LGBTQ+ Literature Lesbian Pulp Fiction by Openly Queer Women Writers 1957 to 1970 Including Taylor Rule and DuChamp

Laura DuChamp Valerie Taylor

Collection

Taylor, Valerie. Whisper Their Love. Salem, Randy. Man Among Women. DuChamp, Laura. The Other Extreme. Rule, Jane. This Is Not For You. These mid-twentieth century lesbian pulp novels provide direct documentation of queer women writing and circulating narratives of same-sex desire within a commercial publishing environment largely dominated by male authors using pseudonyms. Issued between 1957 and 1970, these works coincide with a period in which homosexuality remained criminalized and widely pathologized in North America, while paperback publishing expanded access to controversial subject matter through mass-market distribution. Valerie Taylor, writing under the name Velma Nacella Young, and Jane Rule, a central figure in Canadian gay rights and anti-censorship advocacy, contributed fiction grounded in lived experience and identity formation, while authors such as Sally Singer, writing as Laura DuChamp, and Pat Purdue, writing as Randy Salem, engaged similar themes within pulp conventions. Several titles align with evaluative frameworks developed by Barbara Grier, identifying works with sustained lesbian characters and narrative focus, further situating this grouping within early lesbian reading networks and pre-liberation literary culture.

DuChamp, Laura (pen name of Sally Singer). The Other Extreme. New York: Tower Publications, 1964. First edition. Mass-market paperback.
Salem, Randy (pen name of Pat Purdue). Man Among Women. New York: Beacon Books, 1960. Mass-market paperback.
Rule, Jane. This Is Not For You. New York: Popular Library, 1970. First edition. Mass-market paperback.
Taylor, Valerie (pen name of Velma Nacella Young). Whisper Their Love. Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1957. First edition. Mass-market paperback.
Group of four paperback volumes spanning 1957 to 1970, each measuring approximately 4.25 x 7 inches and ranging from roughly 120 to 350 pages. Illustrated covers employ mid-century pulp visual conventions, depicting women in intimate or suggestive poses paired with promotional language such as “Theirs was the kind of love they dared not show the world” (Whisper Their Love) and “She was a model of propriety in public… but in private, she played games that would make a jaded prostitute blush” (The Other Extreme). Narrative content includes first lesbian relationships, romantic entanglements between women, and tensions involving heterosexual expectations, as in Man Among Women, which frames lesbian relationships within a competitive gender dynamic. Rule’s This Is Not For You follows a younger woman’s relationship with an older partner, addressing generational and emotional complexity within same-sex relationships.

These works circulated within a Cold War-era paperback marketplace shaped by obscenity restrictions, moral scrutiny, and emerging homophile organizing, where lesbian pulp fiction functioned as one of the few accessible print spaces for representations of queer life. Female-authored contributions introduced perspectives grounded in identity, social constraint, and interpersonal experience, contributing to the development of lesbian literary traditions that would later intersect with feminist and gay liberation movements of the late 1960s and 1970s. Clean covers and interiors with tight textblocks; light handling wear consistent with age; overall good to very good condition. The grouping offers a concentrated record of women-authored lesbian fiction within mass-market publishing and supports research into sexuality, censorship, and mid-century print culture.

Item #21031

Price: $750.00