Here’s your chance to sample 14 titles in the Pocket Erotica Series, the seminal series of classic & contemporary erotic fiction.
This mouth-watering anthology includes:
Travels to Merryland. Anonymous From Their Lips to His Ear. Denis Diderot Priapeia. Anonymous A Judge Deceived. Marquis de Sade A Good Girl’s Home Companion. Lawrence Hamilton A Handbook of Manners for the Good Girls of France. Pierre Louÿs Poems of Lust & Desire. Various Jean-Fucque. Louis Aragon / RJ Dent Eve’s Academy. Eurydice Eve A Dirty Story as You Like It. Kim Vodicka Escape Artists. Su Orwell Grand Hotel Vittoria. Nina Ansani The Obedience Room. Catherine D’Avis The Desire Box. Laure Favager
THE POCKET EROTICA READER A Connoisseur’s Sampler Edited by Norman Conquest New Urge Editions Paperback; 178 pp.; $14 ISBN 979-8-9908521-5-0
Our biggest issue yet—169 pages—packed with prototypes, visual poetry, Belgian fiction, chronograms, Symbolist decadence, vintage surrealism & much more. Featuring an international cast of artists, poets, and writers, including: Frédéric Acquaviva; Terry J. Bradford; Apollo Camembert; Steve Carll; Norman Conquest; Lynn Crawford; Caroline Crépiat; Noël Devaulx; Shawn Garrett; Edward Gauvin; Nico Kirschenbaum; John Kruse; Amy Kurman; Jean Lorrain; Emilia Loseva; Jean Muno; Opal Louis Nations; Clemente Palma; Claudio Parentela; Vojtěch Preissig; Vania Russo; Nelly Sanchez; Marcel Schneider; and Doug Skinner.
THE STORY BEHIND ONE OF THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL NOVELS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
A richly detailed look at Histoire d’o from its original publication in 1954 to the present. Author Reese Saxment situates O in the cultural, literary and political world of Paris during the decade after liberation, and explores how the novel is informed by Surrealist thinking, and can be read as a Surrealist text. Story of O: Eros, Paris & Surrealism is scintillating literary scholarship that breathes new life into this groundbreaking novel.
In 1954 a controversial book was published in Paris – Story of O, by ‘Pauline Réage’ – the first truly erotic novel by a woman writer in modern times – a distinction for which it has been both celebrated and condemned ever since.
The Paris in which Story of O appeared was a city simultaneously in the throes of political crisis and brilliant cultural revival. As it struggled to recover after the Second World War, the onset of the Cold War polarised French politics into power-blocs of the right and the Communist left. But between these poles a renaissance of literary and philosophical movements flourished, all conscious of the need for a ‘Third Way’.
Prominent in this renaissance was a revitalized interest in érotisme noir, Existentialism, Feminine Humanism, and new waves in psychoanalysis, Surrealism and mysticism. It was in this cultural resurgence that Story of O was written and published. The woman who masqueraded as ‘Pauline Réage’ was herself a figure of considerable significance in the French literary world, and her novel provides a touchstone for all of the cultural movements thriving in Paris at the time – particularly Surrealism.
Ever since, in the continuing struggle between life, love and liberty, and suppression, prohibition and censorship, Story of O still lights a way forward toward freedom of imagination, expression and desire.
“…Reese Saxment’s Story of O: Eros, Paris & Surrealism is model of cultural history and literary studies: broad in his scope, intelligent and even-handed in his assessment, and entertaining in his retailing, to boot.” —THE BOOK BEAT
NEW REVIEW BY STEFAN PRINCE
“All in all, this is a thoroughly researched, full, and dare I say, formidable book. All praise to Saxment and Black Scat for managing to publish the book in the summer of Story of O’s first appearance 70 years ago this month. It deserves full praise, a hard cover and a wide readership.”
“Reese Saxment’s Story of O: Eros, Paris & Surrealism is an excellent work of historical and cultural research, telling not merely the story of how a dirty book came to be published but providing crucial contextual evidence and assessment about the larger political-historical events that shaped Story of O’s ethical concerns, as well as its longer-term effects and the ways in which it continues to be plumbed by scholars for its psychological depths.” —Tom Bowden, The Book Beat
“I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it to be extremely thought-provoking. The historical, cultural and surrealistic context is superbly researched and encyclopedic in its scope. The section on feminism is particularly good.” —Tracy Thursfield
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”… a detailed adventure and a mesmerizing read.” — John Welson
Spring Fever hath sprung with the special “Goddess Issue” of TYPO—packed with an international cast of luminaries: Tim Newton Anderson; Tom Bradley; Anton Chekhov; Norman Conquest; Caroline Crépiat; R J Dent; Max Ernst; Eurydice Eve; Luc Fierens; Leonor Fini; Théophile Gautier; Harold Jaffe; Amy Kurman; Lo; Michael Maier; Dmitri Manin; Elena Marini; Lilianne Milgrom; Opal Louis Nations; Marty Newman; Claudio Parentela; Angeleaux Pastormerleaux; Paul Rosheim; Jasia Reichardt; Doug Skinner; Phil Demise Smith; Tabarin; Lono Taggers; Corinne Taunay; Shyam Thandar; Stefan Themerson; Konstantin Vaginov, and Gregory Wallace.
We invite you to double your treasure with this pair of backlist beauties.
