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There's a whole genre of "a general history of lesbians/homosexuality in Britain" with approaches ranging from lighthearted (and often inaccurate) pop history to very serious academic studies and sourcebooks. (This genre may also exist for other countries -- I've collected a smaller set for the USA -- but I haven't run across them as often.) This one falls in the mid-range, probably intended as a textbook for a non-specialist social history course.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 309 – Lesbians and Sex Work - transcript

(Originally aired 2025/03/22 - listen here)

Introduction

There are a number of interesting themes that intersect with women loving women across history, but one that might seem, at first, to be unexpected is the association of lesbianism with sex work. I mean, here you are thinking, “Isn’t sex work mostly about women providing sexual services for men? And isn’t that a bit in conflict with women loving women?” And yet we find this association repeatedly in many different contexts. So what’s going on?

Obviously a significant underlayer is simple misogyny, whereby all women who stand outside the approved sexual norm get lumped together. But when we start sorting through the data, we find four distinct motifs. I should note that these motifs don’t necessarily reflect patterns of women’s experience, as opposed to social archetypes. And the ways in which these motifs are framed are sometimes informed by other models of gender and sexuality embedded in a particular era.

The four motifs can be summed up first as “some women are oversexed and they incline both towards sex work and lesbianism;” second as “women are trained into sex work by being seduced by an established female sex worker;” third “female sex workers view men as a job and therefore turn to women for their own love and pleasure;” and fourth “there is a specific marketplace for women providing sexual services to women.”

When I do this sort of historic survey, usually I try to organize it by culture and then by era, but in this case the data is so sparse and scattered that I’m going to organize it by those four themes.

Over-Sexed

The first motif stems from the idea that if a woman transgresses approved sexual norms in one manner, she is likely to transgress other norms. But in some eras, we also find an explanation that the reason why women might turn to sex work or to sex with other women is because they have an excessive sex drive that can’t be satisfied by sticking to approved objects and relationships. This motif doesn’t necessarily treat sex work and lesbianism as distinct concepts. Perhaps the most direct expression of this idea is in derogatory language where a woman might be insulted by simultaneously calling her a whore, a slut, and a lesbian—something we find in early modern English drama. So we might see this not so much a conflation of sex workers and lesbians as a failure to distinguish them.

This conflation may be present in Plato’s invention of the word “hetairistria” in the Symposium dialogue about the origin of sexual orientation in the separation of two-bodied creatures who are forever trying to find their “other half.” As Boehringer explains, the root “hetair-” covers a cluster of meanings in the sense “friend, companion” but with gendered nuances. The masculine “hetairos” only ever has a neutral sense of “friend” whereas the feminine “hetaira” developed a contextual meaning of “courtesan, mistress.” A verb derived from the same root occurs in the context of male prostitution. While Plato’s invention “hetairistria” clearly refers in some way to women loving women, though the context suggests that it may mean specifically “a woman whose love for women goes beyond the accepted norm.”  However Plato intended the word, it was later interpreted and used to mean a woman-loving woman generally, used in parallel with tribade and lesbian. But the connection with hetaira as courtesan also anchored this sense in the semantic realm of sex work.

We see this same evolution of overlapping meanings in the shifting images of Sappho where she is reimagined as a courtesan in combination with her reputation for loving women.

Taking a somewhat different angle we see a connection between gender transgression and sex work in the popular association of the latter with cross-dressing. On the 16th century Italian stage, characters depicting courtesans are often given cross-dressing scenes, mirroring habits attributed to real life courtesans. In English court records of the 15th and 16th centuries, cross-dressing women were assumed to be sex workers, whether because cross-dressing gave them the freedom to be out on the streets illicitly or because their clients may have found it titillating. While this isn’t to say that most sex workers cross-dressed, the law assumed that a cross-dressed woman was engaged in sexual transgression of some type. There are specific records of a woman being “enticed to whoredom” in a process that included cutting her hair short and dressing her in men’s clothing. The women in this category were not assumed to be engaging in sex with other women, but the motif links via the cross-dressing theme. Notorious 17th century gender outlaw Mary Frith was accused of being involved in prostitution purely on the basis of her mix of male and female garments, and dramatic characters based on her were also depicted as bisexual. It’s also worth noting that in this era calling a woman a whore or prostitute didn’t depend on whether she accepted money, but could simply refer to any sex outside marriage.

This motif of prostitutes wearing masculine clothing as an advertising statement continues into the 19th century in the American West, alongside other types of signifiers such as wearing overly sumptuous dress.

During the same era in France, writers and artists documenting the demi-monde associated lesbians with the spheres of sex work and theater. These depictions echoed the developing medical theories of homosexuality, which viewed it as a direct byproduct of criminality and prostitution.

Lesbianism as Training

Male anxiety about lesbian relations among sex workers was defused, to some extent, in the motif of same-sex seduction as a means to provide an erotic awakening for prospective sex workers. In this scenario, an older, experienced woman introduces an innocent young girl to the pleasures of sex and then—in the male-centered context of this motif—leaves her eager for the supposedly more enjoyable encounters with male clients.

This is a popular motif in dramas and novels of the 16th through 18th centuries, such as the 16th century Spanish dialogue La Celestina and its many derivatives such as the English translation as The Spanish Bawd. The theme is strongly implied in the 17th century English play The Three Ladies of London and is overt in the 18th century French pornographic novel Thérèse the Philosophe, though in the latter case the supposed ingenue already has a lesbian history before being taken under the wing of a procuress. Perhaps the most widely known example is in John Cleland’s 18th century novel Fanny Hill, in which the innocent Fanny is initiated into sexual pleasure by an older prostitute. Her mentor is described as having a preferred taste for female partners, while Fanny is eager to move on to men.

