What does it mean to rescue a queer story from the archives? In this episode, host Leslie Clarke sits down with Dr D-M Withers, founder of Bristol-based indie publisher Lurid Editions and Lecturer in Publishing at the University of Exeter, and Dr Christopher A. Adams, playwright, scholar and literary executor to the late Mariana Villa-Gilbert.
Together they explore the republication of Villa-Gilbert's 1968 novel A Jingle Jangle Song — one of only around 30 British novels published between 1945 and 1970 to openly centre queer women's lives. They talk about how Adams tracked Villa-Gilbert down via a phone book listing in Cornwall, the typewritten letters that followed, and the extraordinary moment he learned she had left him her entire literary estate.
They also get into the history of queer women's literature in Britain, the cultural suppression that followed The Well of Loneliness, and why independent publishers like Lurid Editions are more important than ever in the current political climate.
A Jingle Jangle Song is available now from your local independent bookshop or direct from Lurid Editions at lurideditions.com.
Resources mentioned in this episode: