LGBTQ+ Literature Of Love Forbidden and Anna Elisabet Weirauch’s Lesbian Classic

Anna Elisabet Weirauch Lesbian Literature Pulp

Book

Weirauch, Anna Elisabet. Of Love Forbidden, 1964, brought Weirauch’s early twentieth-century lesbian fiction into the American mass-market paperback trade under a new title and with advertising that characterized same sex desire as “unnatural love.” The book derives from Der Skorpion, Weirauch’s trilogy concerning lesbian protagonist Mette Rudloff; its first volume appeared in Germany in 1919, followed by a second in 1921, while an English translation by Whittaker Chambers appeared as The Scorpion in 1932. Weirauch had previously worked in Max Reinhardt’s acting company at Berlin’s Deutsches Theater and later pursued a lengthy literary career; she shared a decades-long relationship with Helena Geisenhainer.

Weirauch, Anna Elisabet. Of Love Forbidden. Greenwich, Conn: Crest Book, 1964. Third edition. Mass-market softcover paperback. The predominantly white cover uses bright red typography above a photographic portrait of a woman positioned in the lower corner. Its promotional line reads, “Haunting story of a girl caught in the web of an unnatural love,” showing how a work first published decades earlier was repackaged through the sensational language of the 1960s lesbian paperback market. Within Der Skorpion, the designation “scorpion” is associated with a masculine-presenting lesbian type, making gender presentation and lesbian social recognition part of the novel’s vocabulary rather than merely a later cover convention.

One volume, 192 pages. Original pictorial wrappers; as issued, no dust jacket. Mass-market paperback measuring 4.25" x 7". Cover remains bright and clean, and the textblock is tight. Overall very good condition. This 1964 edition records the migration of Weirauch’s prewar German lesbian fiction into the postwar American paperback market, where the earlier novel was retitled and promoted through language emphasizing forbidden sexuality.

Item #19584

Price: $155.00