Harvard Life by Shirley Everton Johnson
Two College Friends by Fred W. Loring
Belchamber by Howard Overing Sturgis
At Saint Judas' by Henry Blake Fuller

Some of these are a little more coded than other suggestions made in this thread -- I think many of these rely more on subtext to get there points across. Others, like the Fuller play, are more overt. I've actually had Two College Friends in my "to-do list" for some time now, but that thing is about 8 or 9 books long right now.

Some of the "Uranian" poets mentioned in this collection might also be of interest:

https://www.amazon.com/Lads-Love-Anthology-Valancourt-Classics/dp/1934555959

I'm also working on Forrest Reid's The Garden God right now, which obviously qualifies for inclusion on this list. There are other Reid novels that might be worth exploring, if you have the time. I made a post about it here:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=70877
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TriciaG
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Post by TriciaG »

From another Book Suggestion:
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=57550

Six Chapters of a Man's Life
Link: https://archive.org/stream/sixchaptersaman00corygoog#page/n7/mode/2up
Related material: https://cve.revues.org/1339?lang=fr

Appearing a whole quarter of a century before Virginia Woolf's playful tour-de-force Orlando, Six Chapters features a heroine, Theodora, endowed with a moustache; and Cecil, a confused but fascinated hero whose pursuit of her gender-shifting course of life recalls the exquisite contortions of the protagonists in the novels of Sacher-Masoch.

Alas, the author - Victoria Cross (a pseudonym of British novelist Annie Sophie Cory) - died in 1952; so the text is not PD for me. However, I hope North American and 'Death+50 readers' will be interested.
Serial novel: The Wandering Jew
Medieval England meets Civil War Americans: Centuries Apart
Humor: My Lady Nicotine
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

Just a heads-up: Max Beerbohm's A Peep into the Past has now lapsed into the public domain (although there are currently no PDF scans available anywhere -- but just wait):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Peep_into_the_Past
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ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

Holy crap, I think I just hit the jackpot. HathiTrust has this really excellent bibliography of LGBT literature that dates back to antiquity. It's by no means complete or authoritative, but it's still an excellent resource for all of us interested in getting some of these books in the catalogue.

My Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T_h4zL0emRV4mWLno0QmiYHfT71cL_Mn/view?usp=sharing
HathiTrust Link: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001765387
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Carolin
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Post by Carolin »

Wooooow! Well lets get started! :mrgreen:
Carolin
ColleenMc
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Post by ColleenMc »

WOW Chuck, that is quite a resource! I'm going to have fun digging through it.

I've already had my first find from it, indirectly. I was looking to see if the second book on page 2, A Marriage Below Zero by Alan Dale was on Archive or PG (sadly no). But I did find, from the same author:

Familiar Chats With Queens of the Stage by Alan Dale.
https://archive.org/details/familiarchatswit00coheuoft/page/n5

This may not belong in this thread since it doesn't sound like it likely has any overtly LGBTQ content, although given his novel on the bibliography list, he may have been gay.

Maybe it's the context under which I found it, but I can't help hearing the voice of a gossipy "bitchy queen" when I read the bits I've skimmed, like this bit from the opening paragraph:

"LET nobody who takes up this book for perusal, imagine that
I am about to assume the role of a biographer, or that I have
the very smallest ambition in that direction. I am afraid
that I could never be a Boswell to anybody's Johnson, for the simple
reason that I was born without the bump of veneration.
Pity me, kind readers, all of whom, I sincerely trust,
are possessed of every beautiful phrenological attribute known to Dr. Gall.
The ability to venerate is a delightful gift ; the inability a veritable disaster,
bringing forth enemies by the score."

Sure sounds like he is saying, 19th century style, "I'm about to spill some tea, y'all, grab your martini and your feather boa and sit down here next to me!"

...and the book as a whole looks like a hoot.

I've been thinking that I want to get my feet wet with BC-ing and this might have to be my first project!

Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy digging through this bibliography. Chuck, thanks so much for finding and sharing this! It's a treasure!

Colleen
Colleen McMahon

No matter where you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

ColleenMc wrote: January 7th, 2019, 6:52 am WOW Chuck, that is quite a resource! I'm going to have fun digging through it.

I've already had my first find from it, indirectly. I was looking to see if the second book on page 2, A Marriage Below Zero by Alan Dale was on Archive or PG (sadly no). But I did find, from the same author:

Familiar Chats With Queens of the Stage by Alan Dale.
https://archive.org/details/familiarchatswit00coheuoft/page/n5

This may not belong in this thread since it doesn't sound like it likely has any overtly LGBTQ content, although given his novel on the bibliography list, he may have been gay.

