Tag: Pocket Erotica Series

Raunchy Wordplay

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

Room Service…

Pihla, a beautiful journalist from Helsinki, is on an assignment to cover subterranean sex scenes across Europe. Although detached from the decadence she witnesses, Pihla needs a respite, and checks into the Grand Hotel Vittoria in the hills of Tuscany. And then she meets Giovanni…

The 27th volume in our collectible Pocket Erotica series is a sensual work of contemporary fiction by Nina Ansani. Warm up your holiday and visit the Grand Hotel Vittoria.

MIND YOUR MANNERS

Pierre Louÿs wrote this scandalous and salacious satirical work in 1917, yet it wasn’t published until 1926, after his death. Originally titled Manuel de civilité pour les petites filles à l’usage des maisons d’éducation, it was the author’s first published erotic work—issued anonymously in Paris, with no date nor publisher’s imprint.

A Handbook of Manners for the Good Girls of France parodies the educational handbooks of the day, as well as popular guides to etiquette. But unlike the author’s elegantly sensual ouvre, including Les Chansons de Bilitis and Aphrodite: mœurs antiques, this is Louÿs’ most radical and subversive book — aimed directly at middle-class puritanism, mocking the hypocrisy and complacency of the Belle Époque. It attacks religion and social norms with equal vigor— a sharp slap in the face of censors and prudes.

It’s also very funny.

A HANDBOOK OF MANNERS FOR THE GOOD GIRLS OF FRANCE
Pierre Louÿs
Translated from the French by Lono Taggers
Paperback; 70 pp., illustrated; $12
Pocket Erotica #23 / New Urge
ISBN 13 978-1-7379430-6-8

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Pierre Louÿs, poet and novelist, was born in Belgium but spent his life in France. He is best known for his erotic works, many with sapphic and classical themes. His most popular titles include Aphrodite: mœurs antiques; Trois Filles de leur mère; Le Trophée de vulves légendaires; Poésies érotiques; La Femme et le pantin; and Les Chansons de Bilitis. His contributions to French erotic literature remain unequaled.

The Lighter Side of Sade

Did the notorious author of Justine and The 120 Days of Sodom have a sense of humor? 

Indeed he did, and this short story shows a side of the author few have seen. Here is a witty, libertine tale, free of flagellation and sexual perversion. Instead, it reveals a husband’s adultery and a wife’s clever “retaliation.”  

This is a decidedly feminist text and it punctures the double standard still infecting relations between men and women.

Translated from the French by R J Dent.

Comte Donatien-Alphonse-Francois de Sade

Customers in the UK can order the book here

Naughty but Nice

“Now if you are bold enough to get one I’m sure it will afford a considerable amount of excitement and pleasure, and cannot have any danger; and whoever obtains it can, after trying it, tell the others how she likes it; and as it can be mutually used it may afford all of us pleasure. I confess I should have got one before now if I had known how to go about it. So girls, who’ll bell the cat?” 

The latest title in the Pocket Erotica series has been adapted by Lawrence Hamilton from a Victorian underground novel. A Good Girl’s Home Companion recounts the adventures of three inquisitive young women who discover the joys of friendship and sharing.

“A witty and titillating tale.”