The motif of lesbian seduction into sex work may not have been entirely restricted to fiction. In one 17th century Spanish court case, a lesbian couple on trial are also accused of collecting a group of “wayward” young women supposedly to deliver them to a convent for reformed sex workers, but believed to be instead recruiting them to set up a brothel. Though in this case there isn’t direct evidence that the couple were engaging in sex with their recruits.

Women for Love

But what if, like Fanny Hill’s mentor, a sex worker actually prefers to take her pleasure with other women? Then we have our third motif. This one provokes a bit more male anxiety than the “seduction into sex work” motif, because it undermines the necessary fiction that sex workers have a more-than-commercial relationship to their clients. It also undermines the fiction that women turn to other women for sex only because men aren’t available. As Brantôme laments in 16th century France, “Even courtesans, who have men at their disposal at all hours, yet have recourse to these fricarelles, seek each other out and love each other, as I have heard of sundry doing in Italy and in Spain.

Among the various myths that arose about Sappho, one strand turned her into a courtesan—perhaps from the misapprehension that only courtesans would have the education and sophistication to be poets. There are images of Sappho on Greek pottery that depict her as a part of a symposium of courtesans participating in a female pederastic tradition.

A genre of teasing and satirical poetry in medieval Spain includes references to homosexual relations, including three verses that make clear and explicit reference to female same-sex encounters by sex workers serving military camps.

Brantôme, along with some of his contemporaries even name names in this context, contrasting the “chaste” love between two female aristocrats with the more lascivious desires of “the great prostitute Cecilia Venetiana” and a famous Spanish courtesan in Rome, Isabella de Luna, who herself kept another courtesan named Pandora as her mistress.

In an era when women on stage found it difficult to escape a second career as mistresses to wealthy theater patrons, a number of prominent actresses were famous for their female lovers, including 18th century French actress Mademoiselle de Raucourt who was said to have “married” her lover, the singer Sophie Arnould and had succession of other female lovers. (Though Raucourt is perhaps not an ideal example of the category as she struggled to avoid the need for having male clients.) The motif of actresses competing with men for the affections of courtesans and mistresses was prevalent enough to become a standard trope in French comic media.

Sometimes these relationships were complicated. Betty Rizzo explores one 18th century couple who combined a romantic and (probably) sexual relationship with a business partnership, Sophia Baddeley being a sometime actress and courtesan, and Elizabeth Steele being her companion, lover, pimp, and business manager.

Guy de Maupassant’s late 19th century French novel “Paul’s Mistress” features the protagonist’s suicidal despair when his mistress deserts him for the “more certain affections” of a band of lesbians.

A Russian psychiatrist’s case study of the late 19th century tells of a female couple who met while working together in a brothel and were fired for neglecting their customers in favor of each other. After the two eventually broke up, one of the women returned to working in the brothel, picked up another girlfriend, and again was kicked out, taking her new girlfriend with her.

Lest I give the impression that these motifs are restricted to Western culture—honestly, it’s the old problem that the vast majority of my research sources have that focus—I’ll offer two other items. Among a 9th century collection of songs and stories from the Islamicate world, there is an anecdote of the famous courtesan Bathal daringly singing a song about her preference for sex with women.

And in India, within the curious genre of Rekhti poetry—an Urdu genre in which a typically male poet writes in a female voice addressing a female beloved—there is evidence of courtesans performing these poems for each other.

Lesbian Sex Work

Our fourth motif is a bit harder to pin down, especially with regard to whether it existed in real life as opposed to literature. Were there circumstances in which women provided sexual services to other women as a commercial enterprise? What sort of evidence would that leave? What is the dividing line between a woman providing financial support to her female lover, and sex as a financial transaction? In this essay, I’ve been treating a wide variety of non-marital heterosexual liaisons as falling within the category of sex work, including ones where the women are characterized as “courtesans” or “mistresses.” But female couples didn’t have the option of formal marriage; is it fair to apply the same definitions to them? These are some of the complications.

In Lucian’s fictional Dialogues of the Courtesans, we have a clear example of a professional courtesan (who appears to be much more on the “sex worker” end of the scale than the “intellectual companion” end) hired to entertain a female couple, including engaging in sex with both of them. (For the moment we’re going to skate over the question of whether the character of Megilla should be treated as transgender, because Lucian clearly intended her to be read as female.) This courtesan’s profession includes providing entertainment to her clients, that entertainment clearly is expected to include sexual services, and while she is a bit surprised to be asked to provide those services for women, she is perfectly willing and appears to be continuing to engage with these clients. Was this an actual feature of 2nd century Greek culture? Not proven, but neither does Lucian present it as something the reader is expected to disbelieve.

In late 15th century English legal records, there is one tantalizing reference to a woman named Thomasina keeping in her household a cross-dressed woman who was a concubine. While there’s enough ambiguity in the record for doubt as to whose concubine the woman was, the most straightforward reading is that she was Thomasina’s concubine. However there’s even more doubt as to whether the relationship should be read as transactional, as “concubine” simply meant a non-marital relationship and may have been the only word available to the clerk to describe the situation.

