Clandestine erotic periodicals of this age include The Pearl, The Oyster and The Boudoir, collections of erotic tales, rhymes, songs and parodies published in London between 1879 and 1883.

(Paris, 1906)]] The centre of the trade in such material in England at this period was Holywell Street, off the Strand, London. An important publisher of erotic material in the early 19th century was George Cannon (1789–1854), followed in mid-century by William Dugdale (1800–1868) and John Camden Hotten (1832–1873).

An important and entertaining conspectus and evaluation of 19th century (pre-1885) and earlier underground erotica, from the author's own private archive, is provided by Victorian writer Henry Spencer Ashbee in his bibliographical trilogy Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (1879) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum (1885). His plot summaries of the works he discusses in these privately printed volumes are themselves a contribution to the genre. Originally of very limited circulation, changing attitudes have led to his work now being widely available.

Notable European works of erotica at this time were Gamiani, or Two Nights of Excess (1833) by Frenchman Alfred de Musset and Venus in Furs (1870) by the Austrian author Leopold von Sacher-Masoch. The latter erotic novella brought the attention of the world to the phenomenon of masochism, named after the author.

Towards the end of the century, a more "cultured" form of erotica began to appear by such as the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne who pursued themes of paganism, lesbianism and sado-masochism in such works as Lesbia Brandon and in contributions to The Whippingham Papers (1888) edited by St George Stock, author of The Romance of Chastisement (1866). This was associated with the Decadent movement, in particular, with Aubrey Beardsley and the Yellow Book. But it was also to be found in France, amongst such writers as Pierre Louys, author of Les chansons de Bilitis (1894) (a celebration of lesbianism and sexual awakening).

Pioneering works of male homosexual erotica from this time were The Sins of the Cities of the Plain (1881), which features the celebrated Victorian transvestite duo of Boulton and Park as characters, and Teleny, or The Reverse of the Medal (1893).

Important publishers of erotic fiction at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the twentieth were Leonard Smithers (1861–1907) and Charles Carrington (1867–1921), both of whom were subject to legal injunctions from the British authorities in order to prohibit their trade in such material. Because of this legal harassment the latter conducted his business from Paris. Erotic fiction published by Carrington at this period includes Raped on the Railway: a True Story of a Lady who was first ravished and then flagellated on the Scotch Express (1894) and The Memoirs of Dolly Morton (1899) set on a slave-plantation in the Southern States of America.

The 20th century

Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita is often described as an erotic novel, but other critics view it more as a literary drama with elements of eroticism.

Lolita and The Story of O were published by Olympia Press, a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebadged version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary works. The Girls of Radcliff Hall is a roman à clef novel in the form of a lesbian girls' school story written in the 1930s by the British composer and bon-vivant Gerald Berners, the 14th Lord Berners, under the pseudonym "Adela Quebec", published and distributed privately in 1932.

Asian erotic fiction

Contemporary erotic fiction

Erotic fantasy has similarities to romantic fantasy, but is far more graphic and goes into much more detail when describing sex scenes.

Erotic fantasy can also be found in Fan Fiction. Much erotic fanfic is based on science fiction, fantasy, or "mainstream" television series (e.g. Star Trek, Beauty and the Beast, Highlander, Criminal Minds) and movies (e.g. Harry Potter, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings), using existing characters such as Galadriel or Éowyn, Harry Potter or Draco Malfoy, in relationships either hinted at or wholly undreamed of by their creators, in genres like slash (homoerotic fic), elf porn, etc. Many recent works of erotic fan fiction use characters from the settings made popular by Dungeons & Dragons such as Dragonlance, and to a lesser extent Forgotten Realms. Fan fiction and its Japanese counterpart, doujinshi, account for an enormous proportion of all erotica being written today; doujinshi mostly hand-published, fanfic mostly online.

Internet erotic fiction

Online bookstores purvey a range of professional, commercial and non-commercial erotic writing. Whereas once access to online erotic fiction was largely restricted to membership or pay sites, in recent years a marked increase in the number of community based, not-for-profit or free access websites, such as Literotica and Literarily, has led to an explosion in the level of popularity of this genre.

Increased interactivity and anonymity allows casual or hobby writers the opportunity not only to author their own stories (sometimes based on personal fantasies), but also to share them with a world-wide audience.

Many authors adopt colorful pseudonyms and can develop cult followings within their genre, though a small number use (or claim to use) their real names. Among transgendered or genderqueer authors, it is a common practice to adopt a feminine or masculine alter-ego, although it is not unheard of for a writer to use his or her own given name.

Over the years, many not-for-profit sites have limited themselves to a particular sub-genre (or fetish) such as http://www.fictionmania.tv/ (transgender theme) and http://www.mcstories.com/ (Mind Control theme). It has been common for websites to start and then vanish (or lack updates and maintenance). Some writers have their own blogs or websites given over entirely to their own work, some writers concentrate on their own sexual exploits while others explore a wide range and others use just one genre.

One of the WWW's first virtual novels is mainly erotic fiction.

Other accounts

Writings of prostitutes

Accounts of prostitution have continued as a major part of the genre of erotic literature.

In the 18th century directories of prostitutes and their services, such as Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies (1757–1795), provided both entertainment and instruction.

In the 19th century the sensational journalism of W. T. Stead's The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon (1885) about the procuring of underage girls into the brothels of Victorian London provided a stimulus for the erotic imagination. Stead's account was widely translated and the revelation of "padded rooms for the purpose of stifling the cries of the tortured victims of lust and brutality" and the symbolic figure of "The Minotaur of London" confirmed European observers worst imaginings about "Le Sadisme anglais" and inspired erotic writers to write of similar scenes set in London or involving sadistic English gentlemen. Such writers include D'Annunzio in Il Piacere, Paul-Jean Toulet in Monsieur de Paur (1898), Octave Mirbeau in Jardin des Supplices (1899) and Jean Lorrain in Monsieur de Phocas (1901).

21st century works in this genre are The Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl(2005), by Belle de Jour, and a darker take on the same 'scene' in Sisi & Sonia (2008) by Nic Penrake.

Erotic memoirs

Erotic memoirs include Casanova's Histoire de ma vie, from the 18th century. Notable English works of this genre from the 19th century include The Ups and Downs of Life (1867) by Edward Sellon and My Secret Life by "Walter". Edward Sellon was a writer, translator and illustrator of erotic literature who wrote erotica for the pornographic publisher William Dugdale, including such works as The New Epicurean (1865). The true identity of "Walter" is very mysterious. Ian Gibson, in The Erotomaniac speculates that My Secret Life was really written by Henry Spencer Ashbee and therefore it is possible that "Walter" is a fiction. A famous German erotic work of this time, published in two parts in 1868 and 1875 entitled Pauline the Prima Donna purports to be the memoirs of the opera singer Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient. Various discrepancies with known facts of the singer's life however have led many to doubt the veracity of this book and the erotic adventures contained in the second volume, at least, appear to be very implausible. These include the authoress indulging in lesbian sadomasochism, group sex, sodomy, bestiality, scatology, necrophilia, prostitution and vampirism: all before she had reached the age of 27. 20th century contributions to the genre include Frank Harris's My Life and Loves (1922–27) and the convicted Austrian sex criminal Edith Cadivec's Confessions and Experiences and its sequel Eros, the Meaning of My Life (published together 1930-1). From the twenty-first we have One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed (2004) by Melissa P.

In the 21st century, memoirs of sexual abuse, known as Misery memoirs or Misery porn, have become popular, though doubts have been cast on the motivation and veracity of some of the writers.

