Checklist Part 9

MAUPa.s.sANT, GUY DE. _Paul's Mistress._ ss in various collections including Cory, _21 Variations on a Theme_.

MAYHALL, JANE. _Cousin to Human._ Harcourt, Brace 1960. Valeda, friend of the heroine, has a sad, depressing affair with an adolescent schoolgirl athlete friend, named Mildred.

MEAGHER, MAUDE. _The Green Scamander._ Houghton Mifflin, 1933. A novel of the Trojan war, largely concerned with the pa.s.sionate friendship between Penthesilea, co-queen with the Amazon tribe, and her co-ruler Camilla. Beautifully written, available in most medium-sized libraries.

MEEKER, RICHARD. _The Better Angel._ Greenberg 1933, pbr Universal Pub. tct _Torment_ ca. 1952, (m).

+ MEREZOWSKII, DMITRI. (Trans. from Russian by Natalia A.

Duddington) London, J. M. Dent & Co, 1925, 1926. _Birth of the G.o.ds._ A fine novel of Crete and the bull-dancers (and perhaps the first of its kind). Dio, a strangely bis.e.xual young girl, priestess of the Great Mother, though attracted and attractive to men, is vowed to remain a virgin in the service of the G.o.ddess; much of the novel is devoted to her pa.s.sionate friendship for her young novice, Eoia. One of Dio's rejected lovers, believing that the "little witch" has cast a spell on Dio to prevent her loving him, plots to have Eoia killed in the ring; instead Eoia's death nearly destroys Dio as well.

_Akhnaton, King of Egypt._ (as above) London, Dent, 1927.

Continues and concludes the story of Dio.

MERGENDAHL, CHARLES. _The Girl Cage._ pbo Gold Medal 1953, 1959.

Brief, minor lesbian episode in a novel about war widows.

MERRITT, A(braham); _The Metal Monster._ Copyright Munsey Magazines, (this ran serially in Argosy ca. 1920) Revised version, Frank A. Munsey 1941, pbr Avon, 1946. Offbeat variant episode in an adventure-fantasy; Norhala, pagan slave of the "metal people"

steals the explorer's sister, Ruth, to "play with her"; after her death Ruth weeps, saying "she loved me dearly, dearly," but significantly can remember nothing of their time together. Wildly fantastic, good of type.

METALIOUS, GRACE. _Return to Peyton Place._ Messner 1959, pbr Dell 1959. Another s.e.xy "expose" of a small town. In one episode, the unpleasant wife of a local boy recalls her schooldays, when she taunted and enslaved a lesbian schoolmate.

MEYER, GLADYS ELEANOR, _The Magic Circle._ Knopf, 1944. fco Subtle novel of close friendship between two women; never explicit, and on the borderline for variant interest.

+ MILLAY, KATHLEEN. _Against the Wall._ Macaulay, 1929. College novel by the sister of the well-known poet (see poetry supplement).

MILLER, WALTER M. "The Lineman" ss in Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1957, (m). Excellent att.i.tudes on h.o.m.os.e.xuality in general, in short story of isolated men.

MILLER, HENRY. _Plexus._ Paris, Olympia Press 1953, 2 vols.

Chapter 16 of the 2nd Volume is supposed to be devoted to a variant affair. Most of Henry Miller's books cannot be legally imported into the USA-this is one-and your editors haven't been to Paris yet. When you go, tell us.

MISHIMA, YUKIO. _Confessions of a Mask._ New Directions 1958, (m).

+ MITCh.e.l.l, S. WEIR. _Constance Trescott._ N. Y., Century 1900. The plus is to draw attention to an old, overlooked t.i.tle. Major (for its date) treatment of variant enslavement between two half sisters.

+ MITCHISON, NAOMI. _The Delicate Fire._ Harcourt, N. Y. 1932. A major writer, and scholar, presents a collection of lovely short stories of ancient Greece; the t.i.tle story deals with Sappho and her group of girl lovers.

_The Corn King and the Spring Queen._ Harcourt, 1931, (m).

"Black Sparta" and "Krypteia" in _Greek Stories_, Harcourt, 1928, (m).

MORAVIA, ALBERTO. _The Conformist._ Farrar, Straus & Young 1951, pbr Signet 1954. Penetrating study of a fascist whose compulsive drive for power destroys everyone he loves. An interlude between his wife and a friend provides a brief diversion before the macabre ending.

MOORE, HAL. _The Naked and the Fair._ pbo, Beacon, 1958, scv.

MOORE, PAMELA. _Chocolates for Breakfast._ Rinehart 1956, pbr Bantam 1957. Candid, shocking story of a young girl's disintegration; the opening episodes involve her rejection by a teacher on whom she has a crush, and there are variant overtones in her prolonged friendship with a school roommate, Janet's suicide being the spur which makes Courtney resolve to pull herself together.

MORELL, LEE. _Mimi._ pbo Beacon Books 1959. Unusually good evening waster about night-club and theatrical people, with both male and female h.o.m.os.e.xual episodes; handled with subtlety and lightness almost unknown in this publisher's paperbacks.

+ MORGAN, CLAIRE. (pseud of Patricia Highsmith) _The Price of Salt._ Coward-McCann, 1952, pbr Bantam 1953, 1959. Fine novel of an affair between two very nice, very courageous, very well-adjusted women whose initial attraction becomes the mainspring of both their lives. The author does not use one single stereotype or cliche; this is probably _the_ American novel of the lesbian.

