The edition in question.

Left completely unsatisfied was the question: Was the book actually and Isidore Liseux edition?  I remained suspicious. The illustrations look nothing like what appeared in erotic fiction at the turn-of-the-century, and something about the art style reminded me of early 20-century cartooning, more along the lines of Prince valiant from the funny pages than anything else.

I don’t know why I didn’t think to do this earlier, but this time around I consulted Sheryl Straight’s website Erotobibliophile, a treasure trove of bibliographic details.  Sure enough, she had listings of both English and French languaged Fanny Hill editions. And there, as well, she had my answer.

Citation from Eroticabibliophile.com

The addition that puzzled me was, as I suspected, a pirated version, attributed to the “Miller Brothers.”

The Miller Brothers were obscure contemporaries of Sam Roth, Esar Levine, and Ben Rebhuhn, all clandestine erotica publishers in New York City during the Great Depression.  Little’s known about the brothers, other than their preference for pirating and printing well-known works and populating them with explicit illustrations.

I realized after the fact that I had another work attributed to them, namely one of the two volume of The Modern Evangeline.

So mystery solved!  Next time this happens, I better remember to dig a little deeper and mine a little harder because the data was just one vein away!

Although, I wonder… that three-volume set of The Pearl.  The one that I learned from a noted book dealer was likely from the 1920s edition of that famous magazine?  I wonder if the Miller Brothers had anything to do with it?  A new mystery ensues…

RAVENOUS ROMANCE™ LAUNCHES NEW YORK CITY READING SERIES
Publisher of erotic fiction to launch Ravenous Nights at Lower East Side venue

[Boston, MA – February 1, 2011] – Ravenous Romance™, a leading online publisher of erotic romance novels and short stories has announced a collaboration with New York City literary hot-spot Happy Endings Lounge to host a monthly erotic reading series on the first Friday of every month called Ravenous Nights. Happy Endings, a funky 2-story club that was once a massage parlor, is located at 302 Broome Street. The first Ravenous Night is scheduled for Friday, February 4 from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., and it is free of charge.

The lineup for February 4 includes:
Cecilia Tan, best-selling erotic author of the Magic University series
Caridad Pinero, New York Times best-selling erotic romance author
Mo Beasley, founder of Urban Erotika, a spoken word performance series
KT Grant, author of The Princess’ Bride
Debra Hyde, acclaimed writer of BDSM erotic romance and author of the BDSM classic, BLIND SEDUCTION.

In celebration of Ravenous Nights, Barnes & Noble has announced that they will offer free copies of the Ravenous Romance anthology Once Upon a Threesome to the first 100 people to download it. In addition, Ravenous Romance will give each attendee a free Ravenous Romance drink coaster to each attendee and the Happy Endings Lounge will create a special “Ravenous” cocktail which will only appear on the menu during Ravenous Nights.

Ravenous Nights
Friday, February 4, 2011
8 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Free of charge
Location: Happy Endings Lounge
302 Broome Street (at Forsyth St)
(212) 334-9676

In the name of all things erotic, let’s party!

Among the first pirated books in America, Memoirs first saw print around 1814 and prosecution not long after. Its original British publisher, Ralph Griffiths, was reputed to have earned 10,000 pounds from the book during his lifetime. Many book historians dismiss that figure as an exaggeration born of professional jealousy by his competitors, but it shows what a high profile book Memoirs was in its day.

Detail of a Fanny Hill illustration

It’s trivia like this that prompts me to buy various editions of Cleland’s famous work. I’ve got a couple of Isadore Liseaux’s editions from the 1880s as well as newer editions that caught my fancy through the years. Not too long ago, I came across a Liseaux edition that included a dozen illustrations packed between its covers. They weren’t native to the edition and there’s no evidence that they were ever tipped into any edition. But they do look like they were sized for a 20th-century hardcover edition.

Why do I suspect 20th-century? For one thing, they look nothing like the more famous Avril or Becat illustrations. Nor do they at all resemble illustrations from the late 18th and early 19th centuries. If anything, they remind me of whimsical magazine illustrations from the 1920s and 30s, all explicitness aside. At times the young women’s hair fall into a near-bobbed look while the young men sport ridiculous Prince Valiant cuts. The surroundings seem romanticized as well.

