Lesbian Pulp Fiction and Female Desire in Barbara Brooks Paperbacks, 1965

Barbara Brooks Lesbian Literature Pulp

Collection

Brooks, Barbara. Two mass-market paperback novels published by Tower Publications in 1965, A Shameless Need and Taboo, present female same-sex desire through the sensational language and cover conventions of mid-century lesbian pulp fiction. Both books center relationships between women and advertise those narratives directly on their wrappers: A Shameless Need describes a protagonist “Torn between love for a young girl and lust for an evil woman,” while Taboo announces a relationship that “began as an act of sudden impulse but became a habit neither of them could break.” The pair documents how lesbian relationships were packaged for the American paperback market through explicit taglines, dramatic interpersonal conflict, and cover imagery centered on women.

Two first-edition mass-market paperbacks published in New York by Tower Publications in 1965, each comprising 160 pages. A Shameless Need measures 4.5 × 7 inches and has bright blue pictorial wrappers showing a young woman using a telephone. Taboo measures 4.25 × 7 inches; its red pictorial cover shows one woman smoking a cigarette while looking toward another woman. An orange 95-cent price sticker remains at the upper left of the Taboo cover.

[1] Brooks, Barbara. A Shameless Need. New York: Tower Publications, 1965. First edition. 160 pages. 4.5 × 7 inches. The novel is promoted as a lesbian love triangle through the cover line, “Torn between love for a young girl and lust for an evil woman.” Its bright blue wrapper and telephone scene place the romantic conflict between women at the center of the book’s commercial presentation.

[2] Brooks, Barbara. Taboo. New York: Tower Publications, 1965. First edition. 160 pages. 4.25 × 7 inches. The wrapper depicts two women against a bright red background, one smoking while gazing toward the other, beneath the tagline, “It began as an act of sudden impulse but became a habit neither of them could break.” The surviving 95-cent sticker also records the book’s original mass-market retail context.

Overall Very Good Condition. The two volumes preserve the language and visual strategies through which publishers marketed lesbian narratives to American paperback readers in the mid-1960s.

Item #19531

Price: $320.00