CHARLES CROS: COLLECTED MONOLOGUES
Charles Cros was one of the most brilliant minds of his generation, equally adept at poetry, fiction, and scientific inquiry. He wrote smutty verses with Verlaine, synthesized gems with Alphonse Allais, contributed wild prose fantasies to Le Chat Noir, and experimented with color photography and sound recording, only to die young, poor, and alcoholic. Not incidentally, he also invented the comic monologue for the actor Coquelin Cadet. This edition collects all of Cros’s monologues—masterfully translated & introduced by Doug Skinner—and includes performance notes, plus two biographical essays by his friend and colleague Alphonse Allais.
UPSIDE-DOWN STORIES
Charles Cros and Émile Goudeau were quintessential Bohemian poets. This first English translation of their inspired collaboration of “Upside-Down Stories” satirized hot topics of the 1880s such as as divorce and capital punishment with bawdy humor and wild flights of fancy. These nutty gems will surprise & delight contemporary readers.
“THE SHEER PLAYFULNESS OF CERTAIN FANCIFUL PARTS OF CROS’S WORK MUST NOT LET US FORGET THAT IN THE CENTER OF SOME OF HIS FINEST POEMS, A REVOLVER IS AIMED AT US.”—ANDRÉ BRETON
This scandalous little work appeared in France under the title “Letter to La Présidente.”
Théophile Gautier (1811-1872) was a novelist and poet, one of the champions of Romanticism. In 1850, he and his friend Louis de Cormenin visited Italy, so he wrote his friends back home a letter about their adventures. The result was a rollicking “filthy letter,” packed with jokes, slang, obsolete words, literary allusions, puns, alliterations, neologisms, Spoonerisms, verses, outrageous metaphors, and Rabelaisian lists. It was published privately in 1890, and became a clandestine classic.
A FILTHY LETTER Théophile Gautier Translated from the French by Doug Skinner, with an introduction & notes on the text Pocket Erotica Series #28 74 pp., 4 x 6 inches; 979-8-9894330-7-0
Scheduled for publication in 1917, this illustrated text was banned in France for its antiwar and anti-military—(dare we say pro-rat)—stance. Thus, Descaves’ incendiary little chapbook did not appear until 1920, when the censors finally waved their white flag and surrendered to reality.
Alas, THE RAT WINS! is a potent work of black humor which will remain relevant as long as humans walk the earth.
Read it in peace.
THE RAT WINS! Lucien Descaves Illustrations by Lucien Laforge Translated from the French by Doug Skinner Chapbook; 41 pp.; $12; ISBN 979-8989433063 Absurdist Texts & Documents #47 FIRST ENGLISH TRANSLATION
Lucien Descaves (1861-1949) was a prolific novelist, journalist, and playwright, and a constant activist for anarchism and pacifism. His antimilitary novel Sous-Offs (Non-Coms), published in 1889, earned him and his publisher arrests for insulting the army and offending morals. He was a founding member of the Académie Goncourt and the utopian community la Clairière de Vaux, and the literary executor of J.-K. Huysmans. His autobiography, Souvenirs d’un ours (Memoirs of a Bear), was published in 1946.
Lucien Laforge (1889-1954) contributed cartoons and illustrations to many periodicals, particularly for the anarchist press. He was uncompromising and often destitute; he was discharged twice in World War I after feigning insanity. His books include illustrations for Rabelais, Perrault, and Baudelaire, as well as his alphabet Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz (1924).
Doug Skinner has translated many wonderful books for Black Scat Books, Wakefield Press, Corps Reviver, and Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, as well as contributing to the Fortean Times, Nickelodeon, Cabinet, and other fine magazines. His latest book of short stories is The Potato Farm, from Black Scat.
STARRING: Tim Newton Anderson; Michael Betancourt; David Brizer; Steve Carll; Norman Conquest; Farewell Debut; R J Dent; Jesse Glass; Reinhard Goering; Rhys Hughes; Tim Hutchings; Mark Kanak; M. Kasper; Amy Kurman; Gabriel de Lautrec; Emilia Loseva; Jim McMenamin; O Homem do Saco; Jasia Reichardt; Doug Rice; Paul Rosheim; Doug Skinner; Franciszka Themerson; Stefan Thernerson; John Vieira; Gregory Wallace; and Danny Winkler.
PLUS EIGHT RUSSIAN FUTURISTS: Velimir Khlebnikov, Igor Terentjev, Aleksey Kruchenykh, Vasily Kamensky, Pavel Kokorin, Tykhon Churylin, Bodjidar (Bogdan Gordejev), and David Burliuk.
featuring
· THE EVOLUTION OF IT
· TOUR DE PANTS
· PORTRAITS OF SADE
· SECONDHAND SMOKE SIGNALS
· ALFRED JARRY, TEEN PATAPHYSICIAN
· ANTIQUARIAN PUZZLES
· RUSSIAN FUTURISTS
· CUBIST TALES
· DRIBBLING DRABBLES
· MR. COPYRIGHT
· REINHARD GOERING STORIES
· THEMERSON’S LOST FILM
· FOUND FINDS
· TYPO’S TYPOS
And much more
Grab your copy today.
TYPO #4: The International Journal of Prototypes edited by Norman Conquest trade paperback; 152 pp., illustrated; $20
blackscatbooks.com 