50 Overlooked LGBTQ+ Fiction Authors and 100 Overlooked LGBTQ+ Non-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 LGBTQ+ literature. But it excluded several outstanding authors and works, including all of the LGBTQ+ 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 Recommended LGBTQ+ Books includes sections for Non-Fiction, Drama, Poetry, Fiction — including many titles not listed below — and more. More LGBTQ+ Arts Resources: LGBTQ+ Cinema, LGBTQ+ Classical Music, LGBTQ+ Literature, LGBTQ+ Visual Arts, essay “Why a LGBTQ+ 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, an indispensable resource is editor Claude J. Summers’s encyclopedic Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage, that includes hundreds of articles on individual authors, national literatures, artistic forms (such as the novel, drama, poetry), genres and more. All public domain works here link to free copies. Enjoy!

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50 Overlooked LGBTQ+ Fiction Authors

  1. Horatio Alger — Ragged Dick or, Street Life in New York [free online]
  2. Clive Barker — Imajica
  3. James M. Barrie — Peter Pan [free online]
  4. William Beckford — Vathek [[free online]
  5. Aphra Behn — Oronooko [free online]
  6. E.F. Benson — Make Way for Lucia
  7. Elizabeth Bowen — The Death of the Heart
  8. Poppy Z. Brite — Exquisite Corpse
  9. Samuel Butler — The Way of All Flesh [free online]
  10. Angela Carter — The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffmann
  11. John Cheever — The Wapshot Chronicle
  12. Bruce Chatwin — On the Black Hill
  13. Samuel R. Delany — Triton (aka Trouble on Triton)
  14. Patrick Dennis (pseudonym of Edward Everett Tanner III) — Auntie Mame
  15. Norman Douglas — South Wind
  16. Daphne Du Maurier — Rebecca
  17. Brett Easton Ellis — Less Than Zero
  18. John Fox — The Boys on the Rock
  19. Henry Blake Fuller — Bertram Cope’s Year [free online]
  20. Nancy Garden — Annie on My Mind
  21. Nikolai Gogol — Dead Souls [free online]
  22. Juan Goytisolo — Marks of Identity
  23. Joris-Karl Huysmans — À Rebours (Against Nature – aka Against the Grain) [free online]
  24. Sarah Orne Jewett — Country of the Pointed Firs [free online]
  25. Franz Kafka — Metamorphosis [free online]
  26. Heinrich von Kleist — The Marquise of O…
  27. John Knowles — A Separate Peace
  28. Larry Kramer — Faggots
  29. Nella Larsen — Passing
  30. David Leavitt — The Lost Language of Cranes
  31. Ursula K. LeGuin — The Left Hand of Darkness
  32. Matthew Gregory Lewis — The Monk [free online]
  33. H.P. Lovecraft — The Shadow Over Innsmout [free online]
  34. Somerset Maugham — The Moon and Sixpence [free online]
  35. Armistead Maupin — Tales of the City Series (nine novels)
  36. James McCourt — Mawrdew Czgowchwz
  37. Michael Nava — Henry Rios Series (seven novels)
  38. Edward Prime–Stevenson (under pseudonym “Xavier Mayne”) — Imre
  39. Anne Rice — Interview with the Vampire
  40. Frederick William Rolfe (under pseudonym “Baron Corvo”) — Hadrian VII
  41. Bram Stoker — Dracula [free online]
  42. Bayard Taylor — Joseph and His Friend [free online]
  43. Bruno Vogel — Alf
  44. Sylvia Townsend Warner — Lolly Willowes
  45. Patricia Nell Warren — Front Runner
  46. Anna Weirauch — The Scorpion
  47. Denton Welch — In Youth is Pleasure
  48. Glenway Wescott — The Grandmothers
  49. Thornton Wilder — The Cabala
  50. Cornell Woolrich — I Married a Dead Man

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Overlooked LGBTQ+ Non-Fiction Authors

Not on the Publishing Triangle’s “100 Best” List

The Publishing Triangle’s “100 Best Lesbian and Gay Non-Fiction Books” shows some of the immense diversity of this form of GLBT literature, but it excludes many outstanding authors and pivotal works about history, philosophy, religion, the natural and social sciences, as well as the visual arts, music, literature, theatre and film. That’s why I put together this list of 100 more outstanding GLBT authors, each represented by one (or sometimes two closely-related) non-fiction books. All works are in prose, although a few editions also include an author’s poetry. There is also a list of Overlooked GLBT 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 to public domain (pre-1925) books are to FREE, unabridged online copies — the books will open in a new window. Enjoy!

