Inseparable: Desire Between Women in Literature

Bisexual Content: While some of the discussion seems to erase the bisexuality of literary characters, this does include some bisexual-specific content. It's also a fascinating and very readable overview of the topic of desire between women in literature, particularly with regard to pre-20th century literature.

Publisher's Summary: Love between women crops up throughout literature: from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Agatha Christie, and many more. In Inseparable Emma Donoghue examines how desire between women in literature has been portrayed, from schoolgirls and vampires to runaway wives, from cross-dressing knights to contemporary murder stories. Donoghue looks at the work of those writers who have addressed the ‘unspeakable subject’, examining whether such desire between women is freakish or omnipresent, holy or evil, heart-warming or ridiculous as she excavates a long-obscured tradition of female friendship, one that is surprisingly central to our cultural history. A revelation of a centuries-old literary tradition – brilliant, amusing, and until now, deliberately overlooked.