MORGAN, NANCY. _City of Women_, pbo Gold Medal 1952, 1959. Lesbian episodes in a novel of women living in barracks at Pearl Harbor.

MORLEY, IRIS. _The Proud Paladin._ N. Y. Morrow 1936. Lesbian content vague and doubtful, BAYOR and fco.

MORRO, DON. _The Virgin._ pbo Beacon 1955, released in 1959. scv.

MOSS, GEOFFREY. _That Other Love._ Doubleday, 1930. A long-continued affair between Phillida and an older friend breaks off because of the younger woman's desire for children.

MOTLEY, WILLARD. _Knock on Any Door._ N. Y., Appleton-Century, 1947, pbr Signet 1953, (m).

+ MURDOCH, IRIS. _The Bell._ N. Y. Viking 1958, (m). A fine, occasionally funny novel of an Anglican lay church-community centers around Michael Meade, a man of honor, intelligence, and integrity-and a h.o.m.os.e.xual. His hopes of being ordained as a priest were destroyed when, as a schoolteacher, he became entangled with young Nick; Nick's appearance at the community destroys Michael's peace of mind thoroughly, and an obliquely handled relationship between Nick, Michael and a guileless youngster, Toby, spending the summer at the community, eventually destroys the community entirely. But it isn't all gloom and doom; the level of the writing is highly competent, sometimes wildly hilarious, and through all his difficulties Michael is able to realize that eventually he will "experience again ... that infinitely extended requirement which one human being makes on another." A book which emphasizes the triumph of love, and one of the recent best. ((Editor's note; why are the best novels of male h.o.m.os.e.xuality written by women? Mesdames Renault and Murdoch are giving their best to the men. Is it a question of detachment?))

MURPHY, DENNIS. _The Sergeant._ Viking 1958, pbr Crest 1959, (m).

MURRAY, WILLIAM. _The Fugitive Romans._ pbo, Popular Library 1955.

Brief variant episode among a Hollywood location crew abroad.

NEILSEN, HELEN. _The Fifth Caller._ Morrow, 1959. Dr. Lillian Whitehall, metaphysician, is murdered; as each of her five callers is interviewed to find the guilty party, it develops that the dead woman was a cruel, domineering repressed lesbian. Well written, though unsympathetic.

NEFF, WANDA FRAIKEN. _We Sing Diana._ Boston, Houghton 1928. Story of a girl too inhibited to face her own nature.

NILES, BLAIR. _Strange Brother._ N. Y. Liveright 1931, pbr Harris Publications 1949, pbr Avon 1952, 1958, 1959.

NIN, ANAIS. _Winter of Artifice._ Paris, Obelisk Press 1939, also in _Under a Gla.s.s Bell_, Dutton, 1948. The first edition has 100 pages or so, not included in later editions, in which she recounts her liaison with a famous American writer and his wife, all disguised, of course. (All of this writer's work seems to be vaguely tinged with variance.)

_Ladders to Fire._ Dutton, 1945, 1946.

NORDAY, MICHAEL. _Stage for Fools._ Vixen Press 1955. pbr tct _Strange Thirsts_, Beacon 1959. Evening waster about a lush actress making a comeback on a college campus, who revenges herself on an indifferent male by entrapping his girl into a drunken lesbian episode and inviting him to watch the show. A shocker.

_Warped._ Beacon pbo 1955, 1960. Very apt t.i.tle; evening waster about a crooked fight game. One sympathetically portrayed lesbian character in the many mixed affairs.

NORMANDIE, ROGER. _The Lion's Den._ N. Y., Key 1957. scv.

+ O'BRIEN, KATE. _As Music and Splendor._ Harper. 1958. Novel of two very different young Irish girls sent to study music on the Continent during the great age of Italian opera; their personal lives differ as widely as their careers. One, Clare Halvey, drifts into a love affair with Luisa Carriaga, a Spanish contralto; their relationship is treated delicately, but with warmth and impersonal sympathy. Excellent for opera lovers and for those who are tired to death of books where every last detail is spelled out as frankly as the law allows.

+ O'DONOVAN, JOAN. _Dangerous Worlds._ Morrow, 1958. Collection of excellent short stories.

O'HIGGINS, HARVEY. _The Story of Julie Cane._ Harper, 1924.

Explicit, for its day, story of an intense relationship between a schoolmistress and her ward.

OLIVIA (see DOROTHY BUSSY).

O'NEILL, ROSE. _The Goblin Woman._ N. Y. Doubleday 1930. Fey, symbolic novel of Helga, the Goblin Woman (who represents purity) set down in a society far from pure. There are many lesbian episodes and references to inter-feminine love. (see poetry supplement.)

O'HARA, NOEL. _The Last Virgin._ Chariot Books pb 1959. This is a reprint of David George Kin's "Women Without Men", containing six of the ten stories; new t.i.tle, new author, even new copyright date-who's kidding who? It does not contain the d.a.m.ning introduction, and without it, appears fairly sympathetic. Curious little item.

PACKER, VIN (pseud; see also ANN ALDRICH) _Spring Fire._ pbo Gold Medal 1952. Now well-known and rather gamy novel of sorority house life and an unhappy lesbian affair between naive freshman Mitch and neurotic Lana.