The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage: A Readers Companion to the Writers and Their Works, from Antiquity to the Present [Hardcover]

Claude J. Summers (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1995 | ISBN-10: 0805027165 | ISBN-13: 978-0805027167 | Edition: 1st

An overview of the gay and lesbian presence in a variety of literatures and historical periods includes nearly four hundred works by such figures as Michaelangelo, Armistead Maupin, Sappho, and Shakespeare. 10,000 first printing.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The rerelease of The Gay & Lesbian Literary Heritage-published in 1995 by Holt-is to be celebrated for at least bringing back into print this best-ever, single-volume reference on the subject. Summers (English, Univ. of Michigan) presents both biographical and topical entries with an international scope, though the emphasis is on American and English literature. The writing is informative but also provocative, critical and yet consistently accurate and inclusive in the selection of works discussed. Unfortunately, of more than 380 entries, just 32 are new, and very few of the others have been revised or had their bibliographies updated. Allen Ginsberg's entry now has a death date and one new citation, but the text is untouched; the nine-column entry on AIDS literature, which previously delineated the most significant works year by year through 1994, adds just two scant paragraphs on the last seven years while revising none of the earlier text; and the entry on opera remains unchanged, thereby failing to note recent operas that for the first time deal overtly with gay themes (e.g., Stewart Wallace's Harvey Milk and Carla Lucero's Wuornos). Libraries that don't own the first edition or have worn it out should purchase this topnotch work despite the flaws, but those that still have the original can wait and hope for a fuller update. Presenting biographical entries on nearly 450 writers, Who's Who in Lesbian & Gay Writing differs from most of the previous two dozen titles in Routledge's series, which deal with historical figures or fictional characters (e.g., the Old Testament, the Greek world, military history). The significance of this distinction becomes clear when reading Griffin's entries, which are crammed with facts but offer little literary analysis. The entries lack the citations to critical secondary sources that one might expect in a who's who of writers as well as lists of significant publications, forcing Griffin to enumerate book titles and publication years in the text proper. She further dulls the text by emphasizing the names and dates of personal relationships over the qualities of the authors' writing. To be fair, one encyclopedist could not be expected to demonstrate critical knowledge of so many writers in the way that a biblical scholar might be able to expatiate on the personages of the Old Testament. The book is most successful in its selection of worthy subjects, something Griffin notes can be particularly problematic given the contested sexuality of some writers. The choices are all the more admirable given the book's breadth, encompassing writers from all places and all periods. Still, most of the subjects here can already be found in other sources, making the only justification for this publication a resounding emphasis on the homosexual slant of an author's life or work-an approach Griffin loses among the minutiae of mundane facts. Recommended only for large subject collections.
Eric Bryant, "Library Journal"
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Finding criticism on gay and lesbian literature and information about gay and lesbian authors is, while infinitely easier than 10 years ago, still challenging. This reader's companion provides an overview of the whole field. Summers is a professor of English at the University of Michigan, Dearborn, and the author of numerous articles and books, including Gay Fictions, Wilde to Stonewall: Studies in a Homosexual Literary Tradition (1990).

Heritage contains nearly 400 alphabetically arranged essays by more than 150 scholars. These are of three types: overviews of national or ethnic literatures (e.g., African Literatures, Jewish-American Literature), topical and genre entries (e.g., Modernism, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Young Adult Literature), and essays on individual authors, not all of them gay or lesbian. The more than 200 entries on authors tend to be brief; the national and topical entries are from four to a dozen pages in length. All entries conclude with bibliographies. Frequent cross-references are useful for locating related topics or further discussions of particular authors. An index notes all mentions of authors and topics.

This book does not make the criteria for inclusion explicit. As noted in the introduction, it is not comprehensive and the editor admits a bias in favor of English and American literary traditions, though all parts of the world and all time periods are touched on. Examples of authors omitted include Romaine Brooks, Bryher, Robert Chesley, Cheryl Clark, Melvin Dixon, David B. Feinberg, Charles Henri Ford, Lee Lynch, John Osborne, and David Zane.

Spanning antiquity (Plato) to the present (Fierstein, Harvey), this volume covers more territory than any other compilation to date. Sharon Malinowski's Gay & Lesbian Literature [RBB Jl 94] is a compilation of biographical and critical information on more than 200 authors who have figured prominently in gay and lesbian literature since 1900. It also does not profess to be comprehensive. However, criteria for inclusion are clearly stated: the gay and lesbian thematic content of a writer's work and not sexual identity.

The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage will contribute to a greater understanding of the multifaceted enterprise we call literature. Recommended for public and academic libraries.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 786 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Co; 1st edition (June 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805027165
• ISBN-13: 978-0805027167
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,516,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Perfect Reference for a Queer Academic, January 12, 2008

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Ford Ka (Edinburgh, Scotland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gay and Lesbian Literary Heritage: A Readers Companion to the Writers and Their Works, from Antiquity to the Present (Hardcover)

This is not a book that will keep you reading through the night and not only because one night would not be enough. This is a book you will keep on reading for years, picking it up to broaden your knowledge about still new authors and historical characters only to be surprised most of the time that, yes, they are included and given a broad and comprehensive treatment as well. Simply a must of you are interested in gay and lesbian literature and literary tradition. A necessary item in your reference library and a perfect book for browsing.