Detail, illustration from an early edition

Beyond my assessments here, I have no clue who produce these illustrations or what edition they were destined for. But it’s fascinating little tidbits like these that make me a bibliophile and keep me curious.

As usual, you can see all of the illustrations at my Flickr page. Fair warning: regardless of their charm, they’re NSFW. And take a close look at the last one in the series. That’s quite the tree they’re doing it under!

When I’m scouting about for antiquarian/used erotica for purchase, I run acoss a fair amount of stuff that makes me laugh.  Ususally, we’re talking double entendre here, a type of humorous twist many people find juvenile.  However, if my first reaction is an automatic chuckle, then whatever the item is, it hit my natural default and I shrug off any notion of dignified, dowdy restraint.

Often, it’s raunchy pornographic paperbacks that earn my accolades — smutty twists on easily recognizable cultural fare.  Cockwork Orange? Go for it.  Pacific Phallusades?  Sure, why not!

Although the latter, somehow, gets me stuck on that Gary Lewis and the Playboy cover Palisades Park, an east-coast radio staple during my summers as a kid.  Hey, what can I say — cocks sound more fun with a soundtrack!

Another recent favorite:  Wendy’s Whips with the handwritten disclaimer “It is our duty to state that everyone who has written to us has eventually died a horrible and unexplained death.” (Detailed image here.) I guess that’s one way to declare a whip catalogue as “for novelty use only.”

But the last item?  It’s a reader, the erotic short story pamphlet cousin to the Tijuana Bible, common throughout much of the 20th century.  Ususally, you’d find the humor in the publisher’s name, as I’ve previously outlined, and the pamphlet titles were usually pretty, well, unremarkable.  Quick samples from my own collection include A Long One, Paging Young Heroes, I’m For You, My Secret Memoirs, and The Love Doctor.

So when I came across Hair Pie a la Wee Wee, it brought me up short.  I mean, WTF?  Hair Pie, I get.  But Wee Wee?  Are we talking a grostequely juvenile double entendre along French language lines?  Or are we talking piss play here?  I doubt it’s the latter; these readers kept to oral, intercourse, and group sex.  Regardless, this title is uncharacteristically tawdry for its format.  Can’t help but look at it with crossed-eyes and a perplexed expression.

But worth sharing with you nonetheless.  And I’ll keep my eyes (uncrossed) peeled for more.

And they’ve done so under the tenacious leadership of Cecilia Tan through thick and thin.  They’re survived the collapse of independent bookstores. They’ve withstood the demise of several distributors.  And when the e-book market reached viability, they switched horses in midstream without getting wet.

Yet they haven’t abandoned their love of print books.  Currently, they aim to bring a new volume of their BEST EROTIC FANTASY to print and have initiated a major fundraising effort to accomplish that goal.  You can find the details at their website.

Clever, no?  Evidently, their approach is unique enough to attract the attention of Publisher’s Weekly,  the book industry’s key trade journal.  I mean, how cool is that!

And they’ve done so under the tenacious leadership of Cecilia Tan through thick and thin.  They’re survived the collapse of independent bookstores. They’ve withstood the demise of several distributors.  And when the e-book market reached viability, they switched horses in midstream without getting wet.

Yet they haven’t abandoned their love of print books.  Currently, they aim to bring a new volume of their BEST EROTIC FANTASY to print and have initiated a major fundraising effort to accomplish that goal.  You can find the details at their website.

Clever, no?  Evidently, their approach is unique enough to attract the attention of Publisher’s Weekly,  the book industry’s key trade journal.  I mean, how cool is that!

A magazine that strikes me as an early fetish pub-lication and not all that different from the tamer sections of John Willie's Bizarre from the 1940 - 50s.

Lately, when I’m not working on the next novel,  I’ve immersed myself in researching BDSM literature and its history.  It’s an endeavor that satisfies my inner bibliophile and collector, ever-curious facets of my mind.  I suppose it’s what I get for never seeking an advance degree beyond the B.A. I earned too long ago.

