Desert of the Heart is a 1964 novel written by Jane Rule. The story was adapted into the 1985 film Desert Hearts, directed by Donna Deitch. The book was originally published in hardback by Macmillan Canada. It was one of the very few novels addressing lesbianism that was published in hardback form; most books during this period with female homosexuality as a topic were considered lesbian pulp fiction until 1969. At the time the novel was published, Rule was a lecturer at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, and because the novel dealt with sapphic romance, her job was threatened.