Terry Castle

(Reviewers’ comments)

“Castle’s full, rich, and spirited selection exults in the risk of border crossings. Reading with an acute critical sense of historical change, she has defined her topic with inclusive generosity, admitting peeping toms as well as embattled advocates to her band of literary lesbian writers. The effect is emancipatory, mind-stretching, witty, and often joyous.” —Marina Warner

“Castle makes a genial host . . . [and] we begin to get a clearer sense of the moral and imaginative power of female homosexuality. Castle is a grand debunker in everything she writes. Her refreshing common sense and humour gives this enormous book an enormous appeal. A marvellous introduction charts the territories covered. There are no encumbering notes, but extensive further reading is offered, and her introductions to the entries are alert, good-natured, helpful and entertaining.”–Times Literary Supplement

“Wonderfully elucidating.”—Edmund White, Los Angeles Times Book Review

“One of the great pleasures of reading this anthology is the opportunity to eavesdrop on Castle talking to herself. Her usual wry wit is present everywhere . . . [The Literature of Lesbianism] shows not what has been written by lesbians but what has been written about them. For this alone it is uniquely valuable. . . . If I could have but one volume of lesbian literature, this would be the one.”–Lorallee MacPike, Lambda Book Report

“This anthology is quite simply magnificent, and no one but Terry Castle could have produced it. The magisterial introduction is a major essay, almost a monograph, massively learned, profoundly original, challenging and compelling. The selection of works is both generous and revelatory, including much excellent unfamiliar material, and a number of real surprises. This will be an essential volume for anyone interested not only in the history of women, and of sexuality, but in the complex energies of literature itself.”—Stephen Orgel, Stanford University

“This innovative anthology will serve as a superb resource both as a text and as a secondary reading for courses in women’s studies, queer studies, gender studies, and introduction to literature courses. . . . Highly recommended.”—Choice

“Castle brings her characteristic good humor and wide-ranging intelligence to bear on… what she sees as the ubiquity of “the lesbian idea” in the Western literature…. Recommended for women’s studies, sexuality, and comparative literature collections.”—Library Journal

“Castle should be commended for adding such an essential volume to any literary bookshelf.”—Elizabeth Millard, ForeWord

“Castle has a consistently engaging style that will draw general readers as well as scholars of feminist criticism and gay and lesbian literary theory.”—Diane Rogers, Stanford Magazine

“Castle’s massive and highly readable volume is a greater, more encompassing accumulation and exploration of the origin and transmutation of the idea of lesbianism in Western literature, spanning five centuries.”—Matthew Breen, Out.com

“The Literature of Lesbianism is an invitation to explore a vast array of offerings that demonstrate the richness of the lesbian literary heritage.”—Girlfriends Magazine

“It’s hard to decide what’s more amazing: the astonishing (and often unpredictable) range of attitudes, the range of writers included.”
—Books to Watch Out For Newsletter

“A treasure-trove for lovers of literature and of lesbians.”—Susan Gubar, author of Critical Condition: Feminism at the Turn of the Century