Happy I could help! My top 5 favourite lesbian books–at least at this very second–are probably:

1) Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters
2) The Color Purple by Alice Walker
3) Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue
4) The Summer We Got Free by Mia Mckenzie
5) Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue

Sorry for taking 100 years to answer this! The first ones I can think of are

Pages for You by Sylvia Brownrigg
Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown
Written On the Body and The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
The Last Nude by Ellis Avery
My Education by Susan Choi
The Salt Roads by Nalo Hopkinson
and of course all the rest of Sarah Waters’s books!

These are all ~literary queer women books with a some eroticism to them, though they are mostly darker than I found Tipping the Velvet. Hopefully some FYLL followers will have more suggestions!

ya-pride:

Hey there! Thank you so much, we so appreciate the support! :) 

The only one I know of is Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin, which takes place in 1926. I love it, but I wish I could give you more to choose from! Does anyone else know of books in these time periods? fuckyeahlesbianliterature? 

-Vee

I don’t know of a lot more YA books, other than Make Much of Me by Kayla Bashe and The Chinese Garden by Rosemary Manning (written in the 1960s, set in the 1920s), though I do second the suggestion of Silhouette of a Sparrow! It’s one of my favourite books! As for any other 1920s lesbian fiction, I highly recommend The Last Nude by Ellis Avery and The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters. Those and Silhouette are all fantastic, but they have really different takes on the time period, which is interesting. Oh, and The Gilda Stories has one section set in the 1920s!

More 1920s lesbian fiction that I haven’t read:

• All True Lovers by Sarah Aldridge
  
• Hers Was the Sky by ReBecca Beguin
  
• Out of Time by Paula Martinac (partially set in 1920s)
  
• Passing by Nella Larsen
• Quicksand by Nella Larsen
• Berlin: City of Stones by Jason Lutes
  
• Women of the Silk by Gail Tsukiyama
  
• The Hours by Michael Cunningham is set in the 1920s and 40s!
  
• An American In Paris by Margaret Vandenburgh
  
• The Empress by Lucius Parhelion
  
• Fall On Your Knees by Anne Marie MacDonald
  
• 
  

For the 1940s, I don’t know of any YA, but I have to recommend Sarah Waters again (she’s my favourite author). This time, The Night Watch. Aimée & Jaguar: A Love Story, Berlin 1943 by Erica Fischer is nonfiction and I loved it.

Luckily there’s already a Goodreads list for WWII Lesbian Historical Fiction! But here’s a few more 1940s ones as well:

• A Certain Discontent by Cleve Boutell 
• The Hope Chest by Victoria McConaughy and  Catherine McConaughy
• The River by Ria Goff
• Under the Mink by Lisa Davis

For anyone looking for just general lesbian historical YA, here’s a list for that (or check out Good Lesbian Books’s list for more info). And if you’re looking for any lesbian historical fiction, there’s a list for that (or Good Lesbian Books again).

Hope that helps!

Sure! I would recommend checking out these lists of historical lesbian fiction, as well as this list of WWII lesbian fiction, but especially the Bosom Friends website.

To be honest, I haven’t read a lot of lesbian books set in the 50s or 60s. The only ones I can personally recommend are Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown, The Price of Salt by Patricia Highsmith, and Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg. If you’re looking for lesbian pulp, Spring Fire by Vin Packer and the Beebo Brinker series by Ann Bannon are good places to start–but beware that lesbian pulp tends on the melodramatic/depressing side.

For more general historical fiction set in the western world in the 20th century, I like:

1850-2050: The Gilda Stories by Jewelle Gomez

~1910-1940: The Color Purple by Alice Walker

1920s: Silhouette of a Sparrow by Molly Beth Griffin, The Last Nude by Ellis Avery, The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

1940s: The Night Watch by Sarah Waters

1990s: The Miseducation of Cameron Post by emily m. danforth

Hope that helps, and hopefully other people have more 1950s and 60s suggestions!

queerbookclub:

The only non-fiction book with writing on femme identity that I’ve read myself is How Poetry Saved My Life by Amber Dawn, which I highly, highly recommend. I’m also looking forward to reading Dirty River: A Queer Femme of Color Dreaming Her Way Home by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha when it comes out later this year - she’s wonderful!

Here are some other titles that may be of interest:

• Brazen Femme: Queering Femininity edited by Chloë Brushwood Rose & Anna Camilleri
• The Persistent Desire: A Femme-Butch Reader edited by Joan Nestle
  
• Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme edited by Ivan E. Coyote & Zena Sharman
• The Femme Mystique edited by Lesléa Newman
• Coal to Diamonds: A Memoir by Beth Ditto with Michelle Tea
• Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive by Julia Serano
  
• Red Light: Superheroes, Saints, and Sluts edited by Anna Camilleri
  
• Visible: A Femmethology edited by Jennifer Clare Burke
• Femmes of Power: Exploding Queer Femininities by Del LaGrace Volcano & Ulrika Dahl

Happy reading!

Sure! These lists might help: Lesbian-Feminist Nonfiction and Lesbian history. Some of my favourite lesbian nonfiction reads have been Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature by Emma Donoghue and Kicked Out by Sassafras Lowrey.

There are! What kind of anthologies are you looking for? All the ones you listed seem to be nonfiction about butch and femme identities. If you’re looking for more on that subject, this list might be useful.

For fiction anthologies, check out this list.

Honestly, I haven’t read a lot of queer anthologies myself. The ones that I have read and enjoyed are (in addition to Persistence: All Ways Butch and Femme, which you’ve already read):

• Dear John, I Love Jane: Women Write About Leaving Men for Women by Candace Walsh
  
• Queer View Mirror: Lesbian and Gay Short Short Fiction edited by James C. Johnstone and Karen X. Tulchinsky 
  
• Daughters of Darkness: Lesbian Vampire Tales edited by Pam Keesey
  
• The Collection: Short Fiction from the Transgender Vanguard edited by Riley MacLeod and Tom Léger (not all lesbian stories)
  

Some of the lesbian nonfiction anthologies on my TBR are

• Dyke Life: From Growing Up to Growing Old, a Celebration of the Lesbian Experience by Karla Jay
  
• This Is What Lesbian Looks Like: Dyke Activists Take on the 21st Century by Kris Kleindienst
  
• In a Queer Country: Gay & Lesbian Studies in the Canadian Context edited by Terry Goldie
  

There are tons out there, though. Just let me know which sort of ones you’re looking for and I can help narrow it down!