Patricia Highsmith wrote a pulp lesbian novel, The Price of Salt, in 1953 under the pseudonym Claire Morgan.
Jesus, you read the Times early.
You must have seen that Feminist Press has also released Valerie Taylor’s 1959 lesbian romance The Girls in 3-B?
Not fiction–even better. Read about Vita Sackville-West’s scandalous affair with Violet Trefusis. They even ran away to Paris together for a while in 1920. Violet was the model for the Russian fox-woman in Orlando–she sounds very self-centered, makes for good reading.
There are several biographies of Vita that tell about it.
Vita was also in love with Virginia Woolf, although whether it was truly physical is past knowing. Vita and Violet makes a much better story.
Eve, go out and pick up the current edition of Utne Reader, there’s a fairly lengthy article (reprinted from Z Magazine’s June 2003 issue) about postwar gay fiction.
Or I suppose you could probably find it online.
goddang it, there’s Diet Coke all over my screen now… 
This site http://www.piratesinfo.com has a message board with a forum for the scholarly discussion of pirates. Perhaps it may be of some use to you.
Facetious as this remark is 
– it’s not a novel, but Marlowe’s Edward II (c. 1590) has been called the oldest English drama with a gay protagonist…which is probably true, as I can’t think of an earlier one…
Believe it or not, the mediaeval Catalan epic Tirant lo blanc includes some (fairly obvious) lesbian episodes between its two main female characters …
tremorviolet- I SHOOT, I SCORE! G
Katisha- you are aware of the Monty Python reference, I hope
wasn’t Edward II recently filmed or serve as the basis for a film?
(not MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO)
There was a film version by Derek Jarmam made in 1991: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101798/
“The Swimming Pool Library” is set in 1980s London, but one of the characters is an elderly gay man who, through his journal, writes about the 20s and 30s gay world. You just get a few glimpses, but the rest of the story is good as well.
You may want to search the archives for the radio show “Fresh Air with Terry Gross.” Several months ago she interviewed a woman who wrote pulp novels in the 50s that all had plot lines involving lesbian relationships. I’ve completely forgotten her name.
Also, while not a novel, “The Naked Civil Servant,” by Quentin Crisp, should give you a good read on 1920s and 1930s gay London.
—I knew Quentin; I’m mentioned in one of his books. We used to have lunch or dinner every so often. Closest I’ll ever get to meeting Oscar Wilde!
Which one?
Re reprints of classic gay lit, the Quality Paperback Book Club used to have an imprint called IIRC “Triangle Classics.” I think QPBC has spun off the gay segment of its club into Insight Out Books which may or may not continue the imprint (it’s been a while since I opened any of ISO’s mailings).
Hmm. Insight Out Books Damn smileys.
Ooooh, it’s a book club. I am still dodging the Longines Symphonette Society . . .
I don’t remember which of Quentin’s books I’m in, but it’s reprints of his columns from that weekly he used to write for.
You may want to check out this list of the 100 best gay and lesbian books of the century. Billy Budd was 13, I expected it to be a bit higheron the list.
Also, somebody has written a book called “The Girls: Sappho Goes To Hollywood” that traces a crazy chain o’ lesbian love from Marlene Dietrich to Greta Garbo. Can’t remember the author right now, or how reliable she is.
Aaaand that’s not at all what you were asking for, as it’s relatively recent. Never mind, never mind… No gay love for me today.
Truman Capote’s OTHER VOICES, OTHER ROOMS (1948) is a young gay man’s coming of age novel. Capote committed the mortal sin of eclipsing Vidal’s CITY AND THE PILLAR (and, imho, of being a much better writer of fiction [though Vidal’s non fiction is fantastic]) and began the Battle of the Bitches that lasted until his death. (Actually Vidal still takes pot shots at Capote though few listen anymore; he looks terrible since his partner Howard died, incidentally.)
If you want to go really far back, the love letters of Michelangelo (his family changed the gender of the object) are wonderful gay romantic erotica.