<p>“Rapidly growing interest in the subject of homosexuality has made novels on this theme a big seller...”</p><p><br /></p><p>Happy Pride Month! After one publishing house started finding success with publishing books focusing on themes of homosexuality in the late 1940s and early 1950s, they began keeping a mailing list of those interested in gay books. But the United States Postal Service started catching on, and the publishers were indicted on obscenity charges. </p><p><br /></p><p>That didn't stop Donald Webster Cory, the pen name of American academic Edward Sagarin, from starting his own gay mail-order book business in 1952: the Cory Book Service. But Sagarin was plagued by internalized homophobia, and for decades maintained that homosexuality was a mental illness that can be cured. That is, until another queer academic had enough of Edward's drama.</p><p><br /></p><p>Theme music is credited to Wendy Marcini, Elvin Vanguard, and Jules Gaia.</p><p><br /></p><p>Instagram: <a href="instagram.com/literaryscandals">@literaryscandals</a></p><p><br /></p><p>Selected bibliography:</p><p><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">• </span><em style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">Buying Gay: How Physique Entrepreneurs Sparked a Movement </em><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">by David K. Johnson</span></p><p><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">• "</span><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/american-chronicles/the-book-club-that-helped-spark-the-gay-rights-movement" style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">The Book Club That Helped Launch the Gay-Rights Movement</a><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">," </span><em style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">The New Yorker</em></p><p><span style="color:rgb(0,0,0);">• "</span><span style="color:rgb(68,68,68);">Sagarin, Edward (Donald Webster Cory)," </span><em style="color:rgb(68,68,68);">GLBTQ: An Encyclopedia of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender &amp; Queer Culture </em></p>