I’m never surprised by the extremes to which various BDSM artifacts go to.  Not even some of the stuff from the 1970s which presented an anything goes/right up to snuff portrayals of S/M.  It reeks of bad-as-I-wanna-be bravado and makes me wonder whether it influenced the slasher film that emerged as the 1970s ended.  But I suspect this stuff was too esoteric and underground to have any pronounced influence on anything.

What does surprise me, however, is how consistent our fetishes have been through the ages.  I began to see this in the better known fetish publications from mid- last century.  John Willie’s Bizarre isn’t all that different than the Nutrix/Mutrix stuff of the 50s and 60s. Ditto the more limited-to-get stuff like Dominate! digest and its peers.

"Devotees of the "elevator" heel is something else to interest you -- a pair of patent oxford shoes with eight inch heels, and a pair of patent bar shoes with eight and a quarter inch heels, made my Mr. W. Coulson, of 15, Tottenham Court Road, London, W.C." Left: "Note the dainty delicacy of the tread." Right: "Note the chic effect produced by the bracelet."

But when I came across a copy of a 1911 Photo Bits, our consistency really hit home.  Here was an early 20th-century British relic that featured — what else! — items on corsetry, female impersonation, and extreme shoes, even headlining the latter as “the cult of the heel.”  That’s very similar to the tamer sections of Willie’s Bizarre, isn’t it?

Photo Bits was considered an early girlie mag, a publication that tried to straddle the mores of the Victorian era even as the world move onward.  The playful bathing beauties on its cover were eye-catching and tantalizing for its day and its headline about kleptomania almost yells “women inside!”  Still, if not for the fact that Photo Bits makes an appearance in Leopold Bloom’s thoughts in James Joyce’s Ulysses, I’d be hard pressed to think of the publication as edgy.  But there you have it.

And I must admit: It has me interested in securing some copies and delving into its page.  Hell, anything with a caption of “The Cult of the Heel” is likely to do that!

Click on the images for their full size. I’ve uploaded these and two other images to my Flickr account. Enjoy.

THE DEVIL’S WALK THROUGH THE UNITED STATES, BY FRANK RIVERS. From the ORIGINAL MANUSCRIPT  found among the Papers of THE LATE BEAUTIFUL COURTEZAN, ELLEN JEWETT. New York: Elton, Publisher, 134, Division-Street. circa 1836 (no date). 16 page stapled booklet, 5 1/2″ x 8″.

The manuscript for this poem was supposedly found among the possessions of Ellen Jewett (Hellen Jewett), a beautiful young prostitute who worked in an infamous New York City Whorehouse known for having some of the city’s gentry as clientele.  The poem is credited as being written by Frank Rivers. “Frank Rivers” was an alias for Richard Parmelee Robinson, the man accused of murdering Ellen Jewett. The engraving on the cover is credited to “Bill Easy” an alias for another man Jewett was reportedly with Jewett the night of her murder. This murder was perhaps the first of the sex-sin-and-mayhem cases that birthed sensational journalis. The title for this poem was borrowed from a well known piece of British political satire written by Professor Porson.

In 1836 Hellen Jewett was considered New York City’s most desirable and sought after prostitute. Jewett became something of a “star” at several of several of New York’s most exclusive bordello’s. Besides her stunning good looks, her sexual skills were legend. Her clientele was a who’s who of famous people. Even Washington Irving and Edgar Allen Poe were known to suffer from infatuation.

On the night of April 10th, 1836 Helen Jewett was murdered with an axe and set on fire. Richard Robinson,one of her clients, was accused of her murder. The ensuing trial captivated the nation. The sensation and publicity surrounding the murder and trial help set the stage for the rise and popularity of murder mystery and detective fiction, whose literary conventions Edgar Allen Poe pioneered, a resident of New York City at the time of the trial.

Although the prosecution had overwhelming evidence against Richard Robinson, he was aquitted. At the time, Robinson was well known for his literary skills and was more than likely the author of this poem.  This booklet was probably printed shortly after the trial in 1836.

Click for larger image.

I haven’t found any foundation for the claims that major authors were smittened by Jewett, the Jewett murder essentials in the listing are accurate.  However, I’m far from certain the pamphlet in question was actually found among Jewett’s belongings.  It’s not mentioned at all in Patricia Cline Cohen’s exhaustive and captivating book, The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute In Nineteenth-Century New York — a red flag for me if every there was one.

