We too are drifting

We Too Are Drifting front cover. Two women occupy most of the visual space. One is standing on the left of the image, her back to the reader, and seen from her calves up. She has blond, short hair and is wearing a white and red-stripped male pajama top with the sleeves rolled up to her forearms. Her legs are slightly spread, shoulder-width. Her gaze is directed downward from her right shoulder toward another woman sitting behind her, a brunette with her hair tied in a bun, neck-high. She is wearing a black negligee and is sitting on her folded legs with hands together between her thighs. She seems to have her eyes closed and, like the other woman, has her face wrapped in a shadow. A beam of warm light illuminates them both partly from the right of the image.
We Too Are Drifting back cover. Better than “The Well of Loneliness” – New York Herald Tribune This is the startling story of a strange triangular love affair. Many people have praised this book, and a few have denounced it. But no reader remains indifferent to it. In this revealing and provocative story of Lesbian love, Miss Wilhelm has dared to bring out into the open a subject usually treated only in whispers. She has handled her delicate theme with courage and deep understanding. “The situation, which might so easily have become coarse, is presented with delicacy of perception.” – Boston Transcript

Author Gender / Sexual Orientation

Publisher Type

Physical Dimensions

127 pages
18 cm

Meeting Notes

Jan Morale meets Victoria

Want to borrow a newer edition of this book?

Available online via the Internet Archive

This Book is Discussed in

Dimock, Chase. “Crafting Hermaphroditism: Gale Wilhelm’s Lesbian Modernism in We Too Are Drifting.” College Literature, vol. 2014, no. 3, 2014, pp. 45–68.

Haytock, Jennifer. "Hemingway, Wilhelm, and a Style for Lesbian Representation." Hemingway Review, vol. 32, no. 1, 2012.

Weir, Angela, and Elizabeth Wilson. “The Greyhound Bus Station in the Evolution of Lesbian Popular Culture.” In New Lesbian Criticism, edited by Sally Munt, Columbia University Press. 1992, pp. 95–113.

More information about contested books

The Censorship Board of Ireland prohibited We too are Drifting from 15 June 1956.

Cover, Back Text

Better than “The Well of Loneliness” – New York Herald Tribune

This is the startling story of a strange triangular love affair. Many people have praised this book, and a few have denounced it. But no reader remains indifferent to it.
In this revealing and provocative story of Lesbian love, Miss Wilhelm has dared to bring out into the open a subject usually treated only in whispers. She has handled her delicate theme with courage and deep understanding.

“The situation, which might so easily have become coarse, is presented with delicacy of perception.” – Boston Transcript

Cover Art Description

Two women occupy most of the visual space. One is standing on the left of the image, her back to the reader, and seen from her calves up. She has blond, short hair and is wearing a white and red-stripped male pyjama top with the sleeves rolled up to her forearms. Her legs are slightly spread, shoulder-width. Her gaze is directed downward from her right shoulder toward another woman sitting behind her, a brunette with her hair tied in a bun, neck-high. She is wearing a black negligee and is sitting on her folded legs with hands together between her thighs. She seems to have her eyes closed and, like the other woman, has her face wrapped in a shadow. A beam of warm light illuminates them both partly from the right of the image.

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Item Relations

Item: Wilhelm, Gale Creator This Item

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Citation

Wilhelm, Gale, “We too are drifting,” The Lesbian Pulp Fiction Collection @ Mount Saint Vincent University, accessed March 28, 2024, https://msvulpf.omeka.net/items/show/807.