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WE TOO ARE DRIFTING, Gale Wilhelm, hardcover, stated 2nd printing, 1939. BOOK CONDITION: good. The text block is in near fine condition, with no tears, dogears, or marks. The pages and endpapers are age-toned. There is a bookplate of a prior owner affixed to the first free endpaper. Not a library book nor remainder. The red cloth boards are in fairly good condition (corner and spine bumping). 7 ½ x 5 ¼, 206 pages, 15 ounces XX. [Wikipedia] Gale Wilhelm (born April 26, 1908; died July 11, 1991) was an American writer most noted for two books that featured lesbian themes written in the 1930s: We Too Are Drifting and Torchlight to Valhalla. Wilhelm was born in Eugene, Oregon, to Ethel Gale Brewer and Wilson Price Wilhelm. She was the youngest of five children. By age ten, she had moved to Boise, Idaho with her mother and siblings, but seemingly, her father was absent at this time. In 1921, Wilhelm?s sister closest in age to her, Louise, died. This death may have been what spurred Gale?s move back to Oregon by 1923. Wilhelm completed high school, and spent at least ninth grade at Medford High School in Medford, Oregon. By 1930, Wilhelm had moved with her family to California. At 21 years old, she lived in Berkeley, CA with her sister, Nina Clark in Clark's family home, along with Nina?s husband and their three children. Wilhelm published several short stories in 1934 and 1935, her first appearing in Literary America.Wilhelm's first novel, We Too Are Drifting was published in 1935 by Random House, to many favorable reviews. After the publication, Wilhelm worked as Associate Editor of Literary America, living in New York for one year. She then returned to the Bay Area. In 1938, Random House published Torchlight to Valhalla, Wilhelm's second lesbian-themed novel in which the protagonist, a young woman, is pursued by a very handsome and charming young man, but realizes her true happiness is with another young woman. XX Barbara Grier spent several years attempting to locate Wilhelm. The 1984 Naiad Press edition of We Too Are Drifting included a foreword by Grier describing Wilhelm's life and pleading for any assistance from anyone who knew any information on the whereabouts of Wilhelm. Grier speculated that Wilhelm stopped writing before she turned 40 years old because the world would not let her write the books she wanted. In 1985, Grier received an anonymous note pointing her to Wilhelm, who was living in Berkeley. She found Wilhelm aged and ill, but delighted that her books were still being read and enjoyed. By the time Naiad Press reprinted Torchlight to Valhalla in 1985, it contained a foreword by Wilhelm herself, an autobiographical sketch. Wilhelm lived with her partner, Kathleen Huebner, from 1953 until Wilhelm passed away in 1991 of cancer.
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