Passions Between Women. British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. - Hardcover

Donoghue, Emma

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060172614 ISBN 13: 9780060172619

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1995

Synopsis

Where previous historians have concluded that a combination of censorship and ignorance excluded lesbian experience from written history before our era, Emma Donoghue has decisively proved otherwise. She dispels the myth that seventeenth- and eighteenth-century lesbian culture was rarely registered in language and that lesbians of this period had no words with which to describe themselves. Far from being invisible, the figure of the woman who felt passion for women was a subject of confusion and contradiction: she could be put in a freak show as a "hermaphrodite," revered as a "romantic friend," or jailed as a "female husband." By examining a wealth of new medical, legal, and erotic source material, and rereading the classics of English literature, Emma Donoghue has uncovered narratives of an astonishing range of lesbian and bisexual identities in Britain between 1668 and 1801. Female pirates and spiritual mentors, chambermaids and queens, poets and prostitutes, country idylls and whipping clubs all take their place in her intriguing panorama of lesbian lives and loves.

About this title

About the Author:

Born in 1969, Emma Donoghue is an Irish writer who spent eight years in England before moving to Canada. Her fiction includes Slammerkin, Life Mask, Touchy Subjects and the international bestseller Room (shortlisted for the Man Booker and Orange Prizes). In addition to Passions Between Women her non-fiction includes Inseparable and We are Michael Field.

Synopsis:

A frank examination of eighteenth-century lesbian culture reveals a widespread range of previously overlooked lesbian identities in Britain and covers such topics as group sex, sadomasochism, and hermaphrodites. Tour.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 0060172614
• ISBN 13: 9780060172619
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1