LGBTQ Literature, Jay Carr’s Unnatural Wife and Lesbian Pulp Fiction, 1966

Jay Carr Lesbian Literature Pulp

Book

Carr, Jay [James Duff]. Unnatural Wife, 1966, documents the sensationalized treatment of lesbian desire in midcentury mass-market pulp fiction. Written by James Duff under the pseudonym Jay Carr, the novel centers on a married couple whose extramarital relationships both involve other women, combining adultery, revenge, exploitation, and same-sex desire. Its publisher advertised the subject explicitly as transgressive, declaring on the verso, “A novel that dares to touch a taboo subject.”

Carr, Jay [James Duff]. Unnatural Wife. New York: Softcover Library, 1966. 154 pages. Illustrated wrappers. 4 x 7 inches. No dust jacket, as issued. The front wrapper depicts two women in an intimate domestic setting, one seated while the other dresses, beneath the promotional line: “A shocking revealing story of women who can't resist--women!” Both the image and copy identify female same-sex desire as the book’s principal commercial appeal while framing it through the language of shock and prohibition characteristic of pulp marketing.

By 1966, lesbian-themed paperbacks had circulated widely in the United States for more than a decade, placing stories of relationships and sexual desire between women within inexpensive popular publishing while frequently subjecting those stories to sensational titles, eroticized covers, and claims of forbidden subject matter. Unnatural Wife preserves those commercial conventions particularly clearly: its title, cover scene, tagline, and “taboo subject” statement show how publishers presented lesbian sexuality to the mass-market paperback reader. Creasing and stretch marks to front wrapper; age-related toning throughout from pulp paper; rubbing to spine panel affecting two words of the title. Colors remain bright; overall very good condition.

Item #19101

Price: $225.00