Less ambiguous, though not clearly certain, is an inquisition record from mid-17th century Spain in which one member of a female couple was recorded as having boasted that her girlfriend was willing to pay her for sex (but evidently was not actually doing so). The most straightforward interpretation would be a culture where sex work for a female client was understood as a possibility. But in the specific case, this is a long-term couple, although with a stormy relationship, where neither woman is considered by the court to be a sex worker.

Returning to the realm of fiction, Delariviere Manley’s early 18th century novel The New Atalantis includes an anecdote in which a female couple—one crossdressing as a man—together engaged the services of “Creatures of Hire” who were happy in “obliging [their] peculiar taste.” A similar event occurs in Eliza Haywood’s mid-18th century novel The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy, where a character named Lady Fisk goes on a cross-dressed adventure in Covent Garden that ends in picking up a (female) prostitute, though in this case the sex worker was not amenable once she learned Fisk’s assigned sex.

Interacting with sex workers while in gender disguise does add another twist to interpretative difficulty, especially if one is viewing the situation through trans possibilities. 18th century English actress Charlotte Charke’s autobiography records flirtations with sex workers while crossdressing, though the demands of her audience meant that she generally depicts it as attracting not-entirely-wanted attention and that the sex workers were not aware of her assigned sex.

 Another complication? Where is the dividing line between a brothel, where women go to pay for sex, and a sex club, where they gather to have encounters with other women? The potentially fictitious 18th century Anandrine Sect in France is clearly a sex club rather than a house of prostitution, and the description by a German visitor to London in the 1780s of organized societies for “females who avoid all intimate intercourse with the opposite sex, confining themselves to their own sex” similarly sounds non-commercial.

A complaint in 18th century Amsterdam against 4 women who shared a house “where disreputable people gathered” is unclear on the nature of the establishment. The house was said to be one where women came to caress and kiss one another and feel under each other’s skirts. While one of the women said she was “seduced with coffee and alcohol,” it isn’t clear that the house was a commercial establishment as opposed to a meeting place.

The most explicit descriptions I’ve found of English brothels catering to lesbians have turned out to be an elaborate game of telephone, with sources citing each other in circular fashion, adding ever more specific details as they go. If you’re interested in going down that rabbit hole, check out my podcast on “Researching the Origins of Lesbian Myths, Legends, and Symbols” (linked in the show notes). But in the end I could find no verifiable evidence for lesbian bordellos in 18th century London.

Summary

So as you can see the question of a historic connection between lesbians and sex workers is complex and full of uncertainties, not only due to the nature of the sources and the biases of the people recording them, but due to the often ambiguous nature of sex work itself within societies where even relationships with official imprimatur are transactional in nature. But perhaps this exploration has offered new ideas for historic stories and characters.

Show Notes

In this episode we talk about:

