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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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!

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As a collector of erotica and “curiosa,” an old bibliophile’s codeword for the pornographic, I come across a lot of unusual publications. Some are historical interesting — like a rare pre-Civil War erotic novel — and some are downright silly. I figure one way out of my blogging inertia might be to start a Tawdry Tuesday where I share tidbits from and about books I’ve collected. And to start things off, let me share four flagellation images from the 1934 Falstaff Press edition of Iwan Bloch’s Sex Life in England.

Falstaff Press was one of several clandestine publishers that produced books out of depression-era New York City. Run by Ben and Anne Rebhuh, Falstaff specialized in the risque and “anthrolopgia” and traipsed that fine line between scholarly and prurient. A arts-and-culture website’s wiki entry provides a sound run-down of what’s known about Falstaff Press.

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Although by today’s standards, Sex Life in England would appear tame, it was one of those titles that flirted with the prurient, largely because of its cabinet of illustrations as end contents. The flagellation illustrations I’ve posted here range from the seriously rendered to caricature. Hard to imagine that this is the kind of stuff that would stop the U.S. Post Office in its tracks and arrest someone for distributing such stuff, but such were the times when the Comstock law was in effect.

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Iwan Bloch was a noted author and sexologist from pre-Nazi Germany. He was a contemporary of fellow sexologist, Magnus Hirschfeld, and Sigmund Freud considered his contributions on homosexuality key to looking at sexual orientation from a non-pathological stance. I suspect it gave some level of legitimacy to Falstaff Press in the eyes of government suppression, but not much, given the fervor of the law. Although he was responsible for discovering the presumed-lost manuscript of The 120 Days of Sodom by the Marquis de Sade and he was an early biographer of the notorious figure, so who knows.

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I happen to like Bloch’s Sex Life in England because it’s a what’s what and who’s who of English erotic literature — although I chuckle at chapter titles like Highly Spiced Titles of Erotic Books, Secret Pornologic Clubs in England, and The Greatest Erotobibliomaniacs in England [and] Their Fabulous Erotic Treasures Described. Sure, it lacks the bibliographic depth and details of highly scholarly work, but it’s still informative. So much so that I have two copies of Sex Life in England in my library — one in collectible condition, the other clearly beat-up but perfect for reading and research.

I’ve posted jpegs of the table of contents from Bloch’s book at my my Flickr account. Stop by and view the breadth of Bloch’s research yourself!

A decade previous to this date, I embarked on writing short erotic fiction. Dozens of my stories appeared in major anthologies from Cleis Press, Alyson Books, the now-defunct Venus Book Club, Berkley Heat, and more. I celebrated every by-line and cherished every opportunity. But something was missing. I was one of those authors that the larger mainstream publishing world overlooked. I was an early blogger and diarist about sex and my sex life, yet no book deal came my way. I had a couple of novels in the can yet securing an agent was a multi-year exercise in futility. I watched the romance market embrace a certain level of eroticism in their publishing lines… but it did not speak to me in a way that was authentic to my experience or even paralleled the intensity of erotic writing I had done. Let me tell you, I felt left out in the cold.

Until Lori Perkins blew me away by inviting me to submit Ravenous Romance. She remembered my writing and publishing creds — something every writer prays for — and just when I questioned whether to continue on, she gave me the very outlet I needed to journey on. I had a whole new reason to celebrate and cherish opportunity. Since then, Lori and her partners have brought two of my novels into e-print. They’ve asked for several more, including one that is shaping up to be an opus of a lifetime. And, most soulful to me, they’ve allowed me to write from the erotic edge. Not once have they asked me to softball my erotic portrayals.

Today, all of us Ravenous Romance authors are celebrating our good fortune. We’re ecstatic. And our publisher is celebrating, too, by offering all full-length e-books to the reading public for a mere .99 cents. Go, check it out, and if you’re fond of my writing, look in the Wicked Pleasures section for more kinky fiction.

Happy anniversary, Ravenous Romance!

Over the summer, my college-aged, production-savvy daughter helped me assemble an exciting DVD/CD promotional package, specifically geared to the erotic romance/erotica reader. It’s a DVD/CD package that has book trailers, author commentaries, and book excerpts of all my novels.

My novels are exceptionally kinky and probably not for the faint-of-heart. But if you’re an adventurous, open-minded reader and game for interesting twists of erotic extremes, then you might enjoy my work.

If you’d like one of these babies, simply email me at debrawriting at cox dot net, provide your snail mail address, and I’ll send you a DVD/CD combo at no cost to you. (Adults only, please.)

I absolutely promise to regard your snail mail address as sacrosanct. I will not share it and if I have future offerings, I will contact you first via email.

I hope you’ll check out this freebie of mine. We had such fun putting it together and I’d like to pass our enthusiasm to you!

I began Pursed Lips in August 1999 when the blogging community numbered less than two hundred individuals. Most of those blogs where tech-based. A few disseminated cultural tidbits to entertain us. But no one was writing about sex full-time in a blog format.

screen shot of Pursed Lip's debuit

So I did. Years before “not safe for work” entered the vernacular.

Ah, the joy of reminiscing!

