Originally published in 1950, this account of life among femaleFree French soldiers in a London barracks duringWorld War II sold four million copies in the United Statesalone and many more millions worldwide.

The novel is based on the real-life experiences of the author,Tereska Torres, who escaped from occupied France. Shearrived as a refugee in London and joined other exiles enlistingin Charles de Gaulle's army, then stationed in Britainawaiting an invasion of their homeland by Allied forces.But Women's Barracksis no ordinary war story. The grimworld of an urban military barracks became the setting for oneof the steamiest novels of its time. Leaving "normal"civilianlife behind, the women enter an all-female realm, where passionateattachments soon form-between older, experiencedwomen and young innocents, between butch officer typesand their femmes subordinates. And for those with more traditionalleanings, there was a city full of soldiers to be had-sometimes two or three at a time.

As the Blitz rains down over London, taboos are broken,affairs start and stop and hearts are won and lost. Torres dutifullyrelates the erotic adventures of her comrades with anequal sympathy toward straight and gay relationships that wasunusual for its time.

Despite a tone that is frank rather than lurid, Women'sBarrackswas banned for obscenity in several states. It was alsodenounced by the House Select Committee on CurrentPornographic Materials in 1952 as an example of how thepaperback industry was "promoting moral degeneracy."But in spite of such efforts-or perhaps, in part, because ofthem-the novel became a record-breaking bestseller and inspireda whole new genre: lesbian pulp.

"From the Feminist Press's 'Femmes Fatales: Women Write Pulp' series comes this reissue of a long out-of-print 1950 classic, the 'first lesbian-themed pulp' novel. Translated from the French (though never published in France), this heavily autobiographical tale of life in the Free French Army women's barracks in WWII London is a delicious blend of sex and melodrama that manages to be sentimental without ever becoming mawkish or campy. It is, in fact, a moving and bittersweet tale of a tight-knit community of women, their loves and losses, hopes and despairs, with a charmingly modest salaciousness that runs through to justify its 'pulp' marketing. Truly, it is a more literary novel than the lurid original cover would have one believe-its many sexual encounters invariably veer from the promise of pornography to the achingly real, and often painful, emotional excavations of these women's lives. The edition includes an illuminating interview with the author and an afterword by Judith Mayne that nicely contextualizes the narrative as well as the book's curious publishing history. Kudos to the editors for bringing this lost classic back into print-it never should have left us in the first place. " Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

The first lesbian pulp ever published which originally sold 4 million copies, portrays Free French women volunteers.

Born in 1923, Torres escaped Nazi-occupied France in 1940 and became a secretary to Free French leader Charles DeGaulle in London. Over her long career, she wrote some 20 books, with translations published here by Knopf, Dell, Simon and Schuster. Torres married the American literary figure Meyer Levin during the war; he would later translate many of her novels.