• Four motifs that connect women loving women and sex work in historic sources
• Sources used
  • Bennett, Judith and Shannon McSheffrey. 2014. “Early, Erotic and Alien: Women Dressed as Men in Late Medieval London” in History Workshop Journal. 77 (1): 1-25.
  • Beynon, John C. 2010. “Unaccountable Women” in Lesbian Dames: Sapphism in the Long Eighteenth Century. Beynon, John C. & Caroline Gonda eds. Ashgate, Farnham. ISBN 978-0-7546-7335-4
  • Blackmore, Josiah. 1999. “The Poets of Sodom” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
  • Boehringer, Sandra (trans. Anna Preger). 2021. Female Homosexuality in Ancient Greece and Rome. Routledge, New York. ISBN 978-0-367-74476-2
  • Burford, E.J. 1986. Wits, Wenchers and Wantons - London’s Low Life: Covent Garden in the Eighteenth Century. Robert Hale, London. ISBN 0-7090-2629-3
  • Cheek, Pamela. 1998. "The 'Mémoires secrets' and the Actress: Tribadism, Performance, and Property", in Jeremy D. Popkin and Bernadette Fort (eds), The "Mémoires secrets" and the Culture of Publicity in Eighteenth-Century France, Oxford: Voltaire Foundation.
  • Choquette, Leslie. 2001. “’Homosexuals in the City: Representations of Lesbian and Gay Space in Nineteenth-Century Paris” in Merrick, Jeffrey & Michael Sibalis, eds. Homosexuality in French History and Culture. Harrington Park Press, New York. ISBN 1-56023-263-3
  • Craft-Fairchild, Catherine. 2006. “Sexual and Textual Indeterminacy: Eighteenth-Century English Representations of Sapphism” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 15:3
  • DeJean, Joan. 1989. Fictions of Sappho, 1546-1937. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-14136-5
  • Donoghue, Emma. 1995. Passions Between Women: British Lesbian Culture 1668-1801. Harper Perennial, New York. ISBN 0-06-017261-4
  • Engelstein, Laura. 1990. "Lesbian Vignettes: A Russian Triptych from the 1890s" in Signs vol. 15, no. 4 813-831.
  • Garber, Marjorie. 1992. Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-91951-7
  • Faderman, Lillian. 1981. Surpassing the Love of Men. William Morrow and Company, Inc., New York. ISBN 0-688-00396-6
  • Gilhuly, Kate. 2015. “Lesbians are Not from Lesbos” in Blondell, Ruby & Kirk Ormand (eds). Ancient Sex: New Essays. The Ohio State University Press, Columbus. ISBN 978-0-8142-1283-7
  • Habib, Samar. 2007. Female Homosexuality in the Middle East: Histories and Representations. Routledge, New York. ISBN 78-0-415-80603-9
  • Haley, Shelley P. “Lucian’s ‘Leaena and Clonarium’: Voyeurism or a Challenge to Assumptions?” in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin & Lisa Auanger eds. 2002. Among Women: From the Homosocial to the Homoerotic in the Ancient World. University of Texas Press, Austin. ISBN 0-29-77113-4
  • Ingrassia, Catherine. 2003. “Eliza Haywood, Sapphic Desire, and the Practice of Reading” in: Kittredge, Katharine (ed). Lewd & Notorious: Female Transgression in the Eighteenth Century. The University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor. ISBN 0-472-11090-X
  • Jones, Ann Rosalind & Peter Stallybrass. 1991. “Fetishizing gender: constructing the Hermaphrodite in Renaissance Europe” in Body guards : the cultural politics of gender ambiguity edited by Julia Epstein & Kristina Straub. Routledge, New York. ISBN 0-415-90388-2
  • Jones, Heather Rose. 2021. “Researching the Origins of Lesbian Myths, Legends, and Symbols” (podcast). https://alpennia.com/blog/lesbian-historic-motif-podcast-episode-201-researching-origins-lesbian-myths-legends-and
  • Katritzky, M.A. 2005. “Reading the Actress in Commedia Imagery” in Women Players in England, 1500-1660: Beyond the All-Male Stage, edited by Pamela Allen Brown & Peter Parolin. Ashgate, Burlington. ISBN 978-0-7546-0953-7
  • Klein, Ula Lukszo. 2021. Sapphic Crossings: Cross-Dressing Women in Eighteenth-Century British Literature. University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville. ISBN 978-0-8139-4551-4
  • Kranz, Susan E. 1995. The Sexual Identities of Moll Cutpurse in Dekker and Middleton’s The Roaring Girl and in London in Renaissance and Reformation 19: 5-20.
  • Merrick, Jeffrey. 1990. “Sexual Politics and Public Order in Late Eighteenth-Century France: the Mémoires secrets and the Correspondance secrète” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1, 68-84.
  • Merrick, Jeffrey & Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. 2001. Homosexuality in Early Modern France: A Documentary Collection. Oxford University Press, New York. ISBN 0-19-510257-6
  • Rizzo, Betty. 1994. Companions without Vows: Relationships among Eighteenth-Century British Women. Athens: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 978-0-8203-3218-5
  • Sears, Clare. 2015. Arresting Dress: Cross-Dressing, Law, and Fascination in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco. Durham: Duke University Press. ISBN 978-0-8223-5758-2
  • Shapiro, Michael. 1994. Gender in Play on the Shakespearean Stage: Boy Heroines and Female Pages. Ann Arbor.
  • Van der Meer, Theo. 1991. “Tribades on Trial: Female Same-Sex Offenders in Late Eighteenth-Century Amsterdam” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 1:3 424-445.
  • Vanita, Ruth and Saleem Kidwai, eds. 2000. Same-Sex Love in India: Readings from Literature and History. St. Martin’s, New York. ISBN 0-312-22169-X
  • Velasco, Sherry. 2011. Lesbians in Early Modern Spain. Vanderbilt University Press, Nashville. ISBN 978-0-8265-1750-0
  • Wahl, Elizabeth Susan. 1999. Invisible Relations: Representations of Female Intimacy in the Age of Enlightenment. Stanford University Press, Stanford. ISBN 0-8047-3650-2
  • Walen, Denise A. 2005. Constructions of Female Homoeroticism in Early Modern Drama. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN 978-1-4039-6875-3

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)

Mademoiselle de Raucourt is on my short list for "historic lesbians who deserve a major media property about them.

Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 308 - On the Shelf for March 202 - Transcript

(Originally aired 2025/03/02 - listen here)

Welcome to On the Shelf for March 2025.

If you’ll forgive me for obsessing about it: it is exactly two months until my retirement date. Currently it’s a bit hard for me to think much about anything but getting all my day-job projects finished or handed off, getting all my retirement financial arrangements in place, and…well, there are other significant distractions in the world at the moment. So I feel like these “on the shelf” episodes have been stripped down to the bare bones lately. No new book shopping, no author interviews, no special book appreciation discussions, not much in the way of news of the field. I promise I’ll have more brain and energy for enriching these round-up shows very soon. (I do have an interview planned for next month, as it happens.)

But there is one exciting piece of news, in case you haven’t visited the blog to see it. We have a fiction line-up! When I had my choices narrowed down to the top six, I realized that I could take them all. Two stories were short enough that, when combined, they still met the 5000 word limit of my budget. And when I checked the calendar, I realized that I also needed a story for January 2026 (a month with 5 Saturdays, which is when I air fiction). So here is the line-up, in alphabetical order by title. (The release schedule has yet to be determined, but since the first story airs at the end of this month, it will be one that I do the narration for.)

• “A Falling Star and a Flying Bird” by Rhiannon Grant
• “An Encounter with a Lady” by Catherine Lundoff
• “Down by the Tumbling Stream” by EC Hallewell
• “Ma’am, This is a Fruit Stand” by Maya Dworsky-Rocha
• “The House of the Women” by Jeannelle M. Ferreira
• “Where You Go” by Jennifer Nestojko

The settings range from ancient Crete to the Victorian era. We have touches of fantasy, scenes of adventure and peril, and through it all lives revolving around connections and loyalties and love. And there were so many stories I wished I could include. As I’ve mentioned on previous occasions, the surest way to get into the “yes” pile when I’m reading submissions is for the story to have exquisite writing that grabs me by the throat. Each of the stories in this year’s season did just that.

