Patience & Sarah (Little Sister's Classics) - Softcover

Miller, Isabel

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1551521911 ISBN 13: 9781551521916

Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press, 2005

Synopsis

“A remarkable story.”—Publishers Weekly

Set in the nineteenth century, Isabel Miller’s classic lesbian novel traces the relationship between Patience White, an educated painter, and Sarah Dowling, a cross-dressing farmer, whose romantic bond does not sit well with the puritanical New England farming community in which they live. They choose to live together and love each other freely, even though they know of no precedents for their relationship; they must trust their own instincts and see beyond the disdain of their neighbors. Ultimately, they are forced to make life-changing decisions that depend on their courage and their commitment to one another.

First self-published in 1969 in an edition of one thousand copies, the author hand-sold the book on New York street corners; it garnered increasing attention to the point of receiving the American Library Association’s first Gay Book Award in 1971. McGraw-Hill’s version of the book a year later brought it to mainstream bookstores across the country.

Patience & Sarah is a historical romance whose drama was a touchstone for the burgeoning gay and women’s activism of the late 1960s and early 1970s. It celebrates the joys of an uninhibited love between two strong women with a confident defiance that remains relevant today.

This edition features an appendix of supplementary materials about Patience & Sarah and the author, as well as an introduction by Emma Donoghue, the Irish novelist whose numerous books include the contemporary Dublin novels Stirfry and Hood, the latter of which won the ALA’s Gay and Lesbian Book Award in 1995.

Little Sister’s Classics is an Arsenal Pulp Press imprint dedicated to reviving lost and out-of-print gay and lesbian classic books, both fiction and nonfiction. The series is produced in conjunction with Little Sister’s Books, the heroic gay Vancouver bookstore well-known for its anti-censorship efforts.

Isabel Miller was the author of numerous novels, including two under her real name, Alma Routsong. She died in 1996.

About this title

From the Publisher:

Nearly thirty years ago, when Patience and Sarah first came into the world, it was a very rare book, indeed -- the story of the love between two women, not only issued by a mainstream publisher but with a happy ending, yet! Isabel Miller based her novel on what little is known of the folk painter Mary Ann Willson and her companion, Miss Brundidge, who lived and farmed together for many years in New York State's Greene County in the early part of the nineteenth century. It's a tender tale that unfolds gently as the two women recognize and marvel at the love that has unfolded in their lives. Times have changed, and similar stories are routinely published today by houses large and small. But every once in a while, I come across my original, very battered, copy of the very first Fawcett Crest edition on my shelf. And, incurable romantic that I am, I remember what it was like to read Patience and Sarah for the first time -- and to dream. I'm pleased to know that this lovely tale is still in print, all these years later, for an entirely new generation of young lesbians to discover.

From the Inside Flap:

In the early nineteenth century, in a puritanical New England town, two women fall in love. With no one to guide or support them, Patience and Sarah try to follow their hearts. Defying society and history, they buy a farm and discover they can live together, away from the world that had sought to limit them and their love . . .

About this edition

• Publisher: Arsenal Pulp Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1551521911
• ISBN 13: 9781551521916
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 225