On the Shelf for July 2025
The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 318 with Heather Rose Jones
Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.
In this episode we talk about:
Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog Faderman, Lillian. 1978. “Female Same-Sex Relationships in Novels by Longfellow, Holmes, and James” in The New England Quarterly, Vol. 51, No. 3: 309-332Godbeer, Richard. 1995. “’The Cry of Sodom’: Discourse, Intercourse, and Desire in Colonial New England” in The William and Mary Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 2: 259-286Manion, Jen. “The Queer History of Passing as a Man in Early Pennsylvania” in Pennsylvania Legacies, vol. 16, no. 1, 2016, pp. 6–11.Vaughan, Alden. 1978. “The Sad Case of Thomas(ine) Hall” in Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 86: 146-48.Oaks, Robert F. 1978. “"Things Fearful to Name": Sodomy and Buggery in Seventeenth-Century New England” in Journal of Social History, Vol. 12, No. 2: 268-281Wood, Mary E. 1993. “’With Ready Eye’: Margaret Fuller and Lesbianism in Nineteenth-Century American Literature” in American Literature 65: 3-4.Comment, Kristin M. 2005. “Charles Brockden Brown’s ‘Ormond’ and Lesbian Possibility in the Early Republic” in Early American Literature, vol. 40, no. 1, pp. 57–78.Freedman, Estelle B. 1982. “Sexuality in Nineteenth-Century America: Behavior, Ideology, and Politics” in Reviews in American History, Vol. 10, No. 4, The Promise of American History: Progress and Prospects: 196-215LaFleur, Greta. “Sex and ‘Unsex’: Histories of Gender Trouble in Eighteenth-Century North America.” Early American Studies, vol. 12, no. 3, 2014, pp. 469–99.Cleves, Rachel Hope. 2014. Charity & Sylvia: A Same-Sex Marriage in Early America. Oxford University Press, Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-933542-8Martin, Sylvia. 1994. “'These Walls of Flesh': The Problem of the Body in the Romantic Friendship/Lesbianism Debate” in Historical Reflections / Réflexions Historiques, Vol. 20, No. 2, Lesbian Histories: 243-266VanHaitsma, Pamela. 2019. “Stories of Straightening Up: Reading Femmes in the Archives of Romantic Friendship” in QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking, Vol. 6, No. 3:1-24Cleves, Rachel Hope. “Six Ways of Looking at a Trans Man? The Life of Frank Shimer (1826-1901).” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 27, no. 1, 2018, pp. 32–62.Faderman, Lillian. 1979. “Who Hid Lesbian History?” in Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Autumn 1979, Vol. 4, No 3. 74-76.Garber, Linda. 2015. “Claiming Lesbian History: The Romance Between Fact and Fiction” in Journal of Lesbian Studies, 19(1), 129-49.Braunschneider, Theresa. 2004. “Acting the Lover: Gender and Desire in Narratives of Passing Women” in Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation 45, no. 3: 211-29Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction The Housekeeper's Ledger by Allison IngramA Truthful Companion By My Side by Claudia HaaseSecrets at the Ambrose Café by Carryl ChurchSalt in the Silk by Delly M. ElroseA Bounty of Bitterwort (Lavender and Foxglove #2) by Hilary Rose Berwick A Rondel of Rosemary (Lavender and Foxglove #3) by Hilary Rose Berwick A League of Lavender (Lavender and Foxglove #4) by Hilary Rose Berwick In Her Own Shoes (The Ferrier Chronicles #1) by Mark PrimeThe Letters Beneath Her Floorboards by Mira AshwynHouse of Ash and Honor by W.S. BanksLavender & Gin by Abigail AaronsonThe Fortune Hunter's Guide to Love by Emma-Claire SundayThe Rebel Girls of Rome by Jordyn Taylor The Secrets of Harbour House by Liz Fenwick Whispers Beneath the Banyan Bath by Moon HeeyangThe Original by Nell StevensWayward Girls by Susan Wiggs Miss Veal and Miss Ham by Vikki HeywoodA Rare Find by Joanna LowellThe Unlikely Pursuit of Mary Bennet by Lindz McLeodThe Invisible Library by Genevieve CogmanServant Mage by Kate ElliottA transcript of this podcast is available here. (Interview transcripts added when available.)
Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online