Publications on the Blog

In February, the blog covered several articles in the collection Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance edited by Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Much like the collection Queering the Middle Ages, which I blogged last month, there was a disappointing lack of articles focused on women’s same-sex relationships—the closest being two articles focusing on transmasculine figures which were perceived as women by their societies.

In the current month, I have lined up several articles from the collection Homosexuality in Modern France edited by Jeffrey Merrick and Bryant T. Ragan, Jr. By “modern” France, the editors mean the 18th through 20th centuries, so definitely within the Project’s scope. I’m also listening to the audiobook version of Anne Choma’s tv tie-in book Gentleman Jack: The Real Anne Lister, so I’ll be blogging that as well, though not in the sort of detail I apply to academic works.

Expect the blog to ramp up significantly in the coming months. Soon. Soon.

Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction

So you know how last month I commented on how few new fiction titles I’d found and how I expected there would be some catch-up on February books this month? Well, I only have 3 March titles, but a total of 22 new listings. A lot of that is due to multiple releases by only a couple of authors and I have some discussion on that, so I’ll save those books for the end of the segment.

In fact, let’s start off with a group of short stories that have been released in e-book format.

Canvas of Desire by Pippa Farthingale has a rather long cover copy for a short story.

In the heart of a sleepy mid-western town, where the rhythm of life was dictated by the rise and fall of the sun and the predictable cadence of gossip, Eleanor Vance felt an ache for something more. Cloaked in the constraints of her genteel upbringing, she drifted through gardens of roses and neatly trimmed hedges, struggling to reconcile the expectations of society with the powerful longing that stirred within her. Little did she know that a single art exhibit would shatter the facade of her everyday existence and lead her to the vibrant, uncharted territory of passion and self-discovery.

As Eleanor stepped into the town hall that warm summer evening, the air thick with anticipation, she was drawn not only to the brushstrokes and colours that adorned the walls but also to a captivating artist whose very presence seemed to ignite the space. Clara Dubois, a name whispered among the town’s elite with both intrigue and disapproval, wielded her palette like a key, unlocking the desires stifled beneath the surface of propriety. In that moment, surrounded by the murmurs of the elite, Eleanor would find herself at a crossroads, poised between conformity and the exhilarating allure of forbidden love. What transpired next would forever alter the trajectories of their lives, casting them into a whirlwind of emotions that neither could have anticipated. Thus began the journey on the canvas of desire, where art became the transformative bridge between a constrained world and the untamed realm of the heart.

My Heart On Your Sleeve by April Klasen takes place in the 18th century but the setting isn’t entirely clear.

At sixteen, Anne was in love with her best friend Isa. But Isa left her mantua maker apprenticeship to start a family with her new husband. Leaving Anne heartbroken. Thirteen years later, Anne never expected it to be recently widowed Isa coming into her dressmaker shop to apply for the apprenticeship on offer. Friendships are rekindled. And so are old feelings of love. But is Anne brave enough to give Isa her heart this time?

Taking advantage of a February release, we have Petals and Pages by T. Albright.

For Theresa, more is riding on this Valentine’s Day than the state of her heart. She’s entrusted the fate of her struggling stationary store to the new craze for handmade Valentine’s Day cards. Once a passionate artist, now all her focus is on making cards that people want to buy so she can keep her shop afloat for another week. But Theresa has also been secretly working on a Valentine’s Day card for her sweetheart Susan, to finally express the depths of her affection. When her project goes awry, Theresa’s insecurities surface and threaten to ruin their evening. Will Theresa find the words to voice what’s in her heart?

Moving on to the novel-length works, The Art of Unmaking by Parker Lennox from ONYX Publishing should have been included in last month’s listings, but it took me more time to track down a buy link for the book.

In 1922 York, England, Clara Bennett knows exactly who she's supposed to be. Or at least she thinks she does. As a promising young artist at the prestigious Fleming Academy, she perfects her style through classical training. Her days are filled with strict rules, proper techniques, and the weight of her mother's expectations. But when she encounters the mysterious Evelyn Price at a controversial exhibition, Clara's carefully ordered world begins to unravel.

Drawn into the mysterious Blackwood Society, Clara discovers art that defies reality itself. Torn between her rigid training and an intoxicating new freedom, she finds herself questioning everything she once believed. But the price of this freedom may be higher than she ever imagined, and the person she's becoming could be her very own undoing.

Clara will have to decide how much she's willing to sacrifice for greatness. Because as her art transforms, so does her heart—but nothing in the Society is quite what it seems, and some secrets are painted in shadows too dark to escape.

I’m always interested in early medieval stories with solid historic grounding, so I could wish that The Smith by Marine St. Jean could be purchased somewhere other than Amazon.

For eight years, Ama has been on the run and out of reach from the people who destroyed her life. Staying detached and moving quickly is all you can expect as a merchant-class woman with unnatural passions, even in the neglected areas of Gascony in the 800's.

But now a village that needs her skills, and more importantly, a woman who wants her heart, is trying to break through those walls. If they do, Ama is convinced disaster will follow. And if she learns the whole truth, Ama will lose her as well.

