Service Alert
Website maintenance April 24 10pm ET
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
On Wednesday April 24 at 10pm ET the CELA website will be unavailable for about 15 minutes for planned maintenance.
Showing 1 - 20 of 24 items
By Sommer Marsden, Georgio Verona. 2012
By Ann Bannon. 1957
By Della Martin. 2006
The swaggering butches and dolled-up femmes of this 1961 lesbian pulp novel experience the guilt, thrills, and wonder of forbidden…
love."She knew why they danced with such gay desperation."A budding butch in the Brylcreem era, Lorraine "Lon" Harris fantasizes about a South Pacific island full of women, where everyone will be free and accepting, and she'll never have to wear an eyelet blouse again. Spurned by her high school English teacher, Lon turns to a new friend, the brash, purple-haired Violet, who draws Lon into the lesbian underworld of suburban Los Angeles, to the sordid 28 Percent Club, a private bar where those with "contaminated passions" cling to each other. Here, among the swaggering butches and dolled-up femmes, Lon will discover herself. And here she will first lay eyes on brilliant, lovely Mavis, a black jazz pianist and the girlfriend of wealthy Sassy Gregg, whose heavy bracelets may as well be brass knuckles where Lon is concerned.By Vin Packer. 1952
Her silky black hair. Her low-cut gown. Her sparkling sorority pin. It's autumn rush in the Tri Epsilon house, and…
the new pledge, Susan Mitchell-"Mitch" to her friends-trembles as the fastest girl on campus, the lovely Leda Taylor, crosses the room toward her for a dance. Will Leda corrupt Mitch? Or will the strong and silent Mitch draw the queen of Tri Ep into the forbidden world of Lesbian Love?Spring Fire was the first lesbian paperback novel and sold an amazing 1.5 million copies when it first appeared in 1952. It launched an entire genre of lesbian novels, as well as the writing career of Vin Packer, one of the pseudonyms of prolific author Marijane Meaker, whose acclaimed memoir, Highsmith: A Romance of the 1950s, told the story of her own forbidden love. Now available after forty years out of print, Spring Fire is both a vital part of lesbian history and a steamy page-turner.By Katherine V Forrest. 2005
Long before the rise of the modern gay movement, an unnoticed literary revolution was occurring between the covers of the…
cheaply produced lesbian pulp paperbacks of the post-World War II era. In 1950, publisher Fawcett Books founded its Gold Medal imprint, inaugurating the reign of lesbian pulp fiction. These were the books that small-town lesbians and prurient men bought by the millions - cheap, easy to find in drugstores, and immediately recognizable by their lurid covers. For women leading straight lives, here was confirmation that they were not alone and that darkly glamorous, "gay" places like Greenwich Village existed. Some - especially those written by lesbians - offered sympathetic and realistic depictions of "life in the shadows," while others (no less fun to read now) were smutty, sensational tales of innocent girls led astray. In the overheated prose typical of the genre, this collection documents the emergence of a lesbian subculture in postwar America.By Ann Bannon. 2002
Designated the "Queen of Lesbian Pulp" for her landmark novels beginning in 1957, Ann Bannon's work defined lesbian fiction for…
the pre-Stonewall generation. Following the release of Cleis Press's new editions of Beebo Brinker and Odd Girl Out, Women in the Shadows picks up with Beebo's relationship with Laura waning, as both women become caught in the cultural tumult (gay bar raids, heavy drinking, gay rights advocacy) that anticipates by ten years the Stonewall Rebellion of 1969. New introduction explains the book's evolution, including the role Bannon's divorce played in shaping the lesbian protagonist's outrage.By Ann Bannon. 1962
Ann Bannon was designated the "Queen of Lesbian Pulp" for authoring several landmark novels in the '50s. Unlike many writers…
of the period, however, Bannon broke through the shame and isolation typically portrayed in lesbian pulps, offering instead characters who embraced their sexuality. With Beebo Brinker, Bannon introduces a butch 17-year-old farm girl newly arrived in Beat-era Greenwich Village.By Kristina Wright, Sommer Marsden, Velvet Tripp, Vanessa Sade, Fulani. 2012
The mind has the power to save us from depravity...or to drive us further to it! From hypnotic highs to…
paranormal possession, Naked Delirium delves deep into the human psyche to celebrate sex in altered states! Five twisted tales, with the illustrated version lusciously illustrated by Giorgio Verona.By Ann Bannon. 1960
Designated the "Queen of Lesbian Pulp" for her series of landmark novels beginning in 1957, Ann Bannon's work defined lesbian…
fiction for the pre-Stonewall generation. Following the release of Cleis Press's new editions of Beebo Brinker and Odd Girl Out, Journey to a Woman finds Laura in love among the lesbian bohemia of Greenwich Village.By Kenneth Tucker. 2018
They came to decadent America, tottering toward insurrection: The Zebonites, beings from a distant star had promised astounding medical and…
scientific advances in exchange for allowing them to set up a military stronghold in Florida's Everglades. Excited by their promises humanity's advancementof, Joe Tanner applied for and was hired for the contact team, a small group of individuals who could gain access to and lead other into the Zebonite's stronghold. But the Zebonites kept themselves shrouded in mystery, not revealing their natures, communicating only through the Zugs, mutated servants, and robotic bugs. Soon the world learned that the alliance had not been a request, but an ultimatum. The Zebonites, moreover, the treated human beings with contempt, considering themselves superior. They sought to instill dread by torturing, killing, and, if necessary, destroying the minds of those who oppose them...By Tim Pilcher. 2008
Erotic Comics: A Graphic History - Volume 2 is crammed full of exquisite art from around the world and fascinating…