And I’m skeptical that its attributions are sound.  Robinson and George P. Marston (aka Bill Easy) were rivals for Jewett’s attentions, and Robinson’s jealousy toward Marston was well documented. That Marston would provide an engraving to a work by Robinson borders on ludicrous.

There’s another reason for all this, me thinks.

Consider the estimated date of the publication.  Consider the text I’ve placed here (and see more at my Flickr feed).  It’s all about the devil coming to America to stir up abolitionist woes.  Now think: What abolitionist events happened during this time frame?

Click for larger image.

By treaty, European countries agreed to abolish slavery left and right.  Jamaica abolished slavery.  And, by 1840, outright abolition or suppression of slavery by treaty reached from Europe to South America.

And most noteworthy to this region of America at this time? Amistad was right around the corner, starting in 1839.  Indeed, since this pamphlet is undated, it could conceivably date to the Amistad years.  In fact, the stanza I picture here where the devil  The Devil and A—r T—n, refers to, as far as I’m concerned, to abolitionist Arthur Tappan.  Whose brother, Lewis, took up the Amistad cause.

I view The Devil’s Walk Through America as an anti-abolitionist trait produced sometime between the Jewett incident and Amistad.  It appropriated Robinson’s and Marston’s monikers, capitalizing on one sensation to further another.  And it names prominent abolitionists George Thomson and  William Lloyd Garrison in its stanzas.

I’ve placed several more images from the pamphlet in a set at my Flickr page.  Feel free to examine them.

My daughter's competition entry

To my chagrin, site registration is required, damn it, but please help her!

You see, her job search for an entry level position animation will begin this summer and it would be great if she could add a win to her resume.  Or, even better, get noticed by the Burton’s people.  Now *that* would be a weird mother’s dream come true!

Be sure to comment here if you do indeed join in the voting!  And I’ll return you to your (ab?)normal biblio/sex-in-the-news content shortly.

Click on graphic for larger image.

Readers, like their more famous dirty comics kin, were produced by the same publishers who produced erotic book and playing cards.  Cheap to produce and carrying a big profit margin, they were distributed to newsstands, cigar shops, used bookstores, bars and burlesques houses.  First appearing in the 1920s and 1930s, they saw a good thirty-year run before falling away in the face of legal pornography.

I’m always attracted to any clandestine erotica — and these babies certainly had underground existence — but I’m attracted to readers for more than just their clandestine nature.  First, known curiosa book publishers printed them, namely  Samuel Roth, who fought repeated obscenity charges during his publishing life, and I. R. and Jack Brussel, noted book row jack-of-all-trades, the latter of whom later reprinted the famed three-volume Bibliography of Prohibits Book by Prisaus Fraxi (really Henry S. Ashbee) in 1962.  I’ve also appreciated how, when all else tried to keep people ignorant about sex, these readers at least contributed something to an American’s erotic awareness.

And, of course, pamphlets in general were often a vehicle of street democracy and sometimes subversive as well.

But what I like best about readers are their subversion “thrown the authorities off the track” sense of humor.  Their cousin, the Tijuana Bible, were never actually printed in Mexico.  The label was a ruse, a complete fabrication, meant to mislead the authorities.  The same for readers, except they were far more tongue-in-cheek about it.  I mean really:  Humpville Illinois?  Gimme a break.

Click on graphic for larger image.

Shaftsbury Ave, London? Sure. Whatever.  But the 20 shillings suggest it could’ve been European in origin, perhaps aimed at lonely G.I.s.

The Havana locale may have been legit.  The exorbitant $5.00 price tag indicates that it was produce late in the readers’ existence.  And the mob was well known for supplying all kinds of forbidden entertainment in Cuba in the years before the rise of Castro.  However, it’s just as likely that Havana, Cuba was nothing more than code.  ”Havana” was once short-hand for anything-goes sex.  (See Mel Brooks’ Blazing Saddles, believe it or not. Cleavon Little says as much to Madeline Kahn.)

You know, maybe that’s another reason I like these little readers.  Maybe it’s because they make the cogs and wheels of my mind turn.  I guess it’s true — the best sex *is* between the ears!