Love and Rebellion (Forbidden Whispers #1) by Ericka Schmidt adds to the growing micro-genre of sapphic fantasy viking stories. I have yet to encounter a sapphic novel set in early medieval Scandinavia that has a purely historic setting, but the mythic settings are very popular.

In the unforgiving wilderness of Vestfold, Norway, where Viking clan laws reign supreme and a warrior's worth is measured by blood and steel, two shield maidens will ignite a rebellion that will challenge everything.

Freydis and Thorarna—bound by a love more powerful than any weapon, more dangerous than any battlefield. Forced into a life not of their choosing, traded like property in the brutal game of clan politics, they refuse to be silent. Mere breeding vessels? No. They are fire. They are storm. They are revolution.

When rival warriors claim them during the sacred selection ceremony, Freydis and Thorarna make a choice that will echo through Viking history: they choose each other. Their love becomes a defiance—a burning challenge to every tradition that seeks to break them.

But freedom comes at a price. King Harald's vengeance is swift and merciless. The Blood Eagle awaits those who dare to challenge the old ways. Hunted by their own people, pursued by Karina—a shield maiden consumed by a twisted obsession—their journey becomes a raw, unfiltered cry of female rage and unbreakable sisterhood.

Some loves are whispered. Some rebellions are crushed.

Theirs will be legendary.

Lately I’ve encountered a number of stories revolving around the “affair of the poisons” in the 17th century court at Versailles. This latest is The Witch of Versailles by Jessica Mason from Murmuration Books.

At the dawn of the reign of the Sun King, an ambitious actress turns to magic to advance her dreams, then poison to keep them alive. Claude de Vin Des Oeillets rises from the bottom of Parisian society in 1660 to become both servant and lover to Madame de Montespan, a marquise with grand plans for a place in the new paradise of Versailles and the bed of Louis XIV.

A spider in a web of court intrigue and secret affairs, Claude rises ever higher, into the orbit of the King himself, but finds she must resort to dark arts and dangerous alliances on behalf of the woman she loves to stay in his golden light.

Louisa May Alcott’s novel Little Women throws out some intriguing sapphic vibes, especially in the semi-autobiographical character of Jo March. But in The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko, and Liz Parker from Kensington Books, a different sister is the one who brings this story into our scope.

I’m sure you believe you know their story from reading that other book, which told you an inspiring tale about four sisters. It told you a story, but did it tell you the story?

Four sisters, each as different as can be. Through the eyes and words of Jo, their characters and destinies became known to millions. Meg, pretty and conventional. Jo, stubborn, tomboyish, and ambitious. Beth, shy and good-natured, a mortal angel readily accepting her fate. And Amy, elegant, frivolous, and shallow. But Jo, for all her insight, could not always know what was in her sisters’ thoughts, or in their hearts.

 With Jo away in New York, pursuing her dreams of being a writer, Meg, Beth, and Amy follow their own paths. Meg, newly married with young twins, struggles to find the contentment that Marmee assured her would come with domesticity. Unhappy and unfulfilled, she turns to her garden, finding there not just a hobby but a calling that will allow her to help other women in turn.

 Beth knows her time is limited. Still, part of her longs to break out of her suffocating cocoon at home, however briefly. A new acquaintance turns into something more, offering unexpected, quiet joy.

 Amy, traveling in Europe while she pursues her goal of becoming an artist, is keenly aware of the expectation that she will save the family by marrying well. Through the course of her journey, she discovers how she can remain true to herself, true to her art, and true to the love that was always meant to be.

 By purposefully leaving Jo off the page, authors Liz Parker, Ally Malinenko, and Linda Epstein give the other March sisters room to reveal themselves through conversations, private correspondence, and intimate moments—coming alive in ways that might surprise even daring, unconventional Jo.

For a while, cross-time stories with parallel storylines in different eras seemed to dominate these listings, though they haven’t been as common lately. But this month turns up Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray from Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

It was said that if you write to the Bridegroom’s Oak, the love of your life will answer back. Now, the tree is giving up its secrets at last.

In 1940s Germany, Sophie is excited to discover a message waiting for her in the Bridegroom's Oak from a mysterious suitor. Meanwhile, her best friend, Hanna, is sending messages too—but not to find love. As World War II unfolds in their small town of Kleinwald, the oak may hold the key to resistance against the Nazis.

In 1980s West Germany, American teen transplant Jenny feels suffocated by her strict parents and is struggling to fit in. Until she finds herself falling for Lena, a punk-rock girl hell-bent on tearing down the wall separating West Germany from East Germany, and meeting Frau Hermann, a kind old lady with secrets of her own.

In Spring 2020, New York City, best friends Miles and Chloe are slogging through the last few months of senior year when an unexpected package from Chloe’s grandmother leads them to investigate a cold case about two unidentified teenagers who went missing under the Bridegroom’s Oak eighty years ago.

I’m not absolutely certain, but the description for Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna Van Veen from Poisoned Pen Press is giving me definite Dracula vibes.

The Netherlands, 1887. Lucy's twin sister Sarah is unwell. She refuses to eat, mumbles nonsensically, and is increasingly obsessed with a centuries-old corpse recently discovered on her husband's grand estate. The doctor has diagnosed her with temporary insanity caused by a fever of the brain. To protect her twin from a terrible fate in a lunatic asylum, Lucy must unravel the mystery surrounding her sister's condition, but it's clear her twin is hiding something. Then again, Lucy is harboring secrets of her own, too.

