Originally published: New York : Routledge, 1996.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 173-206) and index.

Are Girls Necessary? was an astoundingly great idea, exploring the lesbian in nineteenth and twentieth century lesbian-authored literature, even that which is not as explicit as the lesbian novels that make up the heart of the lesbian literary canon. The subjects of Abraham's examinations are a veritable pantheon of lesbian, bisexual and feminist literary icons: Willa Cather, Mary Renault, Gertrude Stein, Virginia Woolf, Djuna Barnes, Alice B. Toklas, et al. Granted certain literary and real-life freedoms due to their race and class, these women were able to forge the vocabulary and themes that would permeate lesbian and feminist literature well past their own lifetimes. Although the lesbian often had to be coded within heterosexual acceptability, it takes only a creative and open mind to find the subversive glimpses these authors coded into their work or left lying in the open for anyone who cared enough to look. An exploration of the means in which these women forged a path for themselves (and those who followed them) within the restraints of their time had great potential.

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