Backward Modernism and Queerly Desiring Women in Early 20th-Century British and French Fiction: Rosamond Lehmann and Jeanne Galzy

This article seeks to develop compara-tive, transversal scholarship on the repre-sentation of queer women in Europe in the early 20th century. Engaging critically with associations of lesbians with modernism, analysis draws on Heather Love’s concept of “backward modernism”, and Susan Lanser’s notion of “confluence” to bring into dialogue two underexplored novels that recount the queer experiences of young women in England and France: Rosamund Lehmann’s Dusty Answer (1927) and Jeanne Galzy’s Jeunes filles en serre chaude (1934). We identify several striking points of convergence between the novels, and argue that while they are both ambiguous in their portrayal of non-nor-mative sexuality, they indicate how early queer sexual experiences may be far from a “passing phase”; rather they are transfor-mative.