Then, the worst happens. Sarah's behavior takes a turn for the strange. She becomes angry… and hungry.

Lucy soon comes to suspect that something is trying to possess her beloved sister. Or is it madness? As Sarah changes before her very eyes, Lucy must reckon with the dark, monstrous truth, or risk losing her forever.

For this next group of books, I want to talk about how the publishing landscape makes me paranoid.  A couple of times previously, I’ve talked about encountering books that gave off strong “generated by AI vibes”—I’m not talking about covers, but the text itself. So when I was researching new releases and I came across an author with no prior presence or other online footprint who released 7 titles within a single month, I definitely gave the books much closer scrutiny than I normally would. And that also pushed me to give closer scrutiny to a 3-title author and even a 2-title author (even though releasing two books in the same month wouldn’t normally strike me as suspicious).

So I checked all the reading samples, and looked for other signs, such as releasing books across wildly different genres. The writing was…not superb, but definitely not bot-like. So I asked my professional writers group for a reality check and learned that there’s a specific indie writer strategy being recommended where you release a lot of titles in a short period to get Amazon juice. So…ok, I guess? I confess I don’t really understand the purpose of saving up 7 novels and then releasing them all at once. Especially if you’ve never published before. Generally it’s a good thing to step up your writing chops with each new book. But you do you, if it works for you. But for what it’s worth, for this particular book booster, coming out of nowhere and publishing a lot of books all at the same time does make me suspicious in the current circumstances. With that said…

Marina Tempest has released a duo of decidedly alternate history romances in a series entitled “Lesbian Pirates”—which provide exactly what it says on the tin. It isn’t clear if these have connected storylines.

In Bitter Winds Victoria Walsh lost everything when she was falsely accused of treason - her commission, her honor, and her family legacy. Now she commands a pirate vessel, leading her own loyal crew while searching for evidence to clear her name. She never expected her path to justice would lead her back to Eleanor Cavendish - the admiral's daughter whose troubled eyes at Victoria's trial suggested she alone saw the truth. Eleanor has spent six months investigating the corruption that destroyed Victoria's life, gathering evidence against the powerful men who framed her. But when their worlds violently collide, they're forced to flee together into a storm that will either tear them apart or forge an unbreakable bond.

Cursed Scar puts cold, cynical Captain Quinn Tanner in the path of Lady Diamond Haverford, a brilliant, beautiful noblewoman who is hiding dangerous secrets of her own.

V.C. Sterling has burst onto the scene with two different series, which appear to be thematically connected rather than involving continuing characters or settings. There are currently 5 books in the Roses and Rebellion series, which all appear to have Victorian-era settings.

In The Duchess's Companion, A widowed Lady Beatrice Pembroke fights against the expectation that she will remain in the shadows. Eva Blackwood, hired as her companion for her return to society comes with secrets—including her attraction to her employer. Together they navigate the treacherous world of aristocratic scandal, old enemies, and new conspiracies.

In A Lady's Reckoning Catherine Balfour escapes the clutches of London’s most feared physician and seeks refuge in the misty streets of Bath. Hiding under a false name, she finds sanctuary at Elinor Langston’s clinic—a place where the city’s forgotten can find healing. But safety is an illusion. The man she fled, Dr. Somerton, has eyes everywhere, and he will stop at nothing to reclaim his prized apprentice. Catherine and Elinor must risk everything to expose his crimes.

Lessons in Compassion pits Miss Eliza Townsend against Sophia Harcourt, sent as a council inspector to evaluate the orphanage Eliza struggles to maintain. As their battle of wills unfolds, so does an undeniable attraction—one neither of them can afford.

In The Lady's Secret Marianne de Lacy hides her scandalous past and uses her wealth to fund a radical new school for working women. But when rumors of her illegitimate birth begin to surface, her carefully constructed world threatens to crumble. Juliet Fletcher is a journalist who should be exposing Marianne, not falling for her.

A Lady's Final Stand introduces that potentially unhistorical element of a female ex-soldier, though perhaps there’s a background that makes the motif plausible? Margaret Hale hired as bodyguard to Lady Beatrice Foswell finds herself in a battle of wits with her employer among whispers of conspiracy in the halls of Parliament.

V.C. Sterling’s second series, Velvet and Vice, involves stories set during Prohibition at a speakeasy named The Velvet Viper.

In Whiskey & Lace Evelyn St. James is a socialite trying to escape the gilded cage of a respectable marriage when she meets Frankie Malone, a sharp-tongued, whiskey-slinging crime boss who rules her empire with steel and charm.

The Velvet Viper returns as the setting for Gin & Sin featuring a romance between dancer Dahlia LaRue and the club’s enforcer, a woman of few words and fierce loyalty.

Our final multi-book release is Delilah Kent’s Regency-era Scandal & Sapphire series, which looks to be somewhat on the erotica side.

In The Lady & The Thief Lady Eleanor Harrington is betrothed to a duke, but when she catches a mysterious thief in her family's garden, her carefully planned world begins to unravel.

The Heiress & Her Governess tackles the somewhat questionable topic of a governess-pupil romance when Charlotte Fairchild takes responsibility for the rebellious heiress Isabel Sinclair.

In The Widow & The Wallflower Margaret Langley newly freed from a cruel marriage finds solace in the most unlikely place—a small bookshop tucked away from the watchful eyes of the ton, where she encounters the proprietor Eliza Finch.