Maybe it's the context under which I found it, but I can't help hearing the voice of a gossipy "bitchy queen" when I read the bits I've skimmed, like this bit from the opening paragraph:

"LET nobody who takes up this book for perusal, imagine that
I am about to assume the role of a biographer, or that I have
the very smallest ambition in that direction. I am afraid
that I could never be a Boswell to anybody's Johnson, for the simple
reason that I was born without the bump of veneration.
Pity me, kind readers, all of whom, I sincerely trust,
are possessed of every beautiful phrenological attribute known to Dr. Gall.
The ability to venerate is a delightful gift ; the inability a veritable disaster,
bringing forth enemies by the score."

Sure sounds like he is saying, 19th century style, "I'm about to spill some tea, y'all, grab your martini and your feather boa and sit down here next to me!"

...and the book as a whole looks like a hoot.

I've been thinking that I want to get my feet wet with BC-ing and this might have to be my first project!

Meanwhile, I'm going to enjoy digging through this bibliography. Chuck, thanks so much for finding and sharing this! It's a treasure!

Colleen
Oh my word! What a great find! :-) I'm always in the mood for this sort of catty, gossipy stuff.

Glad you're digging the bibliography. There's so much there I've never even heard of... including the Alan Dale novels.

Speaking of, I found a copy of A Marriage Below Zero on HathiTrust! Let me know if you can't access it, as I can download and send you the PDF, if needed.

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/009472007
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ColleenMc
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Post by ColleenMc »

I would definitely been interested! I skimmed the book a bit on Hathi but find it too cumbersome to read from. I've been trying to figure out how to get a membership that lets me download but so far no luck. I am also interested in Dale's book "When a Man Commutes" that is also only available through Hathi at this point.

Thanks!
Colleen
Colleen McMahon

No matter where you go, there you are. -- Buckaroo Banzai
xios01
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Post by xios01 »

Thought I would share some of my previous findings... I hadn't seen this post, but I had previously been going through Hathitrust, combined with reviewing some current books discussing/reviewing historical lgbt literature... I found the following in Full View on Hathitrust.

Be aware, I've not personally read all of these for myself. Just summary based research at present following up with a review of their Copyright status on Hathitrust.

Two of these have already been completed (one has a group and solo version)...

Butterfly man / by Lew Levenson.
Levenson, Lew.
1969-00-00 (originally published 1934)
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005650023
From Texas, where he was born, the long graceful legs of Ken Gracey bore him to a palatial villa in Malibu, to a brothel in Tia Juana, thence through hobo camps to the magic boards of Broadway … In Texas, Ken Gracey was a normal young man … His transformation into the flaming Butterfly Man, darling of the Third Sex, who rockets through riotous revels from Coast to Coast, is a tragic tale of the youth who never knew himself until too late. Behind the scenes in the secret circle of the halfmen, Ken Gracey lifts the veil for all to see the joys of anti-social love … and its horrors. (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Butterfly_Man)


Concert pitch, by Frank Danby [pseud.]
Frankau, Julia, 1864-1916.
1913-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000326771

The dark mother : a novel / by Waldo Frank.
Frank, Waldo David, 1889-1967.
1920-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000390085
The Dark Mother by Waldo Frank is not a gay novel per se. It is however an excellent example of a novel where the primary intense relationship is the friendship between two men. (http://homofabula.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-dark-mother-by-waldo-frank.html)


The folded leaf, by William Maxwell.
Maxwell, William, 1908-2000.
1945-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000631795
The Folded Leaf is the serenely observed yet deeply moving story of two boys finding one another in the Midwest of the 1920s, when childhood lasted longer than it does today and even adults were more innocent of what life could bring. (https://www.amazon.com/Folded-Leaf-William-Maxwell/dp/0679772561)
He swung and he missed; a novel by Eugene O'Brien.
O'Brien, Eugene.
1937-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006534751
Then follows his seasoning:- a rigorous shade-down training period, disillusion in the discovery that his best friend is a homo, gets transfer from Hampton Roads engineering course to a ship, given the dirty jobs by officers seeking to break his spirit, labelled syphillitic due to a mix-up and poisoned by unnecessary serum, turned into a tough, unprincipled gob, with a hatred for his officers, and his sole ambition, accumulation of enough money to begin again. (https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/eugene-obrien/he-swung-and-he-missed/)
Imre : a memorandum / edited by Xavier Mayne (pseudonym of Edward Irenaeus Prime Stevenson).
Prime-Stevenson, Edward, 1858-1942.
1975-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001194606
Described by the author as "a little psychological romance", the narrative follows two men who by chance meet at a cafe in Budapest, Hungary. Both Oswald, a 30-something British aristocrat, and Imre, a 25-year-old Hungarian military officer, are "insistently masculine types tempered by a love of art".(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imre:_A_Memorandum)
The invisible glass / Loren Wahl.
Wahl, Loren.
1950-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003086657
Set against the backdrop of the Italian front at the end of World War II, Loren Wahl's controversial novel recounts, in a compact narrative set in five intense days, the passions and prejudices that boil inside an African-American company of soldiers commanded by a racist white captain and visited by an Italian-American lieutentant who falls in love with one of the soldiers. (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17453675-the-invisible-glass)
Maybe--tomorrow / by Jay Little ((pseudonym for Clarence Lewis Miller 1911-2001))
Little, Jay, 1917-
1952-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/004196006
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=73236 (In Progress (hopefully, when I get an MC :)) )


