Pulp fiction: Valerie Taylor, lesbian literature and 1950s America

Pulp fiction: Valerie Taylor, lesbian literature and 1950s America

Before there was Armistead Maupin, there was Valerie Taylor. Jennifer Dentel, researcher and curator at Chicago’s Gerber/Hart library and archive, on America’s first great author of books published in the lesbian pulp fiction genre. It was 1953 and Velma Nacella Young...
Virgil, Dante’s heavenly guide to ‘modern’ cultures

Virgil, Dante’s heavenly guide to ‘modern’ cultures

As the year-long calendar of events to mark the 700th anniversary of the death of Dante gets underway, Dr Karen Attar, Senate House Library’s curator of rare books, looks at Virgil, the prominent character in the great poet’s epic work, The Divine Comedy. The literary...