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Jeannette Howard Foster (1895
- 1981)
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 Sex
Variant Women in Literature by
Jeannette Howard Foster
2600 Years of Lesbian History.
Fascinating in its account of famous Lesbians throughout the
years, analyzing the books they wrote, their efforts to achieve
publication and their lives with other Lesbians.
Ranging from the Biblical Ruth and Sappho
through creative works in all languages of Western Europe
(Italian, French, German, Spanish, English and Portuguese),
Jeannette Howard analyzes poetry, drama and fiction for all
reference to Lesbians and Lesbianism.
A lengthy section discusses such famous women as
the Ladies of Langollen, Emily Dickinson, Louise Labe, Margaret
Fuller, George Sand, Emily and Charlotte Bronte, George Eliot,
Adah Isaacs Menken and "Michael Field." Another
section includes analysis of the vital works of the renaissance of
Lesbian literature from 1900 through mid-twentieth century that
laid the groundwork for today's burgeoning Lesbian literary world
including Kay Boyle, Djuna Barnes, Renee Vivien, Natalie
Clifford-Barney, Virginia Wolfe, Isak Dinesen, Colette, Vita
Sackville-West, Radclyffe Hall, Dorothy Richardson, Henry Handel
Richardson, Christa Winsloe, Frances Brett Young, Lillian Hellman,
Dorothy Baker, Helen R Hull, Rosamond Lehmann, Shirley Jackson,
Katherine Mansfield and others too numerous to mention.
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by Marie J. Kuda
Dr. Jeannette Howard Foster Ph.D. (1895-1981)
was inducted into the City of Chicago's Gay and Lesbian Hall of
Fame in October 1998.
I met Valerie Taylor in the late-1960s when we
were both writing for the Mattachine Midwest Newsletter, a house
organ for the Chicago homophile organization which had a mailing
list of about 2,000-only a handful were women. Val was the author
of a number of paperback lesbian pulps; and in 1965 she and
attorney Pearl Hart were among the founders of MM. At a newsletter
meeting in Val's apartment, I found Jeannette Howard Foster's
self-published 1956 opus Sex Variant Women in Literature: a
Historical and Quantitative Study. I was stunned! I had an
undergraduate degree in English literature, and had spent
countless hours searching for evidence of my identity beyond the
"sinful" labels of my church and the "sick"
stigma of medical writers like Frank Capiro in his Female
Homosexuality. Even popular fiction portrayed us as stunted in
adolescence awaiting sex with a good stud to set us free. But here
was a scholarly examination of hundreds of years of literature in
English, German, French (and a smattering of other languages),
with evidence of "variant women" in belles lettres. I
sat cross-legged on the floor devouring one page after the other,
hesitant to ask to borrow such a valuable book; surely no one who
owned one would let it out of their sight! But, Val did lend it to
me. She told me how to reach Dr. Foster, a former educator and
librarian (Kinsey's first librarian as a matter of fact) then
retired and an invalid, living in Pocahontas, Arkansas.
That was the beginning of a relationship that
culminated in my publication of Two Women: the poetry of
Jeannette Howard Foster and Valerie Taylor in 1976. In
introductory essays Foster's opus raised traces of lesbians in
recorded literature from the erotic tales of Juevenal, Ovid, and
lesser Greek and Roman classics, back through the Old Testament,
citing the Book of Ruth as an early example of women loving women.
I was familiar with the writings of Sappho, of course, but Foster
brought lesbian light to the Dark Ages, and introduced me, for the
first time, to the seventeenth century cross dressers, Catalina de
Erauso, The Nun Ensign and Mary Firth the "Moll
Cutpurse" of The Roaring Girl. Each period of literary
history from antiquity to the moderns yielded hidden gems at her
delicate probing...
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Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,
Cornell University Library
The Valerie Taylor Collection comprises 8.8
cubic feet and spans the years 1923-1997, with the bulk of the
materials in the 1980s and 1990s. It consists mainly of literary
manuscripts and correspondence, but includes also materials
relating to her personal life, drafts of speeches, book reviews,
and news stories. Unpublished materials represent the vast
majority of the literary manuscripts. The collection is also a
rich source for poets who were friends of Valerie Taylor's and
sent her their works. Will Inman's works form the bulk of such
materials, but there are also unpublished poems by Jeannette
Foster...
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The article, "The XRated Bibliographer: A
Spy in the House of Love," about Jeannette Howard Foster's
attempt to self-publish her works appears in Lavender
Culture, by Karla
Jay.
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Names Index:
A B
C D
E F
G H
I J
K L
M N
O P
Q R
S T
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W X
Y Z
| Authors
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Index |
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