The Pilgrimage of Dorothy Richardson

Dorothy Richardson's 13-volume opus of autobigraphical fiction, "Pilgrimage", follows the entire arc of an independent woman's life and is considered a classic of modernist literature.

Joanne Winning argues here, however, that the novels have remained misunderstood, and she demonstrates that "Pilgrimage" contains a carefully constructed, though concealed, subtext of lesbian desire and sexuality.

This analysis, she suggests, is the first step toward recognizing and defining a literary movement of "lesbian modernism", as well as toward a deeper understanding of how lesbian modernist writers helped shape modernist literature as a whole.