The Love of Friends: An Anthology of Gay and Lesbian Letters to Friends and Lovers

The first problem with this collection is that it is not totally a collection of letters by gay men and lesbians; many of the selections are only tangentially related to homosexuality. The second criticism is the absence of notes, dates and citations. The third is the actual selections--only one letter, for example, from a writer as central to the history of lesbianism as Radclyffe Hall, compared with eight uninteresting ones to and from Cecil Beaton re Greta Garbo. The editor, who has written widely on women's history, does not contextualize the letters, so we are left with an uneven collection of correspondence between notables from Sappho to John Cheever. Some of the letters are entertaining, such as Thomas Gray's mock book proposal; some are enlightening, for example Elizabeth Cady Stanton's to Susan B. Anthony; and several provide insight into such folk as naturalist Rachel Carson. But none of these letters is previously unpublished. Has the rush on gay anthologies finally exhausted the available material? (June)