interviews with the artists. It looks at the endless battles with authorities in the US and the UK over what is art and what is pornography. The book takes a look at what is currently being published in Europe and Japan, and examines the new wave of erotic web comics on the Internet, where censorship is virtually non-existent.By Lindsay Gordon. 2007
By Ana V. Clavel. 2017
"No hay nada más atrozmente cruel que una niña adorada." Todo objeto de deseo se vuelve, en la fantasía, fetiche,…
y uno de los más fascinantes fetiches de nuestra época es precisamente Lolita. ¿No es acaso la esencia de Lolita una encarnación o sucedáneo del objeto amoroso perdido, de ese inefable placer que nunca se ha de alcanzar? Ana V. Clavel explora tales territorios en busca de los secretos y misterios de esas chiquillas dulces, pero también terribles, según la fuerza del deseo que desanudan. Este ensayo sobre las nínfulas se estructura a partir de cuatro núcleos temáticos. En el primero, "Lolita: fundación de un mito", se abordan algunas peculiaridades en torno al personaje creado en 1955 por Vladimir Nabokov. En el segundo se indagan los antecedentes del arquetipo, con especial atención en Alice Liddell (no tanto la niña en quien se basó el personaje de Alicia en el País de las Maravillas, sino a quien Lewis Carroll fotografió con fascinación) y en Caperucita roja. La tercera sección explora un territorio todavía virgen en la arqueología de las Lolitas: la interioridad de la nínfula. Por último, la cuarta sección analiza algunas de las más destacadas creaciones de nínfulas en artes como la pintura, la fotografía y el cine, en busca del fulgor de la pequeña diosa más allá del estereotipo. Sobre las nínfulas: "El lector debe comprender que, dueño y esclavo de una nínfula, el viajero encantado está, por así decirlo, más allá de toda felicidad, un paraíso cuyos cielos tenían el color de las llamas infernales, pero con todo un paraíso." -Vladimir Nabokov- "Caperucita roja fue mi primer amor. Tenía la sensación de que, si me hubiera casado con ella, habría conocido la felicidad completa." -Charles Dickens- "Carroll quería contar una historia a una niña; la historia divaga, la niña cambia, el Deseo se convierte en el único amo de un espacio que no está orientado por ningún tiempo; mientras tanto, aquel que dio la señal de partida se lamenta y confiesa sus angustias de adolescente viejo y masoquista en versos llorosos." -Hélène Cixous- "El cuerpo de las Ninfas era el lugar mismo de un conocimiento terrible porque era a la vez salvador y funesto: el conocimiento a través de la posesión. Un conocimiento que otorga clarividencia, pero puede también entregar a quien lo practica a una locura peculiar. La paradoja de la Ninfa es ésta: poseerla significa ser poseídos." -Roberto Calasso-By Sommer Marsden. 2012
By Fulani. 2012
By Fulani, Georgio Verona. 2012
By Kristina Wright, Sommer Marsden, Velvet Tripp, Vanessa De Sade, Fulani. 2012
The mind has the power to save us from depravity...or to drive us further to it! From hypnotic highs to…
paranormal possession, Naked Delirium delves deep into the human psyche to celebrate sex in altered states! Five twisted tales, with the illustrated version lusciously illustrated by Giorgio Verona.By Eva Illouz. 2014
From its beginnings in Twilight fan-fiction to its record-breaking sales as an e-book and paperback, the story of the erotic…
romance novel Fifty Shades of Grey and its two sequels is both unusual and fascinating. Having sold over seventy million copies worldwide since 2011, E. L. James's lurid series about a sexual ingénue and the powerful young entrepreneur who introduces her to BDSM sex has ingrained itself in our collective consciousness. But why have these particular novels--poorly written and formulaic as they are--become so popular, especially among women over thirty? In this concise, engaging book, Eva Illouz subjects the Fifty Shadescultural phenomenon to the serious scrutiny it has been begging for. After placing the trilogy in the context of best-seller publishing, she delves into its remarkable appeal, seeking to understand the intense reading pleasure it provides and how that resonates with the structure of relationships between men and women today. Fifty Shades, Illouz argues, is a gothic romance adapted to modern times in which sexuality is both a source of division between men and women and a site to orchestrate their reconciliation. As for the novels' notorious depictions of bondage, discipline, and sadomasochism, Illouz shows that these are as much a cultural fantasy as a sexual one, serving as a guide to a happier romantic life. The Fifty Shades trilogy merges romantic fantasy with self-help guide--two of the most popular genres for female readers. Offering a provocative explanation for the success and popularity of the Fifty Shades of Greynovels,Hard-Core Romanceis an insightful look at modern relationships and contemporary women's literature.By Sallyanne Rogers. 2013
Cariad means love... discover the new Cariad Singles collection of spicy romances. Tarot reader and New Age market trader Lucy…
finds the cards can't help her when it comes to deciding between two very different men. Jon the tattoo artist is sex on legs as well as being fun to hang out with, but Lucy's not sure she wants to tame a real bad boy. Toby, the new market manager, on the other hand, is smart, sexy and in control, but may not be quite what he seems. As the Waterleigh Bridge arts and crafts market gets ready for a Christmas Fayre with a difference, Lucy needs to work out who she can trust - with her heart as well as her head.By Ann Bannon. 1959
Lauded as the “Queen of Lesbian Pulp” for her landmark novels of the 1950s, Ann Bannon defined lesbian fiction for…
the pre-Stonewall generation. Following the release of Cleis Press’s new editions of Beebo Brinker and Odd Girl Out, I Am a Woman finds sorority sister Laura Landon leaving college heartbreak behind and embracing Greenwich Village’s lesbian bohemia. This edition includes a new introduction by the author.