This list includes exceptional works about Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender experience. Authors are usually limited to one title. All available public domain works (Shakespeare, Whitman, Wilde, many more) link to free, unabridged copies. For biographical and historical information, see the glbtq encyclopedia. And don't forget to check out 100 best gay and lesbian books.
[visit GLBT Literature for more info]
Comic Novels & Plays (fiction unless otherwise noted) | ||
Aretino, Pietro | The Stablemaster | Play – a gay servant tries to avoid marrying; 1533 |
Aristophanes | Play – women use a "sex strike" to force their men to end war; 411 BCE | |
Benson, E.F. | Make Way for Lucia | Collects the seven Lucia & Mapp novels; 1920 |
Boyd, Blanche McCrary | Terminal Velocity | Southern belle joins '70s lesbian commune, falls in love with fugitive, goes on the lam; 1998 |
Coward, Noel | Design for Living | Play – sparklingly witty menage a trois; 1933 |
Dennis, Patrick (pseudonym of Edward Everett Tanner III) | Auntie Mame | Hilarious, crypto-gay original novel; 1955 |
Firbank, Ronald | The Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli | Flamboyant satire about the Church of England; 1926 |
Finn, William | Falsettos | Musical Play – a married man comes out, and must deal with the many consequences; 1992 |
Fitzhugh, Louise | Harriet the Spy | Young girl's secret journal, saying exactly what she thinks about everyone, is revealed – yikes!; 1964 |
Gogol, Nikolai | The Inspector General | Play – corrupt small-town officials tricked by a con man; 1836 |
Hamburger, Aaron | Faith For Beginners | Funny and moving experiences of a Michigan family on a tour of modern Israel; 2005 |
Hart, Moss & George S. Kaufman | You Can't Take It With You | Play – a family of lovable eccentrics (Hart was gay/bi); 1937 |
Jarry, Alfred | King Ubu | Play – about an insane monarch; the work which began Theatre of the Absurd and helped define Surrealism art; 1896 |
Kramer, Larry | Faggots | Still controversial, and very funny, satire; 1978 |
Lefcourt, Peter | The Dreyfus Affair | Love affair in major league baseball; 1992 |
Ludlam, Charles | The Mystery of Irma Vep | Play – hilarious sendup of Victorian melodrama; 1984 |
Manrique, Jaime | Latin Moon in Manhattan | Wild adventures of gay Colombian immigrant living in NYC; 1992 |
McCourt, James | Mawrdew Czgowchwz | Title character (pronounced "Mardu Gorgeous"), the opera world's latest diva, fends off fans and rivals galore; 1971 |
McNally, Terrence | The Ritz | Play – set in a bath house, with mobsters and drag queens; 1974 |
Merrick, Gordon | The Lord Won't Mind | Classic gay soap opera; 1970 |
Mordden, Ethan | I've a Feeling We're Not in Kansas Anymore | First in a series of interconnected stories about the foibles of NYC gay life; 1983 |
Orton, Joe | What the Butler Saw | Play – Outrageous satire on British society; 1967 |
Petronius | Picaresque adventures of two randy young men, by Nero's "Arbiter of Elegance," may be the world's first novel; 66 AD | |
Purdy, James | Malcolm | Satirical adventures of a young man of "exceptional beauty"; 1959 |
Ravel, Maurice (composer) & Colette (author) | L'Enfant et les Sortilèges | Opera – a spoiled brat finds the animals and objects he's been abusing come to life; 1925 |
Rodi, Robert | Closet Case | Just you trying staying in that closet!; 1994 |
Rolfe, Frederick William | Hadrian the Seventh | Expelled seminarian becomes Pope; 1904 |
Rudnick, Paul | Jeffrey | Play – Wry, romantic comedy set in the AIDS era; 1994 |
Schulman, Sarah | Empathy | Comic look at psychoanalysis and lesbian identity; 1992 |
Sedaris, David | Barrel Fever | Manic, hilarious pitch-black satires; 1994 |
Shakespeare | Play – with gender disguise, romantic entanglements, slapstick, poetry, much more; 1598 | |
Silver, Nicky | Pterodactyls | Play – caustically funny look at a picture-perfect family; 1994 |
Stein, Eugene | Straitjacket & Tie | Young man's problems with coming out, a really boring job, and extra-terrestrials; 1996 |
Toole, John Kennedy | A Confederacy of Dunces | Raucous, tragicomic adventures of an ill-fated medievalist from New Orleans; 1966 (pub. posthumously in 1976) |
Vidal, Gore | Myra Breckinridge | Mordant view of sex, movies & society; 1968 |
Wilde, Oscar | Play – Maybe the funniest comedy ever written, even as it dissects the meaning of identity; 1895 | |
Wilder, Thornton | The Skin of Our Teeth | Play – surreal farce has the same characters appear in wildly different historical periods; 1942 |
Williamson, L.R. | Prairie Springs | A young woman and her gay best friend move from Manhattan to a zany little Texas town — very funny and very moving; more at L.R. Williamson's site; 2007 |
Wilmot, John (Earl of Rochester) | Sodom: The Quintessence of Debauchery | Play – Infamous satire in which a king mandates "buggery" for his subjects; 1675? |
Wilson, Doric | Play – comic look at pre-Stonewall gay street life; 1969 | |
