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"The Songs of Bilitis" (Les Chansons de Bilitis; Paris, 1894) is a collection of poetry by Pierre Louÿs (1870-1925).
The book's sensual poems are in the manner of Sappho; the introduction claims they were found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus, written by a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis, a contemporary of Sappho. On publication, the volume deceived even the most expert of scholars. However, modern scholars generally agree that the poems are actually clever fabulations, authored by Louÿs himself, but still consider them literature.
Like the poems of Sappho, those of 'Bilitis' address themselves to the sapphic love of women & girls. The book became a sought-after cult item among the 20th-century lesbian underground, only surfacing in the 1970s. The expanded French second edition is reprinted in facsimile by Dover Books in America. This second edition had a title page that read: "This little book of antique love is respectfully dedicated to the young women of a future society."
The Daughters of Bilitis (founded 1955) was the first American lesbian campaigning & cultural society.