FOSTER, Jeannette Howard; _Sex 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 titles 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 homosexuality come also within the province of the serious collector of lesbiana. We make, however, no claim for completeness for novels which fall within the homosexual, rather than the lesbian province. In general, the male titles 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 homosexuality, we suggest the comprehensive bibliography compiled by Noel I. Garde, discussed in the Appendix of Related Publications. Mr. Garde has indexed virtually every homosexual 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 classification 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.)