Product Description

A collection of fiction by and about lesbians features an introduction that contrasts the feminist polemic of Virginia Woolf with the liberated creativity of Gertrude Stein and stories by Kathy Acker, Emma Donoghue, and Jeanette Winterson. 10,000 first printing. $15,000 ad/promo.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1884762 in Books
• Published on: 1994-01-14
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 480 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Showing the full range of fictional expression, this adventurous anthology opens with Sarah Orne Jewett's 1897 story, "Martha's Lady," a delicate yet impassioned evocation of a furtive lesbian love and closes with Jeanette Winterson's lyrical, uninhibited "The Poetics of Sex" (1993). Its 32 selections trace a historical pattern in lesbian experience as it moves from invisibility and ambivalence to greater self-acceptance. Many of the pieces are experimental, such as Kathy Acker's sardonic dream vision of heterosexual marriage, and Canadian Nicole Brossard's incantatory monologue meant to close the distance between the speaker, her mother, her daughter and her lover. Among the authors--lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual--are Margaret Atwood, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein, Radclyffe Hall, Katherine Mansfield, Colette, Anais Nin, Isak Dinesen, Monique Wittig, Sara Maitland and Pat Califia. Two pieces feature pictures: Alison Bechdel's comic strip "Serial Monogamy," whose disillusioned protagonist forces readers to reexamine set attitudes about lesbians and straights; and Djuna Barnes's 17th-century pastiche "Ladies Almanack" (1928), a daybook of the exploits of a much-in-demand hostess complete with woodcuts. Reynolds, who has written abiography of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, enlarges the dimensions of the lesbian experience in this rewarding omnibus.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
In the last half-dozen years, collections of lesbian plays, coming-out stories, mysteries, and poetry have been published, mostly by small presses. Now, The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories strides into place alongside the others. This book takes the long perspective, reaching back to Sarah Orne Jewett at the turn of the century, Radclyffe Hall in the Thirties, and Isak Dinesen and Ann Bannon in the late Fifties. Stretching forward, it encompasses contemporary writers such as Jewelle Gomez, Emma Donoghue, Dorothy Allison, and Jeannette Winterson, who supplied the introduction. These stories are like a thick stew containing many types of characters in different settings. Rarely, the editor clarifies a passage with a note, more of which would have been helpful. As Virginia Woolf notes in A Room of One's Own , "It would be a thousand pities if women wrote like men,... for if two sexes are quite inadequate, considering the vastness and variety of the world, how should we manage with one only?" The many talented writers published here reveal the truth of that assertion. For any public library where demand for short stories is great.
- Lisa Nussbaum, Euclid P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The 33 stories here, one in comics format and three previously unpublished, constitute an interesting foray into lesbian writing of the last 100 years. There is little to quarrel with about the selected authors, who include names new and old that can't be ignored when lesbian and writer are used in the same sentence--Stein, Hall, Woolf, Rule, and (Dorothy) Allison, for instance. Surefire commercial sellers such as Pat Califia, Ana{‹}is Nin, and Jeannette (Sexing the Cherry) Winterson also appear. But one wonders about Margaret Atwood's "Cold-blooded"; editor Reynolds says it's about "politics and alienation," but there's little of the lesbian in its moth people from another planet. Such entries make the anthology seem hastily assembled. Some egregious interpretations and errors in Reynolds' introduction also disturb, and Reynolds' definition of lesbian writing as that which "exhibits, within the confines of the text itself, something which makes it distinctively about, or for, or out of lesbian experience" and her warning against assuming anyone "who writes on lesbian subjects must be herself a lesbian" seem to license the book's scattergun inclusiveness. Nevertheless, the volume belongs in most general collections. Marie Kuda

Customer Reviews

Something for everyone
Whatever you're looking for, it's probably in here. I have returned to this book both when looking for a good read and when writing essays (for example on lesbian modernists): as well as having some wonderful stories spanning a broad range of styles, the introduction is damn good critical stuff and contains some very useful references. Thank goodness they've changed the cover; the previous edition featuring two half-naked women (whom you wouldn't want to run into on a dark evening) was somewhat embarrassing to be seen with at the university library.

As well as enjoying the stories in their own right, I also found they led me to writers I hadn't encountered before. Some of my favourites include the extract from "A Room of One's Own", "Lullaby for my Dyke and her Cat" and "The Secret of Sorrerby Rise" (as well as the introduction to the book, funnily enough); and for all those Alison Bechdel fans out there, rest assured she's in there too.

Delving into the Pool of lesbianism
Its the one compilation that has truely touched the humour, the enticing void of what it is to fall in love and what it is like to be ironically a normal lesbian, the pictures are pretty good as well :)

Outstanding anthology for any book collection
I bought this book for two authors I can not get enough of - Jane Rule and Joan Nestle.

Stories range from coming out , cross dressing, vampires, sci-fi, comic and of course romance.

32 stories from a tremendously diverse collection of authors dating from 1897 to 1993, including the terrific -

Emma Donoghue
Virgina Woolf
Jeanette Winterson
Anais Nin
Ann Bannon
Radclyffe Hall
Dorothy Allison,
Colette
Pat Califia
Isak Dinesen
Sarah Orne Jewett
Renee Vivien
Djuana Barnes
Rebecca Brown
Jewelle Gomez
Margaret Atwood
Anna Livia
Gertrude Stein
Dorothy Strachey

Also includes short-short author biographies and a comprehensive 22 page introduction.

This is a Keeper!

Both covers have their merits!