Independent LGBTQ+ literary press
Out of the closet.
Back in print.
The books that helped shape our queer culture — recovered, introduced and reissued as Modern Editions.
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The Imprint
Out of print shouldn't mean out of reach
OutWrite Books is an independent publisher with a singular purpose: to bring back the literary works that shaped queer life and let them speak to modern readers.
The author’s text stays as written, including the language of its time. What we add is around it: a fresh introduction, editorial framing and notes that give a modern audience what it needs to read the book on its own terms — in a design made for reading rather than for the archive shelf. Read our note to the reader.
The list is small and deliberate. Titles are chosen for literary quality, for their significance to the record, and for what they still say out loud.
1896
First edition recovered
234
Pages, newly set
01
Modern Edition published
The list · Modern Editions
Out of the closet.
Back in print.
Queer books that were cut, refused or forgotten. We find them, restore them, and reintroduce them to readers now.
01
Manchester, 1896
Love’s Coming-of-Age
Love’s Coming-of-Age (1896) is Carpenter’s open, tender case for loving freely, and the book whose candor about same-sex love cost him his publisher.
02
London, 1894
The Green Carnation
An anonymous novel that skewered Oscar Wilde’s relationship with Lord Alfred Douglas, written by a man who shared their secret.
Coming soon
Learn more →The law
Against the Law
Where loving someone of your own sex was a crime, from 1760 to today.
Heard in the books
“If we would have a living thing we must give that thing some degree of liberty—even though liberty bring with it risk.”
“Nothing that is beautiful can possibly be wrong.”
The writers of the queer canon meet the audience they were always writing toward — their descendants
The letter
The OutWrite Letter
OutWrite Books recovers queer writing that fell out of print and returns it to general readers. The list is small. Leave your email and we’ll write when the next edition is ready.
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Notify me on release
One email when the next Modern Edition is published. That's it — no list, no forwarding.
Contact
Submissions, rights, press. We read everything.