Bertram Cope's year, a novel by Henry B. Fuller.
Fuller, Henry Blake, 1857-1929.
1919-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/000205362
https://librivox.org/bertram-copes-year-by-henry-blake-fuller/


Greenmantle / by John Buchan.
Buchan, John, 1875-1940
1916-00-00
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/100860689
https://librivox.org/greenmantle-version-2-by-john-buchan/
https://librivox.org/greenmantle-by-john-buchan/
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

Whoa, xios01! That's quite a haul! :shock:

I'm especially pleased to see that Imre is finally available -- I had presumed it was a little too rare, considering its low print run. It's one that definitely needs to be in the catalogue, although the long bits of Hungarian might be a big hurdle for some.

And here are two works of lesbian literature that might be of interest:

The Bachelor Girl (1923) by Victor Margueritte
HathiTrust Link: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008886466
Wikipedia Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bachelor_Girl

The God of Vengeance by Sholom Ash (1918) [PLAY]
HathiTrust Link: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001334059

Both look very interesting and were controversial at the time of their publication. The God of Vengeance, in particular, looks fascinating, particularly when you find out that the entire cast from the inaugural Broadway production were all arrested for indecency! I'd normally offer to launch that one myself in the dramatic productions section, but I'm trying to scale back the number of projects I'm taking right now and want to focus primarily on solos instead. But yeah... wow!
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xios01
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Post by xios01 »

I do have one other LGBT oriented book that I'm confident is in the public domain...

Alas, it is not present, at the moment, on HathiTrust or Gutenberg... but I have been working on that...
SOOO... If anyone is knowledgeable about submitting a Rule 6 copyright/PD clearance to Gutenberg, I would be ever so grateful for your help/assistance... ...
NOTE: I've done a ton of research on this book, the author, his family, his widow, verified no copyright renewals etc.. AND, I have a copy of this book... However, I'm just not sure how to best to present the evidence...
  • Book Title: This Finer Shadow
  • Author: Harlan Cozad Mcintosh (1913 - 1940)...
    Ironically, he committed suicide BECAUSE he couldn't get the book published, Rejected after multiple revisions by multiple publishers.. This is his first, one and only novel...
  • Date of publication: 1941 (published posthumously by Jane (Hardy) McIntosh, his widow)
I have verified there are No copyright renewal records found in copyright renewal registrations from 1967-1971 (28+-2 years) in his name, his wife's name(s), by name of book etc..

I do not believe that this book is some critical literary read by any stretch of the imagination...
Regardless, I believe it has its place in LGBT literary history...
ChuckW
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Post by ChuckW »

So I found two more books that might be worth considering:

Joseph and His Friend: A Story of Pennsylvania by Bayard Taylor
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_and_His_Friend:_A_Story_of_Pennsylvania
Text: https://archive.org/details/josephandhisfri00taylgoog/page/n5

Diana Victrix by Florence Converse
Text: https://archive.org/details/dianavictrixnove00conviala/page/n6

There's also Lord Byron's Don Leon, which is listed on the LGBT literature bibliography I found and is not (shockingly) in the LV catalogue yet:

Text: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/002104331

Finally, I should also mention that I'm flirting with the idea of putting together a collection of some of the LGBT short fiction and/or poetry I've found through various bibliographies and anthologies. Most of the stories have not been recorded for Librivox (although some of the more notable works, like the stuff from Wilde and Stein, obviously have), and this would be a great way to collect some of these works in a single place. I'm not sure if I'm going to do both short fiction and poetry or just short fiction, but it'll probably be a while before I get to this so I have plenty of time to decide. So if anyone wants to recommend some long-forgotten texts for possible inclusion, let me know. I've got an ever-growing list that I'm sure will be gargantuan by the time I actually get to this.

EDIT: Oh, and I also launched "At Saint Judas'" in the latest One Act Collection, if anyone's interested in joining that.
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