Many readers have asked me about the raft of lesbian pulp novels published in the '50s and '60s. How did they come about? And did they actually change people's attitudes to same-sex relationships?
Let's look back at the lesbian pulp explosion and try to uncover its legacy...
Pulp is often seen as lowbrow and cheap, so it could skirt around the censorship laws of the post-war period and cover subjects that 'serious' outlets had to hint at. And one taboo topic dominated pulp for decades: lesbian love!
There were a few pre-war novels that treated lesbians as serious characters in relationships with other women, but mostly the topic was handled in circumspect code.
However all that changed in 1950...
Women's Barracks by French author Tereska Torrès was published by Fawcett Gold Medal in 1950. Describing the lives of Free French Forces stationed in London in WWll it candidly discussed lesbian relationships and passions, and went on to sell over four million copies worldwide.
Sensing a market Gold Medal published Spring Fire in 1952, a novel by Vin Packer (aka Marijane Meaker) about a lesbian affair between two students. Again, sales were high.
The timing was also fortuitous. In 1953 the secomd Kinsey Report - "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" - was published, showing over 13% of American women were attracted to other women. Lesbian attraction was suddenly big news.
With the Kinsey report out there pulp publishers began to push out more novels about lesbian relationships, with dubious claims of 'exploring' or 'understanding' this type of love as a way to pretend this wasn't just about titillating curious male readers.
But there was a problem: US obscenity laws meant that books could not be sent through the mail if they promoted homosexuality. To get around this lesbian pulp stories had to have either a redemptive or unhappy ending: characters had to end up straight, or end up punished.
There were some exceptions: Patricia Highsmith's novel The Price of Salt (1953) has a relatively happy ending for the lovers. However Highsmith still had to publish it under the pseudonym Claire Morgan to 'protect' her reputation as a serious writer.
But by and large, pushed by the censorship laws, the 'doomed lesbian' became the main story trope of these novels. And it's a long-lived stereotype: even today it's a common cliché in popular storytelling.
Whilst some lesbian pulps were written by lesbian writers, the bulk of the genre was produced by men - often using female pen names. Generally these were 'Lesploitation' novels: high on sex, low on story and aimed at males.
But in small-town America lesbian pulp was sometimes the only media people could access where same-sex themes were sympathetically dealt with. Whilst cheesy and sometimes exploitative they still sent out a message: if you're a lesbian, you're not alone.
A lot of lesbian pulp is based on stereotype: furtive seduction, older controlling lesbians seducing young innocents, men fighting butch women for the love of a confused wife, small-town girls falling for big city vices etc.
The cover blurb and titles also suggested faux-sympathy with the lesbian 'dilemma': a demi-monde, a soft sin, unnatural but irresistible hungers and desires. All this was aimed at men - curiosity and titilation in equal measure.
However the cover art for lesbian pulp generally shows the characters in a sympathetic light: women who deserve understanding and fulfilment.
Most lesbian pulp was about middle-class white women, often in domestic settings. Women of colour were rarely featured, though there were a few exceptions.
As obscenity laws were relaxed in the 1960s the lesbian pulp market began to decline. More serious and realistic lesbian stories began to be published, and the pulps were reduced to voyeurism and gimmicks to sell copies.
And by the start of the 1970s the lesbian pulp genre had all but disappeared. Pulp moved on to other things to keep keep its audience entertained.
A number of pulp publishers paid a high price for daring to print lesbian stories: fined, imprisoned or hounded out of business by the courts. Thorough the '50s and '60s they risked jail under the obscenity laws for daring to talk about things that others only whispered about.
Pulp lesbian literature was brazen and sensationalist. But it tried to show its subjects in a sympathetic light and it wasn't prepared to bow down to censorship. If it was sometimes sleazy or cheesy - well that's pulp. But it played its part.
More stories another time...
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He was the terror of London; a demonic figure with glowing eyes and fiery breath who could leap ten feet high. The penny dreadfuls of the time wrote up his exploits in lurid terms. But who was he really?
Today I look at one of the earliest pulp legends: Spring-Heeled Jack!
London has always attracted ghosts, and in the 19th Century they increasingly left their haunted houses and graveyards and began to wader the capital's streets.
But one apparition caught the Victorian public attention more than most...
In October 1837 a 'leaping character' with a look of the Devil began to prey on Londoners. Often he would leap high into the air and land in front of a carriage, causing it to crash. It would then flee with a high-pitched laugh.
Today in pulp I look back at New Zealand's home-grow microcomputer, the 1981 Poly-1!
Press any key to continue...
The Poly-1 was developed in 1980 by two electronics engineering teachers at Wellington Polytechnic, Neil Scott and Paul Bryant, who wanted to create a computer for use in New Zealand schools. Education Minister Merv Wellington liked the idea and gave it the green light.
Backed by government finances, and in partnership with Progeni Computers, Polycorp was formed in 1980 to began work on the prototype for the official Kiwi school computer.
It was the biggest manhunt in Britain: police, the press, aeroplanes, psychics all tried to solve the disappearance. In the end nobody really knew what happened. It was a mystery without a solution.
This is the story of Agatha Christie's 11 lost days...
By 1926 Agatha Christie's reputation as a writer was starting to grow. Her sixth novel - The Murder of Roger Ackroyd - had been well-received and she and her husband Archie had recently concluded a world tour. But all was not well with the marriage.
In April 1926 Agatha Christie’s mother died. Christie was very close to her: she had been home-schooled and believed her mother was clairvoyant. The shock of her sudden death hit the author hard.
Many readers have asked me over the years what my definition of pulp is. I've thought about it a lot, and the definition I keep coming back to... well it may surprise you.
Let me try and set it out.
There are lots of definitions of pulp out there: in books, in academic papers and on the web. And most circle back to the same three points: the medium, the story type and the method of writing.
Pulp is of course a type of cheap, coarse paper stock. Its use in magazine production from the 1890s onwards led to it becoming a shorthand term for the kind of fiction found in low cost story magazines.
let's take a look at the extraordinary work of Victorian illustrator and cat lover Louis Wain!
Louis Wain was born in London in 1860. Although he is best known for his drawings of cats he started out as a Victorian press illustrator. His work is highly collectable.
Wain had a very difficult life; born with a cleft lip he was not allowed to attend school. His freelance drawing work supported his mother and sisters after his father died. Aged 23 he married his sisters' governess, Emily Richardson, 10 years his senior.
Over the years a number of people have asked me if I have a favourite pulp film. Well I do. It's this one.
This is the story of Alphaville...
Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965) was Jean-Luc Godard’s ninth feature film. A heady mix of spy noir, science fiction and the Nouvelle Vague at its heart is a poetic conflict between a hard-boiled secret agent and a supercomputer’s brave new world.
British writer Peter Cheyney had created the fictitious American investigator Lemmy Caution in 1936. As well as appearing in 10 novels Caution featured in over a dozen post-war French films, mostly played by singer Eddie Constantine whom Godard was keen to work with.