The Indulgent Husband (in The Short Novels of Colette). “Bella Vista” in The Tender Shoot. “Gitanette” in Music Hall Sidelights.
All of these are currently in print in excellent, uniform English translation of the standard “Fleuron” edition of Colette’s complete works, from Farrar, Straus & Cudahy, of recent date. The two “Claudine” novels have had recent Avon pbr editions under the titles of Diary of a 15 Year Old French Girl, and Claudine.
Much of the work of this important French novelist was variant. Only the most explicit are named above. The first three form a connected narrative, telling of Claudine’s school crushes, her friendship with a male-homosexual cousin, and her “indulgent husband” who connives at her lesbian affair with a woman friend, in order to enjoy it secondhand. “Bella Vista” tells of a vacation spent, at a hotel managed by two middle-aged lesbians; the narrator’s fascinated interest in the couple vanishes when one of the “ladies” turns out to be, actually, a disguised man.
CONNOLLY, CYRIL. The Rock Pool. Scribner 1936, her New Directions n. d. Very well written novel of a group of expatriates in the South of France. Nearly all are homosexuals; the story is told without comment or judgment.
CONSTANTINE, MURRAY, and Margaret Goldsmith. Venus in Scorpio. John Lane, 1940. Heavily fictionalized biography, (erroneously listed elsewhere as a novel) of Marie Antoinette, suggesting lesbianism in her adolescence.
+ CORY, DONALD WEBSTER. 21 Variations on a Theme. N. Y., Greenberg 1953. The classic anthology of short stories about homosexuals; four deal with feminine variance.
COUPEROUS, LOUIS. The Comedians, N. Y. Doran 1926. Variant couple in a novel of Imperial Rome.
COURAGE, JAMES. A Way of Love. G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1959, (m).
COWLIN, DOROTHY. Winter Solstice. Macmillan, 1943. A brief variant relationship proves beneficial to a hysterical invalid.