Mariana Villa-Gilbert, "author of several mid-century novels, including A Jingle-Jangle Song, published in 1968, an important British lesbian work," has died, the Guardian reported. She was 86.
In her obituary, Christopher Adams wrote: "The hermetically sealed world of her novels reflects not only the influence of Virginia Woolf, but also her own intensely oppressive upbringing. Themes of sexual ambiguity and bisexuality are important in her work. When I interviewed Mariana in 2022 as part of a project on the history of lesbian literature, she said: 'I feel I am neither a woman, nor a man. I feel I am only myself.' "
In 1963 Villa-Gilbert's agent sold her novel Mrs. Galbraith's Air to Chatto & Windus. During her first lunch with the publisher Norah Smallwood, she "was so frightened that she barely spoke a word. Nevertheless, Smallwood became her champion at the firm, in a relationship that would last for the next decade," the Guardian noted. Two more novels followed: My Love All Dressed in White (1964) and Mrs. Cantello (1966).
In A Jingle-Jangle Song, her fourth book, she wrote about the relationship between a young musician and an older woman. "Although the novel was attacked by reviewers for its lesbian content, it nevertheless gained a following and stands as an important contribution to the genre," the Guardian wrote. She followed this with The Others (1970) and Manuela: A Modern Myth (1973). The story collection The Sun in Horus appeared after a long hiatus in 1986.