Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness (1928) is commonly referenced as the "first" novel of lesbian identity, and in my generation that resulted in no small amount of trauma if we failed to recognize our lives and dreams within its pages. But Aimée Duc's Sind es Frauen? (Are these Women?) (1901) would have been a far more hopeful, sympathetic, and introspective introduction to the place of women who love women in the literary canon. One has to wonder whether the book's positive and feminist approach--and its happy ending--are exactly why the work was never made generally available. (I can't find any evidence of an English language translation.) If you want a different take on what sorts of lives and literary outcomes were considered possible for women who loved women around 1900, track down a synopsis of Duc's work and expand your historic imagination.
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