The Golden Age of Lesbian Erotica

Lesbian erotica of the 1920s through the 1940s had a bold new cast to it. Unlike the tender and affectionate eroticism of the Victorian era with its naughty schoolgirls, convent antics and ladies-in-waiting, these 20th Century tales brought verisimilitude and fantasy together. While Radclyffe Hall was being prosecuted for obscenity for her depiction of "sapphics" and "inverts" in the classic lesbian novel *The Well of Loneliness,* her friend Natalie Barney was riding naked through the streets of Paris on horseback with her lover, the poet Renee Vivienne and Anais Nin was penning lurid and lustful tales of very bad girls while yearning for Henry Miller's sensual wife, June.

About the Editor:

Victoria A. Brownworth is the author of nine books, including the award-winning *Too Queer: Essays from a Radical Life* and editor of 14, including the award-winning *Night Bites: VampireTales of Blood and Lust. * A syndicated columnist, her work has appeared in numerous mainstream, queer and feminist publications, including the Baltimore Sun, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Village Voice, the Advocate, OUT and Curve. Her erotic writing has appeared regularly in anthologies and magazines, and she is a former contributing writer to the lesbian sex magazines, *On Our Backs* and *Bad Attitude.* She has published several erotica collections, including most recently, *Bed: New Lesbian Erotica.* She also publishes gay male porn under a psuedonym. She teaches writing and film at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia where she added two new courses to the literary curriculum: Writing Below the Belt and Smut. She has also taught safe-sex education classes as well as classes on S/M and B/D for various lesbian and bisexual venues. She lives in Philadelphia.