SAINT-AGEN, Adrienne. Amants Feminins.

(Paris): Charles Offenstadt, 1902.  First edition.  Softcover.  18.8cm by 13cm.  xiv, 265 [7] pages.  An exceptionally rare and audacious novel of female same-sex desire.  Structured as a confessional diary, the work traces the torrid emotional descent of Claudette, a bourgeois wife who, suffocated by convention and an indifferent husband, becomes ensnared in the intoxicating orbit of Paloma—a seductive and enigmatic woman who awakens her latent passions. Claudette’s voice, at once tender, febrile, and breathlessly obsessive, leads the reader into the psychological undertow of a woman consumed by an impossible, socially forbidden love.  More emotionally raw than sexually graphic, the novel nonetheless drips with erotic tension and taboo longing, presenting a candid and melancholic portrait of lesbian identity in a time of silence and censure.  Illustrated.   A very good copy in pictorial wrappers.  Rare in this first printing.  OCLC locates just two copies.  A nice example of this landmark in early lesbian literature and one of the few unapologetically sapphic works of its time.