Boston's LGBTQ+ History: Books By Local LGBTQ+ Authors
On This Page...
... You will find books in the BPL collection by LGBTQ+ authors with a connection to Boston and the surrounding communities. If there is a book or author you don't see here and think should be included, please let us know!
A Note on History and Identity
The constantly changing nature of social attitudes towards questions of sexual orientation and gender identity has, throughout history, drastically affected the way people self identify and present those identities to the world around them. The biographical subjects in this section may or may not have identified with a modern conception of the LGBTQ+ community, and applying modern labels to historical figures and behaviors is often difficult or counterproductive. As such, some of the biographical subjects listed here are those which are cited by published histories, academic research, or community traditions as being historical antecedents to the LGBTQ+ community of Boston today.
Out and Proud: Modern Authors
Queer and Loathing by Call Number: RA644.A25 F45 1994ISBN: 9780670857661Publication Date: 1994-11-22""This is as close to the truth as I can get," writes David B. Feinberg in this stunning nonfiction debut - a collection of autobiographical essays, gonzo journalism, and demented Feinbergian lists about AIDS activism and living, writing, and dying with AIDS. With the startling blend of satiric wit and pathos, black humor and heroism, found in his widely acclaimed and iconoclastic novels, he charts a harrowing personal journey down that "HIV highway to hell.""--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The Gilda Stories by Call Number: FICTION GOMEZ JISBN: 9780872866744Publication Date: 2016-03-29Before Buffy, before Twilight, before Octavia Butler's Fledgling, there was The Gilda Stories, Jewelle Gomez's sexy vampire novel.
Don't Explain by Call Number: FICTION PS3557.O457 D66 1998ISBN: 9781563410956Publication Date: 1998-05-01As in The Gilda Stories, her acclaimed Black lesbian vampire novel, Don't Explain is marked by the writer's trademark rich, highly sensual language. Well-versed in the traditions of African-American writing, Gomez moves from lesbian life in Boston in the 1960s (the title story) to a futuristic fantasy, "Houston", a previously unpublished Gilda story. The centerpiece novella, "Lynx and Strand", explores some of the darkest dreams and fears of American culture as we hurtle toward the millenium.
In Library Use Only
Culture Clash by Call Number: HQ76.3 .U5 B69 1984ISBN: 9780896082182Publication Date: 1999-07-01From Walt Whitman to Boy George, gay culture has profoundly shaped American society.
Pleasure Principle by Call Number: HQ76.8.U5 B76 1998ISBN: 9780312156251Publication Date: 1998-07-15Culture, Backlash, and the Struggle for Gay Freedom A brilliant and provocative look at the gay movement - its cultural success and political failure, and its relationship to mainstream culture.
Pulp Friction by Call Number: FICTION PULP-FRIISBN: 9780312252670Publication Date: 2003-01-14Long before the rise of the modern gay movement, an unnoticed literary revolution was occurring, mostly between the covers of the cheaply produced pulp paperbacks of the post-World War II era. Cultural critic Michael Bronski collects a sampling of these now little-known gay erotic writings--some by writers long forgotten, some never known and a few now famous. Through them, Bronski challenges many long-held views of American postwar fiction and the rise of gay literature, as well as of the culture at large.
A Queer History of the United States by Call Number: HQ76.3 .U5B696 2011ISBN: 9780807044391Publication Date: 2011-05-10Winner of a 2012 Stonewall Book Award in nonfiction The first book to cover the entirety of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history, from pre-1492 to the present.
Taking Liberties by Call Number: HQ76.2.U5 T35 1996 - In Library Use OnlyISBN: 9781563334566Publication Date: 1996-09-01In assembling this anthology of 25 essays, speeches, and performance pieces, cultural critic/writer/activist Bronski rejects the notion of a single gay perspective by including work from such disparate voices as Bruce Bawer ("Notes on Stonewall"), Andrew Sullivan ("The Politics of Homosexuality"), Tony Kushner ("On Pretentiousness"), John Preston ("What You Learn After Thirty Years of S/M"), Lawrence Mass ("Musical Closets"), and Jesse Green ("The Men from the Boys").
You Can Tell Just by Looking by Call Number: HQ75.5 .B7596 2013ISBN: 9780807042458Publication Date: 2013-10-012014 Lambda Literary Award Finalist- LGBT NonfictionBreaks down the most commonly held misconceptions about lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their lives
- Afterlife by Call Number: PS3563.O523 A69 1990 - In Library Use OnlyISBN: 9780517573396Publication Date: 1990-02-17National Book Award-winner Paul Monette presents a transcendent, powerful novel of three AIDS widowers who have seen each other through the worst of times -- and have found the courage to hope for the best.
