Between the Covers

Unbound. First edition. Paperback original. Octavo. 185pp. Illustrated wrappers. Large chip on front wrap, removing much of the author's name, thus good only. A lesbian novel, based on the life of American folk artist Mary Ann Willson, about two women living together in Greene County, New York in 1816. The original self-published edition was sold by Routsong outside meetings of the New York chapter of the Daughters of Bilitis. A later hardcover version, published by McGraw-Hill under the title *Patience and Sarah*, won the American Librarians Association's first Gay Book Award (now called the Stonewall Book Award) in 1971. Routsong had written two (Now very uncommon) mainstream novels under her own name based on her experience as a wife and mother of four before she entered a relationship with economist Elisabeth Deran. She wrote under the pseudonym in order not to embarrass her four daughters, choosing the name Isabel as an anagram of the word "Lesbia" This edition has become exceptionally uncommon.

Item #420992