Sex manuals

Legal status

Early legislation

To 1857

1857 - 1959

The Act provided for the seizure and destruction of any material deemed to be obscene, and held for sale or distribution, following information being laid before a "court of summary jurisdiction" (Magistrates' court). The Act required that following evidence of a common-law offence being committed - for example, on the report of a plain-clothes policeman who had successfully purchased the material - the court could issue a warrant for the premises to be searched and the material seized. The proprietor then would be called upon to attend court and give reason why the material should not be destroyed. Critically, the Act did not define "obscene," leaving this to the will of the courts.

Whilst the Act itself did not change, the scope of the work affected by it did. In 1868 Sir Alexander Cockburn, Campbell's successor as Lord Chief Justice, held in an appeal that the test of obscenity was "...whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall." This was clearly a major change from Campbell's opinion only ten years before - the test now being the effect on someone open to corruption who obtained a copy, not whether the material was intended to corrupt or offend.

Cockburn's declaration remained in force for several decades, and most of the high profile seizures under the Act relied on this interpretation. Known as the Hicklin test no cognisance was taken of the literary merit of a book or on the extent of the offending text within the book in question. The widened scope of the original legislation led to the subsequent notorious targeting of now acknowledged classics of world literature by such authors as Zola, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence plus medical textbooks by such as Havelock Ellis rather than the blatant erotica which was the original target of this law.

In contrast to England, where actions against obscene literature were the preserve of the magistrates, in America such actions were the responsibility of the Postal Inspection Service, embodied in the federal and state Comstock laws, named after the postal officer and anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock who proved himself officious in the work of suppression both in his official capacity and through his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. The first such law was the Comstock Act, (ch. 258 enacted March 3, 1873) which made it illegal to send any "obscene, lewd, and/or lascivious" materials through the mail. Twenty-four states passed similar prohibitions on materials distributed within the states.

Modern legislation

This question of whether a book had literary merit eventually prompted a change in the law in both America and the UK. In the United Kingdom the Obscene Publications Act 1959 provided for the protection of "literature" but conversely increased the penalties against pure "pornography." The law defined obscenity and separated it from serious works of art.

The new definition read:

[A]n article shall be deemed to be obscene if its effect or (where the article comprises two or more distinct items) the effect of any one of its items is, if taken as a whole, such as to tend to deprave and corrupt persons who are likely, having regard to all relevant circumstances, to read, see or hear the matter contained or embodied in it.

After this piece of legislation questions of the literary merit of the work in question were allowed to be put before the judge and jury as in the Lady Chatterley trial. The publishers of the latter book were found not guilty by the court on the grounds of the literary merit of the book. In later prosecutions of literary erotica under the provisions of the act, however, even purely pornographic works with no apparent literary merit escaped destruction by the authorities. Purely textual pornographic texts, with no hint of libel, have not been brought to trial since the Inside Linda Lovelace trial collapsed in 1976. However, in October 2008, a man was charged under the Obscene Publications Act for posting fictional written material to the Internet allegedly describing the kidnap, rape and murder of the pop group Girls Aloud.

In the United States, the First Amendment gives protection to written fiction—although in one case, a man pled guilty and was convicted for writing unpublished stories (these were works of fiction concerning sexually abusing children) that were contained only in his personal and private journal. That conviction was later overturned on appeal.

Importing books and texts across national borders can sometimes be subject to more stringent laws than in the nations concerned. Customs officers are often permitted to seize even merely 'indecent' works that would be perfectly legal to sell and possess once one is inside the nations concerned. Canada has been particularly notorious for such border seizures.

Although the 1857 and 1959 legislation outlawed the publication, retail and trafficking of certain writings and images, regarded as pornographic, and would order the destruction of shop and warehouse stock, meant for sale, the private possession of and viewing of pornography has not been prosecuted until recent times. In some nations, even purely textual erotic literature is still deemed illegal and is also prosecuted.

See also

Notes

References

Further reading

History

General

Ancient world and Middle Ages

Modern times to 1900

External links

* Category:Literary genres