Becoming a Man by Call Number: HQ75.8.M64 A3 1993ISBN: 9780062507242Publication Date: 1993-06-11A child of the 1950s from a small New England town, "perfect Paul" earns straight A's and shines in social and literary pursuits, all the while keeping a secret -- from himself and the rest of the world. Struggling to be, or at least to imitate, a straight man, through Ivy League halls of privilege and bohemian travels abroad, loveless intimacy and unrequited passion, Paul Monette was haunted, and finally saved, by a dream of "the thing I'd never even seen: two men in love and laughing." Searingly honest, witty, and humane, Becoming a Man is the definitive coming-out story in the classic coming-of-age genre.
Borrowed Time by Call Number: RC607.A26 M66 1990x - In Library Use OnlyISBN: 9780380707799Publication Date: 1990-03-01This "tender and lyrical" memoir (New York Times Book Review) remains one of the most compelling documents of the AIDS era-"searing, shattering, ultimately hope inspiring account of a great love story" (San Francisco Examiner). A National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and the winner of the PEN Center West literary award.- Halfway Home by Call Number: FICTION PS3563.O523 H35 1991 - In Library Use OnlyISBN: 9780517583296Publication Date: 1991-03-27
Last Watch of the Night by Call Number: PS3563 .O523L3 1995xISBN: 9780156002028Publication Date: 1995-04-15With Borrowed Time and Becoming a Man-the 1992 National Book Award winner for nonfiction-this collection completes Paul Monette’s autobiographical writing. Brimming with outrage yet tender, this is a “remarkable book” (Philadelphia Inquirer).
Sanctuary by Call Number: FICTION MONETTE PISBN: 9780684832869Publication Date: 1997-02-14The New Order among animals in a forest. After Great Horned Owl captures power, he announces a program to defend the original inhabitants--the First Ones--from an invasion of refugees and exiles, threatening the forest's way of life. When a female rabbit and a female fox decide to live together Owl has them banished. Eventually Owl is overthrown by a wizard. A political fable by the late author of Becoming a Man.- West of Yesterday, East of Summer by Call Number: PS3563.O523 W47 1994ISBN: 9780312113797Publication Date: 1994-07-01Comments by the author accompany his selection of elegies and poems about AIDS, grief, love, and perseverance.
Brian McNaught, who served as the Mayor's Liaison to the Gay and Lesbian Community from 1982 to 1984, also wrote several books on the subject of LGBTQ+ life and civil rights.
- A Disturbed Peace by Call Number: HQ75.8.M36 A33 1981ISBN: 9780940680005Publication Date: 1981-08-01In Library Use Only
- Gay Issues in the Workplace by Call Number: HQ76.3.U5 M4 1993ISBN: 9780312098087Publication Date: 1993-11-01In Library Use Only
Now That I'm Out, What Do I Do? by Call Number: HQ76.3.U5 M395 1997ISBN: 9780312156169Publication Date: 1997-04-15In a series of essays both prescriptive and inspirational, Brian McNaught, the author of On Being Gay and one of the most prominent writers on the issue of sexuality, leads readers through the basic issues that gay men and lesbians will have to confront as they try to find a place for themselves in an often hostile world.
On Being Gay by Call Number: HQ76.25 .M375 1988ISBN: 9780312029593Publication Date: 1989-04-15Thoughts on Family, Faith and Love
- The Boston Collection of Women's Poetry by Call Number: PS549.B6 B64 1983 - In-Library Use OnlyISBN: 0915087022Publication Date: 1984-01-01An Anthology of Poetry by Women Who Participated in the Gay/Feminist Poetry Contest 1983 Sponsored by Brush Hill Press, Boston, Massachusetts
Those That Went Before: Historical Authors
The constantly changing nature of social attitudes towards questions of sexual orientation and gender identity has, throughout history, drastically affected the way people self identify and present those identities to the world around them. The authors in this section may or may not have identified with a modern conception of the LGBTQ+ community, and applying modern labels to historical figures and behaviors is often difficult or counterproductive. The authors listed here are those which are cited by published histories, academic research, or community traditions as being historical antecedents to the LGBTQ+ community of Boston today.
Most famous for writing "America the Beautiful," poet Katharine Lee Bates (1859-1929) was a professor of English literature at Wellesley College and lived with fellow Wellesley professor Katharine Coman, a historian and social activist, until Coman's death in 1915. The two often traveled the world together, and built a house together. At the time, such relationships between female academics were relatively common, particularly at Wellesley, and were commonly referred to as "Boston Marriages" or "Wellesley Marriages."
