GLBT Literature: Overlooked GLBT Fiction Authors
Not on the Publishing Triangle's "100 Best" List
The Publishing Triangle's "100 Best Lesbian and Gay Novels" is invaluable for showing some of the extraordinary diversity of GLBT literature. But it excluded several outstanding authors and works, including all of the GLBT novelists represented below — whom I have limited to one work per author. By the way, if I could add one title to an author already included by the Publishing Triangle, it would be Oscar Wilde's extraordinary Portrait of Mr. W.H. There is also a list of 100 Overlooked GLBT Non-Fiction Authors; and Recommended GLBT Books includes sections for Non-Fiction, Drama, Poetry, Fiction — including many titles not listed below — and more. More GLBT Arts Resources: GLBT Cinema, GLBT Classical Music, GLBT Literature, GLBT Visual Arts, essay "Why a GLBT Focus?"
Because of censorship, which varied widely during the many centuries and countries represented here, some of these authors were unable to acknowledge their sexual orientation openly in their writing. For more information, I recommend the indispensable glbtq.com, an encyclopedia of GLBT connections to the arts, literature, and social sciences.
All links below are to FREE, unabridged online copies — the books will open in a new window. Enjoy!
50 Overlooked GLBT Fiction Authors
- Horatio Alger — Ragged Dick or, Street Life in New York
- Clive Barker — Imajica
- James M. Barrie — Peter Pan
- William Beckford — Vathek
- Aphra Behn — Oronooko
- E.F. Benson — Make Way for Lucia
- Elizabeth Bowen — The Death of the Heart
- Poppy Z. Brite — Exquisite Corpse
- Samuel Butler — The Way of All Flesh
- Angela Carter — The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffmann
- John Cheever — The Wapshot Chronicle
- Bruce Chatwin — On the Black Hill
- Samuel R. Delany — Triton (aka Trouble on Triton)
- Patrick Dennis (pseudonym of Edward Everett Tanner III) — Auntie Mame
- Norman Douglas — South Wind
- Daphne Du Maurier — Rebecca
- Brett Easton Ellis — Less Than Zero
- John Fox — The Boys on the Rock
- Henry Blake Fuller — Bertram Cope's Year
- Nancy Garden — Annie on My Mind
- Nikolai Gogol — Dead Souls
- Juan Goytisolo — Marks of Identity
- Joris-Karl Huysmans — Against the Grain
- Sarah Orne Jewett — Country of the Pointed Firs
- Franz Kafka — The Metamorphosis
- Heinrich von Kleist — The Marquise of O...
- John Knowles — A Separate Peace
- Larry Kramer — Faggots
- Nella Larsen — Passing
- David Leavitt — The Lost Language of Cranes
- Ursula K. LeGuin — The Left Hand of Darkness
- Matthew Gregory Lewis — The Monk
- H.P. Lovecraft — The Shadow Over Innsmouth
- Somerset Maugham — The Moon and Sixpence
- Armistead Maupin — Tales of the City Series (six novels)
- James McCourt — Mawrdew Czgowchwz
- Michael Nava — Henry Rios Series (seven novels)
- Edward Prime–Stevenson (under pseudonym "Xavier Mayne") — Imre
- Anne Rice — Interview with the Vampire
- Frederick William Rolfe (under pseudonym "Baron Corvo") — Hadrian VII
- Bram Stoker — Dracula
- Bayard Taylor — Joseph and His Friend
- Bruno Vogel — Alf
- Sylvia Townsend Warner — Lolly Willowes
- Patricia Nell Warren — Front Runner
- Anna Weirauch — The Scorpion
- Denton Welch — In Youth is Pleasure
- Glenway Wescott — The Grandmothers
- Thornton Wilder — The Cabala
- Cornell Woolrich — I Married a Dead Man
Site search
This search engine covers the entire website (GLBT literature, film, and all other pages) — results will open in a new window. You can also use the site map.