by Martha Vicinus (Author)

Intimate Friends offers a fascinating look at the erotic friendships of educated English and American women over a 150-year period, culminating in the 1928 publication of The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall's scandalous novel of lesbian love. Martha Vicinus explores all-female communities, husband-wife couples, liaisons between younger and older women, female rakes, and mother-daughter affection. Women, she reveals, drew upon a rich religious vocabulary to describe elusive and complex erotic feelings.

Front Jacket

Intimate Friends offers a fascinating look at the erotic friendships of educated English and American women over a 150-year period, culminating in the 1928 publication of The Well of Loneliness, Radclyffe Hall's scandalous novel of lesbian love. Martha Vicinus explores all-female communities, husband-wife couples, liaisons between younger and older women, female rakes, and mother-daughter affection. Women, she reveals, drew upon a rich religious vocabulary to describe elusive and complex erotic feelings.

Author Biography

Martha Vicinus is the Eliza M. Mosher Distinguished University Professor of English, Women's Studies, and History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She is the author or editor of numerous works, including Hidden from History: Reclaiming the Gay and Lesbian Past; Lesbian Subjects: A Feminist Studies Reader; and Independent Women: Work and Community for Single Women, 1850-1920, the last published by the University of Chicago Press.

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