Other Books of Interest

I’ve placed one book in the “other books of interest” category because although some reviews and lists suggest that the book has sapphic content, I can’t find a trace of it, and the author’s past releases have been similarly cagey on the topic.

The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna Labuskes from William Morrow Paperbacks follows the career of WPA editor Millie Lang when she finds herself on the wrong end of a potential political scandal. She’s shipped off to Montana to work on the state’s American Guide Series—travel books intended to put the nation’s destitute writers to work.

Millie arrives to an eclectic staff claiming their missed deadlines are due to sabotage, possibly from the state’s powerful Copper Kings who don’t want their long and bloody history with union organizers aired for the rest of the country to read. But Millie begins to suspect that the answer might instead lie with the town’s mysterious librarian, Alice Monroe.

More than a decade earlier, Alice Monroe created the Boxcar Library in order to deliver books to isolated mining towns where men longed for entertainment and connection. Alice thought she found the perfect librarian to staff the train car in Colette Durand, a miner’s daughter with a shotgun and too many secrets behind her eyes.

Now, no one in Missoula will tell Millie why both Alice and Colette went out on the inaugural journey of the Boxcar Library, but only Alice returned.

What Am I Reading?

And what have I been reading? Only a couple of audiobooks this past month. One of them was the second in a sapphic space-mystery series by Malka Older: The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles. These are novellas set in a colony constructed around Jupiter after humanity fled an uninhabitable Earth. Murder mysteries get solved by a detective and academic duo who are also negotiating a revival of their romance. The books are enjoyable and have a fun time grounding the mysteries in the worldbuilding.

I finally got around to reading the highly praised The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker, which came out a number of years ago. The novel asks the question: can a naïve and brilliant golem who has lost her immigrant master on the voyage to America and a metal-working Jinni newly freed from magical entrapment find their way together in early 20th century New York and foil the schemes of the sorcerer who wants to re-enslave them both? This was beautiful and heartbreaking and ultimately triumphant and I don’t know what took me so long to come back to it, given that I’ve owned a hard copy since it first came out.

I keep looking over to the bookcase in my home office that contains all the hard-copy books I’ve acquired in the decade since I moved in, but have failed to read yet. Soon. Soon.

Show Notes

Your monthly roundup of history, news, and the field of sapphic historical fiction.

In this episode we talk about:

• The 2025 fiction line-up
• Recent and upcoming publications covered on the blog
  • Blackmore, Josiah and Gregory S. Hutcheson. 1999. “Introduction” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
  • Blackmore, Josiah. 1999. “The Poets of Sodom” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
  • Gerli, E. Michael. 1999. “Dismembering the Body Politic: Vile Bodies and Sexual Underworlds in Celestina” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
  • Perry, Mary Elizabeth. 1999. “From Convent to Battlefield: Cross-Dressing and Gendering the Self in the New World of Imperial Spain” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
  • Burshatin, Israel. 1999. “Written on the Body: Slave or Hermaphrodite in Sixteenth-Century Spain” in Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance ed. Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson. Duke University Press, Durham. ISBN 9780822323495
• Recent Lesbian/Sapphic Historical Fiction
  • Canvas of Desire by Pippa Farthingale
  • My Heart On Your Sleeve by April Klasen
  • Petals and Pages by T. Albright
  • The Art of Unmaking by Parker Lennox
  • The Smith by Marine St. Jean
  • Love and Rebellion (Forbidden Whispers #1) by Ericka Schmidt
  • The Witch of Versailles by Jessica Mason
  • The Other March Sisters by Linda Epstein, Ally Malinenko, Liz Parker
  • Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray
  • Blood on Her Tongue by Johanna Van Veen
  • Bitter winds (Lesbian Pirates #1) by Marina Tempest
  • Cursed Scar (Lesbian Pirates #2) by Marina Tempest
  • The Duchess's Companion (Roses & Rebellion #1) by V.C. Sterling
  • A Lady's Reckoning (Roses & Rebellion #2) by V.C. Sterling
  • Lessons in Compassion (Roses & Rebellion #3) by V.C. Sterling
  • The Lady's Secret (Roses & Rebellion #4) by V.C. Sterling
  • A Lady's Final Stand (Roses & Rebellion #5) by V.C. Sterling
  • Whiskey & Lace (Velvet & Vice #1) by V.C. Sterling
  • Gin & Sin (Velvet & Vice #2) by V.C. Sterling
  • The Lady & The Thief (Scandal & Sapphire #1) by Delilah Kent
  • The Heiress & Her Governess (Scandal & Sapphire #2) by Delilah Kent
  • The Widow & The Wallflower (Scandal & Sapphire #3) by Delilah Kent
• Other Titles of Interest
  • The Boxcar Librarian by Brianna Labuskes
• What I’ve been consuming
  • The Imposition of Unnecessary Obstacles by Malka Older
  • The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

Links to the Lesbian Historic Motif Project Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com/lhmp
• Blog: http://alpennia.com/blog
• RSS: http://alpennia.com/blog/feed/
• Twitter: @LesbianMotif
• Discord: Contact Heather for an invitation to the Alpennia/LHMP Discord server
• The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Patreon

Links to Heather Online

• Website: http://alpennia.com
• Email: Heather Rose Jones
• Mastodon: @heatherrosejones@Wandering.Shop
• Bluesky: @heatherrosejones
• Facebook: Heather Rose Jones (author page)