Lesbian fiction was practically born in the paperbacks. Gold Medal started it with Spring Fire which was an instant best seller. It was very well written and sold to lesbian women who identified with the characters and men who fantasized about them. Gold Medal published more and others quickly jumped on the bandwagon. Those looking for them soon came to recognize the key words and phrases in the titles, such as, twilight love; the path between; unnatural love; forbidden love; warped desire and Strange Sisters shown here. If you like these books, Jaye Zimet recently ran with this title and published Strange Sisters: The Art of Lesbian Pulp Fiction 1949-1969 with over 200 covers. Here are a few of them:

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	While not specifically stated, many books with groups of girls have a lesbian interest and usually lesbian characters. Some of these are dormitories, prisons, women's military barracks or just shared apartments. These 'girls' are often in twos and threes, semi-undressed and looking sexy. This cover is by one of Midwood's best, Paul Rader.
	Lesbiana covers were usually either very tastefully done or quite lurid. Most of Gold Medal's covers were in the tasteful camp. They were well written and appealed to women. The lurid covers tended to pose two or three women in provocative ways like the one above. Ann Aldrich is actually a woman and not a pseudonym for a man as was the case for later books.
	Another three-some from a little later when publishers got a little more daring. This one shows another common cover feature of lesbian cover art, and that is the blond and brunette. The blonds were understood to be the feminine side and the dark (sometimes short) hair is the masculine. These nuances became less subtle in the late 1960s with titles like Killer Dyke and Lesbian Lure.
	And The Desperate Dyke. Do these books ever go overboard? I don't think so -- do you?

Here are a few more:

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