Part 9 (1/2)
MAUPa.s.sANT, GUY DE. _Paul's Mistress._ ss in various collections including Cory, _21 Variations on a Theme_.
MAYHALL, JANE. _Cousin to Human._ Harcourt, Brace 1960. Valeda, friend of the heroine, has a sad, depressing affair with an adolescent schoolgirl athlete friend, named Mildred.
MEAGHER, MAUDE. _The Green Scamander._ Houghton Mifflin, 1933. A novel of the Trojan war, largely concerned with the pa.s.sionate friends.h.i.+p between Penthesilea, co-queen with the Amazon tribe, and her co-ruler Camilla. Beautifully written, available in most medium-sized libraries.
MEEKER, RICHARD. _The Better Angel._ Greenberg 1933, pbr Universal Pub. tct _Torment_ ca. 1952, (m).
+ MEREZOWSKII, DMITRI. (Trans. from Russian by Natalia A.
Duddington) London, J. M. Dent & Co, 1925, 1926. _Birth of the G.o.ds._ A fine novel of Crete and the bull-dancers (and perhaps the first of its kind). Dio, a strangely bis.e.xual young girl, priestess of the Great Mother, though attracted and attractive to men, is vowed to remain a virgin in the service of the G.o.ddess; much of the novel is devoted to her pa.s.sionate friends.h.i.+p for her young novice, Eoia. One of Dio's rejected lovers, believing that the ”little witch” has cast a spell on Dio to prevent her loving him, plots to have Eoia killed in the ring; instead Eoia's death nearly destroys Dio as well.
_Akhnaton, King of Egypt._ (as above) London, Dent, 1927.
Continues and concludes the story of Dio.
MERGENDAHL, CHARLES. _The Girl Cage._ pbo Gold Medal 1953, 1959.
Brief, minor lesbian episode in a novel about war widows.
MERRITT, A(braham); _The Metal Monster._ Copyright Munsey Magazines, (this ran serially in Argosy ca. 1920) Revised version, Frank A. Munsey 1941, pbr Avon, 1946. Offbeat variant episode in an adventure-fantasy; Norhala, pagan slave of the ”metal people”
steals the explorer's sister, Ruth, to ”play with her”; after her death Ruth weeps, saying ”she loved me dearly, dearly,” but significantly can remember nothing of their time together. Wildly fantastic, good of type.
METALIOUS, GRACE. _Return to Peyton Place._ Messner 1959, pbr Dell 1959. Another s.e.xy ”expose” of a small town. In one episode, the unpleasant wife of a local boy recalls her schooldays, when she taunted and enslaved a lesbian schoolmate.
MEYER, GLADYS ELEANOR, _The Magic Circle._ Knopf, 1944. fco Subtle novel of close friends.h.i.+p between two women; never explicit, and on the borderline for variant interest.
+ MILLAY, KATHLEEN. _Against the Wall._ Macaulay, 1929. College novel by the sister of the well-known poet (see poetry supplement).
MILLER, WALTER M. ”The Lineman” ss in Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1957, (m). Excellent att.i.tudes on h.o.m.os.e.xuality in general, in short story of isolated men.
MILLER, HENRY. _Plexus._ Paris, Olympia Press 1953, 2 vols.
Chapter 16 of the 2nd Volume is supposed to be devoted to a variant affair. Most of Henry Miller's books cannot be legally imported into the USA-this is one-and your editors haven't been to Paris yet. When you go, tell us.
MIs.h.i.+MA, YUKIO. _Confessions of a Mask._ New Directions 1958, (m).
+ MITCh.e.l.l, S. WEIR. _Constance Trescott._ N. Y., Century 1900. The plus is to draw attention to an old, overlooked t.i.tle. Major (for its date) treatment of variant enslavement between two half sisters.
+ MITCHISON, NAOMI. _The Delicate Fire._ Harcourt, N. Y. 1932. A major writer, and scholar, presents a collection of lovely short stories of ancient Greece; the t.i.tle story deals with Sappho and her group of girl lovers.
_The Corn King and the Spring Queen._ Harcourt, 1931, (m).
”Black Sparta” and ”Krypteia” in _Greek Stories_, Harcourt, 1928, (m).
MORAVIA, ALBERTO. _The Conformist._ Farrar, Straus & Young 1951, pbr Signet 1954. Penetrating study of a fascist whose compulsive drive for power destroys everyone he loves. An interlude between his wife and a friend provides a brief diversion before the macabre ending.
MOORE, HAL. _The Naked and the Fair._ pbo, Beacon, 1958, scv.
MOORE, PAMELA. _Chocolates for Breakfast._ Rinehart 1956, pbr Bantam 1957. Candid, shocking story of a young girl's disintegration; the opening episodes involve her rejection by a teacher on whom she has a crush, and there are variant overtones in her prolonged friends.h.i.+p with a school roommate, Janet's suicide being the spur which makes Courtney resolve to pull herself together.
MORELL, LEE. _Mimi._ pbo Beacon Books 1959. Unusually good evening waster about night-club and theatrical people, with both male and female h.o.m.os.e.xual episodes; handled with subtlety and lightness almost unknown in this publisher's paperbacks.