America the Beautiful by Call Number: J E178.5 .A55 2013ISBN: 9780545492072Publication Date: 2013-01-01- Economic Beginnings of the Far West by Call Number: HC107.A17 C7 1969 - In Library Use OnlyPublication Date: 1969
- From Gretna Green to Land's End by Call Number: DA630 .B32 - In Library Use OnlyPublication Date: 1907
- Sigurd Our Golden Collie And Other Comrades of the Road by Call Number: QL791 .B3 1920x - In Library Use OnlyPublication Date: 1920Item digitized by the Internet Archive at https://archive.org/details/sigurdourgoldenc00bate/page/n1
Famous as a central figure of the modernist and expatriate arts community in Paris during the early 20th century, Pennsylvania-born Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) received her undergraduate degree in 1898 from Radcliffe College, which was the all-woman partner institution of all-male Harvard University at the time. Among Stein's most famous works is her semi-fictional account of her life in Paris, written through the point of view of her long time lover and partner, Alice B. Toklas, and several of Stein's other works describe lesbian relationships.
The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Call Number: PS3537.T323 Z463 1993ISBN: 9780679600817Publication Date: 1993-09-07Through the eyes of Miss Toklas, Gertrude Stein reviews both of their lives before their meeting and during their years of companionship.- Dear Sammy: Letters From Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas by Call Number: PS3537.T323 Z547 - In Library Use OnlyISBN: 9780395253403Publication Date: 1977-01-01
The Making of Americans by Call Number: PS3537.T323 M3 1995ISBN: 9781564780881Publication Date: 1995-12-01In "The Making of Americans," Gertrude Stein sets out to tell "a history of a family's progress," radically reworking the traditional family saga novel to encompass her vision of personality and psychological relationships. As the history progresses over three generations, Stein also meditates on her own writing, on the making of "The Making of Americans," and on America.- Wars I Have Seen by Call Number: PS3537 .T323 W3 1984xPublication Date: First Published 1945, this edition 1984
Writings, 1903-1932 by Call Number: PS3537.T323 A6 1998 - In Library Use OnlyISBN: 9781883011406Publication Date: 1998-03-01
One of BPL's own, Edith Guerrier (1870-1958) was a librarian, author, and educator who ran "Saturday Evening Girls" reading and writing clubs for young immigrant women out of the North End Branch Library in the early 1900s, before taking time off in the late 1910s to work for the Wilson Administration, then returning to become the supervisor for all BPL branches in the 1920s. She lived together with her longtime companion Edith Brown in a house in Brighton, out of which they also ran Paul Revere Pottery Inc, a company which employed many of the same young women that attended the Saturday Evening Girls club.
- An Independent Woman: The Autobiography of Edith Guerrier by Call Number: Z720.G89 A3 1992ISBN: 9780870237560Publication Date: 1992-01-08
- Wanderfolk in Wonderland: A Book of Animal Fable Stories by Call Number: RARE BKS PZ8.2.G7 - In Library Use Only (Temporarily Unavailable)Publication Date: 1903
- The Story of the Saturday Evening GirlsCall Number: 2399B.661 - In Library use OnlyPublication Date: 1929The story of the Saturday Evening Girls
dedicated to Edith Guerrier and Helen Osborne Storrow : especially written for the reunion Thursday evening, December 12, 1929 at the West End House, 16 Blossom Street, Boston, Mass
Sharing an abiding interest in and love for 19th Century American art and literature, Harvard literary critic F.O. Matthiessen (1902-1950)and New England painter Russell Cheney embarked upon a two decade long relationship in the mid 1920s.While they never publicly disclosed their relationship, they were open about it with their close friends and wrote about it in their letters, a collection of which are available at the BPL. Cheney's art has been displayed at the Musuem of Fine Arts, Boston, and Matthiessen's critical works were suplemented by left wing political activism. Potentially still devastated by Cheney's death due to illness in 1945 and afraid of being victimized by the growing Red Scare in American politics, Matthiessen committed suicide in 1950.
- The Achievement of T. S. Eliot, An Essay on the Nature of Poetry by Call Number: PS3509.L43 Z74 1958Publication Date: 1958Available at BPL Brighton Branch
American Renaissance by Call Number: PS201 .M3ISBN: 9780195007596Publication Date: 1968-12-31Studies the views of 5 prominent mid-19th century writers on the function and nature of literature and how they applied these views to their works.- The Oxford Book of American VerseCall Number: PS583 .O82 - In Library Use OnlyPublication Date: 1950Chosen and With An Introd. by F. O. Matthiessen
- The Rat and the Devil by Call Number: PS29.M35 A43 1978ISBN: 9780208016553Publication Date: 1978-05-01Journal Letters of F. O. Matthiessen and Russell Cheney
- The Responsibilities of the Critic: Essays and Reviews by Call Number: PS121 .M3 - In Library Use OnlyPublication Date: 1952
