THE ROMANTIC POETS—19th CENTURY:
Coleridge, Samuel T.—Christabel. Long narrative poem of a curious attachment between a guileless young girl and a female demon; available in virtually every anthology of English literature.
Rossetti, Christina—Goblin Market. Lovely and fantastic poem with distinctly variant overtones. See anthologies of English literature.
Romani, Felice—Norma. Italian libretto for the opera by Vincenzo Bellini, generally adjudged to be subtly lesbian in overtones. Many translations are available in collections of opera libretti, but most English translations edit out the variant content or alter the emphasis.
Baudelaire, Charles—The Flowers of Evil, (trans. from the French of Les Fleurs du Mal by Edna St. Vincent Millay and George Dillon) N. Y. Harper, 1936, also New Directions, pbr, 1958. Many other editions and translations available.
Swinburne, Algernon Charles—Poems and Ballads, 2 vols, London, Chatto & Windus, 1893, 1895. Many of the poems in this series are explicitly or implicitly lesbian. In the interests of space limitation, only the major titles will be listed for those who want to sift through anthologies; Anactoria, Fragoletta, Sapphics, At Eleusis, Sonnet with a copy of Mlle. de Maupin, The Masque of Queen Bersabe, Erotion. The entire series of Poems and Ballads is available in her no. 961, Everyman’s Library, Dutton, 1940, 50, for $1.95.
Louÿs, Pierre—Songs of Bilitis. Many editions available, the most easily located probably being the Liveright “Collected works of Pierre Louys”, $3.50. There is also a paperback edition, Avon Red and Gold Library, no date. The “Songs” have been published singly in numerous privately printed and illustrated editions, some of which are very beautiful collector’s items.
Brontë, Emily—Complete Poems. N. Y. Columbia University Press, 1941 (still in print at $4.00). A scattering of these poems are (or can be interpreted as) vaguely variant.
Mencken, Idah Isaacs—Infelicia. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1875. (Rare, and expensive.)