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100 Overlooked LGBTQ+ Non-Fiction Authors

  1. Anger, Kenneth — Hollywood Babylon
  2. Auden, W.H. — The Dyer’s Hand and Other Essays
  3. Augustine of Hippo [St. Augustine] — Confessions [free online]
  4. Bacon, Francis (1561–1626) — The Essays, Civil and Moral [free online]
  5. Bacon, Francis (1909–1992) (with David Sylvester) — The Brutality of Fact
  6. Bagemihl, Bruce — Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity
  7. Baldwin, James — The Fire Next Time & Nobody Knows My Name [two related books]
  8. Barney, Natalie Clifford — Thoughts of an Amazon & More Thoughts of an Amazon [two related books]
  9. Barthes, Roland — S/Z
  10. Bashô, Matsuo — Narrow Road to the Deep North [free online]
  11. Beaton, Cecil — Self Portrait with Friends: The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton, 1926–1974
  12. Benedict, Ruth — Patterns of Culture
  13. Bernstein, Leonard — The Unanswered Question
  14. Bishop, Elizabeth (ed. by Robert Giroux) — One Art: Letters
  15. Bowles, Jane (Auer) — Letters
  16. Bowles, Paul — Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue
  17. Brecht, Bertolt — Brecht on Theatre
  18. Burroughs, William S. — The Adding Machine
  19. Byron, George Gordon, Lord (ed. by Leslie A. Marchand) — Letters and Journals
  20. Caesar, Julius — Commentaries on the Gallic Wars [free online]
  21. Cage, John — Silence: Lectures and Writings
  22. Cammermeyer, Margarethe — Serving in Silence
  23. Carson, Rachel — Silent Spring
  24. Casement, Roger — The Black Diaries
  25. Cellini, Benvenuto (trans. by gay-rights pioneer John Addington Symonds) — Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini [free online]
  26. Cixous, Hélène — The Book of Promethea
  27. Cocteau, Jean — The White Book & Diary of a Film: Beauty and the Beast [two contrasting books]
  28. Colette (Sidonie Gabrielle) — The Pure and the Impure
  29. Copland, Aaron — What to Listen for in Music
  30. Coward, Noël (ed. by Graham Payn & Sheridan Morley) — The Noël Coward Diaries
  31. Cruz, Sor Juana Inés de la (trans. by Electa Arenal & Amanda Powell) — The Answer / La Respuesta
  32. Cullen, Countee — My Soul’s High Song: The Collected Writings of Countee Cullen, Voice of the Harlem Renaissance
  33. Dickinson, Emily (ed. by Thomas Johnson) — Letters
  34. Doty, Mark — Heaven’s Coast
  35. Eisenstein, Sergei — The Film Sense & The Film Form [two related books]
  36. Eliot, T.S. — Selected Essays
  37. Fassbinder, Rainer Werner (ed. by Michael Töteberg & Leon A. Lensing) — Anarchy of the Imagination: Interviews, Essays, Notes
  38. Flanner, Janet — Paris Journal
  39. Forster, E.M. — Aspects of the Novel
  40. Frederick II [Frederick the Great (1712–1786)] (ed. by Jay Luvaas) — Frederick the Great on the Art of War
  41. Genet, Jean — Prisoner of Love
  42. Goodman, Paul — Growing Up Absurd
  43. Goytisolo, Juan — Forbidden Territory
  44. Hart, Moss — Act One: An Autobiography
  45. Hildegard of Bingen (trans. by Sabina Flanagan) — Secrets of God: Writings of Hildegard of Bingen
  46. Hopkins, Gerard Manley — Spiritual Writings
  47. Hughes, Langston — The Big Sea: An Autobiography
  48. Humboldt, Alexander von, Baron — Cosmos
  49. Jarman, Derek — Dancing Ledge
  50. James, Henry — The Art of the Novel: Critical Prefaces
  51. Kerouac, Jack — The Scripture of the Golden Eternity
  52. Ladies of Llangollen (Lady Eleanor Butler & the Honorable Sarah Ponsonby) (ed. by Mrs. G.H. Bell) — The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen
  53. Lawrence, D.H. — Studies in Classic American Literature [free online] & Apocalypse [two related books]