Today, I’m not as avid a blogger as I was ten years ago. With the advent of new technologies, other competitors vie for my time. Like a quick 140 at Twitter. Or producing a book trailer for You Tube. And promotional give-away productions. Best of all, I’m busier than ever with my fiction writing.

But I’m still nostalgic for my past enthusiasms and I still love this little blog of mine. And to celebrate this modest milestone, I grabbed a screen shot of my first blog post to share with you — my foray into an emerging on-line avenue. Looking at it now, it reminds me of baby steps, good memories all.

At BEA, I attended Laura Baumbach’s signing of her M/M action suspense novel, Mexican Heat. I’d visited the MLR Press booth earlier in the show and promised to stop by for the book — with every intention of putting it high on my reading list. Why? Because, coming from LGBT origins, I wanted to see what differences existed between queer erotic and M/M romances. And honestly? MLR Press nicely blurs the line, blending the best elements of erotica and romance together into, if Mexican Heat is any indication, an enjoyable read.

Consider Mexican Heat’s synopsis:

Tough, street-smart SFPD Detective Gabriel Sandalini is willing to do whatever it takes to bring down West Coast crime boss Ricco Botelli — including a dangerous, deep undercover gig as one of Botelli’s hired guns. But Gabriel’s best laid plans may come crashing down around him when he falls hard for the sexy, suave lieutenant of a rival Mexican drug lord. Turns out his new love interest may have a few secrets of his own: secrets that could destroy both men and the fragile bond between them.

Now, I gotta tell ya: If not for BEA and my interest in M/M, I probably would’ve overlooked Mexican Heat. Why? Because I’m not really into organized crime/cop/action dramas. It’s not my preferred cup of tea. But Baumbaugh and co-writer Josh Lanyon really pulled off a good one here. Mexican Heat’s hard-boiled, bare knuckled prose worked as well in its sex scenes as it did in the depicting the drug cartel crime world. And when the story turns to love, the authors pull off a proficient, subtle change in tenor, one so tempered that you’ll hardly noticed. And they know how to pace a story, whether it’s keeping the action plot moving, reveling on the romantic possibilities, or depicting hot man-on-man sex. Bravo.

And this exercise has taught me something, too. I’m overlooking a lot of good books if I don’t stretch my parameters. That, in general, I better not judge a book by its cover or copy because I’ll miss out on a lot of good reads. Note taken.

But What’s Hot isn’t all about me. I share the spotlight with fellow authors Earl Sewell and Kat Martin. Somehow, All Romance eBooks rounded us up during Book Expo America, a HUGE cattle drive of a publishing industry event. Talk about expert wrangling!

If you can’t make the actual 9:30 show, not to worry. You can download the podcast and enjoy it at your leisure. Be sure to check out their previous shows as well!

I’d seen all the buzz about Vanderbilt’s novel and I no doubt wanted to read it. After all, I’d like to think that when I’m Vanderbilt’s age, I’d be capable of writing intriguing and provocative fiction. And when I met Gloria Vanderbilt at her BEA book signing, she graciously told me that this book meant a great deal to her. Granted, she was probably indulging me in the social graces she’s known for, but that doesn’t mean she wasn’t sincere.

I’m not sure what I expected when I cracked the spine and opened Obsession. I’d heard about its BDSM content and the speculation that always arises when an author explores out-of-the-mainstream sexuality. What I got was an entertaining and challenging read.

Beginning as a semi-epistolary work, Obsession details the repressed widow Priscilla Bingham’s discovery of a cache of letters that reveals her late husband’s extramarital kinky endeavors. Each letter is more explicit and detailed than its predecessor and draws you in to a secret world of covert sexual extravagance. Written by Priscilla’s rival, the mysterious, sexually-free Bee, the letters seem to pose a side of her late husband that Priscilla never knew.

A New York Times article about Vanderbilt’s book poses whether Bee is a figment of Priscilla’s imagination or vice versa. But I think there’s something deeper going on here. As I read the book its prose became increasingly dream-like. Alternating between Priscilla and be, it seemed to nearly become a fugue.

And then it struck me: Perhaps I was seeing two sides of the same coin. Wife and mistress, Madonna and whore, doppelgangers of a single self, split apart by the agony of grief. Perhaps Priscilla and Bee are the Ego and the Id, respectively, each driven to seek the other, not out of jealousy but because, unable to survive alone, continued life is only assured by their ultimate reunion.

The world in which Bee exists – and that which Priscilla wants to access – is, in fact, the Janus club. And Janus is the Roman god of doorways a two-faced deity whose visages peers out in opposite directions. More than once, Janus has served to a represent BDSM practices, and here, I suspect, it symbolizes the doorway through which the divided selves can step through and rediscover one another.

Of course, my theory could be total hogwash. Vanderbilt has reportedly written and recorded a new ending for Obsession in audio book form, presumably a less abrupt and more expansive conclusion. But any book that can make you stop and wonder what it’s really all about, what’s really underneath the facade of sexual extravagance, is a book worth reading. And I’m still struck by the sense of wonder whenever I think about Gloria Vanderbilt’s Obsession.