  54. Lawrence, T.E. [“Lawrence of Arabia”] — Seven Pillars of Wisdom
  55. Leduc, Violette — La Bâtarde
  56. Leonardo da Vinci — Notebooks
  57. Lincoln, Abraham (ed. by Arthur Brooks Lapsley) — The Writings of Abraham Lincoln [free online]
  58. Lister, Anne — Diaries
  59. Lovecraft, H.P. — Supernatural Horror in Literature [free online]
  60. Mann, Thomas — Essays of Three Decades
  61. Mann, William J. — Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood 1910–1969
  62. Marcuse, Herbert — Eros and Civilization
  63. Matthiesen, F.O. — American Renaissance: Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson and Whitman
  64. Mead, Margaret — Coming of Age in Samoa
  65. Melville, Herman — Typee [free online] & Omo [free online] [two related books]
  66. Michelangelo Buonarroti (trans. by Creighton Gilbert) — Letters (in Complete Poems and Selected Letters of Michelangelo)
  67. Mordden, Ethan — Broadway Babies: The People Who Made the American Musical
  68. Murdoch, Iris — Metaphysics as a Guide to Morals
  69. Nietzsche, Friedrich — Thus Spake Zarathustra [free online]
  70. Nin, Anaïs — Henry and June
  71. Orton, Joe (ed. by John Lahr) — The Orton Diaries
  72. Pasolini, Pier Paolo (ed. by Oswald Stack) — Pasolini on Pasolini
  73. Plutarch — Parallel Lives of Noble Greeks and Romans [free online]
  74. Proust, Marcel — Contre Sainte-Beuve
  75. Przhevalsky, Nikolai Mikhailovich — Mongolia, the Tangut Country, and the Solitudes of Northern Tibet [free online]
  76. Rustin, Bayard (ed. by Devon W. Carbado & Donald Weise) — Time on Two Crosses: The Collected Writings of Bayard Rustin
  77. Sackville-West, Vita & Nigel Nicolson — Portrait of a Marriage
  78. Sand, George (Amantine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin) — The Story of My Life
  79. Santayana, George — The Life of Reason
  80. Sarton, May — Journal of a Solitude
  81. Saslow, James M. — Pictures & Passions: A History of Homosexuality in the Visual Arts
  82. Schubert, Franz (ed. Otto Deutsch) — Franz Schubert’s Letters and Other Writings
  83. Sedaris, David — Naked
  84. Sontag, Susan — Against Interpretation & Styles of Radical Will [two related books]
  85. Staël, Madame de (Anne-Louise-Germaine Necker, Baroness de Staël-Holstein) — A Treatise on the Influence of the Passions Upon the Happiness of Individuals and of Nations
  86. Stoddard, Charles Warren — South-Sea Idyls [free online]
  87. Strachey, Lytton — Eminent Victorians [free online]
  88. Sullivan, Louis H. — The Autobiography of an Idea
  89. Taylor, Bayard — At Home and Abroad: A Sketch-Book of Life, Scenery, and Men [free online]
  90. Tchaikovsky, Pyotr Ilyich (ed. by Modeste Tchaikovsky) — Letters
  91. Thomson, Virgil — Words With Music: A Composer’s View
  92. Thoreau, Henry David — Walden [free online]
  93. Warhol, Andy — The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
  94. Weston, Edward (ed. by Nancy Newhall) — The Daybooks of Edward Weston
  95. White, Minor — Mirrors, Messages, Manifestations
  96. White, Patrick — Flaws in the Glass: A Self-Portrait
  97. Whitman, Walt — Specimen Days [free online]`
  98. Williams, Tennessee (ed. by Albert J. Devlin & Nancy M. Tischler) — Selected Letters
  99. Williams, Walter L. — The Spirit and the Flesh: Sexual Diversity in American Indian Culture
  100. Wittgenstein, Ludwig — Philosophical Investigations

* LGBTQ+ Literature Resources

Links to LGBTQ+ Literature resources from both this site and selected external sites.

Begun 1997 / Updated February 17, 2021

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