Dear classics readers,
I hope you had an excellent Valentine’s weekend. If you’re looking for reading material to prolong your enjoyment, look no further than the following round-up of licentious literature.
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, or Fanny Hill by John Cleland (1748-9)
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (commonly known as Fanny Hill), the most famous erotic novel in English, was denounced by its author as ‘a Book I disdain to defend, and wish, from my soul, buried and forgot’. Cleland’s critics too condemned the ‘infamous’ and ‘poisonous’ novel when it first appeared. But the proliferation of editions, adaptations, and translations since then bears witness not only to the popularity of scandalous novels, but also to the book’s literary merit. Recounted with a lively use of metaphor and some curiously moral asides, Fanny Hill’s boisterous education as a London prostitute never quite effaces the ingenuous charm of her country upbringing, and her story places her among the great heroines of eighteenth-century literature.
[UK / US] Oxford World’s Classics | 240 pages | edited by Peter Sabor
The Lover by Marguerite Duras (1984)
Saigon, 1930s: a poor young French girl meets the elegant son of a wealthy Chinese family. Soon they are lovers, locked into a private world of passion and intensity that defies all the conventions of their society. A sensational international bestseller, The Lover is disturbing, erotic, masterly and simply unforgettable.
[UK] Harper Perennial Modern Classics | 142 pages | translated by Barbara Bray
[US] Pantheon | 128 pages | translated by Barbara Bray
Bad Behavior by Mary Gaitskill (1988)
Gaitskill’s tales of desire and dislocation in 1980s New York caused a sensation with their frank, caustic portrayals of men and women’s inner lives. As her characters have sex, try and fail to connect, play power games and inflict myriad cruelties on each other, she skewers urban life with precision and candour.
[UK] Penguin Modern Classics | 224 pages
[US] Vintage | 224 pages
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong (1973)
Compulsive daydreamer Isadora Wing has come to a crossroads. Five years of marriage have made her itchy – itchy for men, and itchy for solitude. Ditching her second husband during a work conference in Vienna she decides to cut and run, criss-crossing her way across Europe in search of the perfect no-strings-attached tryst – and she won’t let a little thing like a fear of flying get in her way.
[UK] Vintage | 352 pages
[US] Berkley | 496 pages | introduced by Taffy Brodesser-Akner | foreword by Molly Jong-Fast
Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence (1928)
Lady Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the Sir Clifford. Paralysed in the First World War, Sir Clifford is unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, and encourages her instead to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to Oliver Mellors, her husband’s gamekeeper, with whom she embarks on a passionate affair that brings new life to her stifled existence. Can she find true love with Mellors, despite the vast gulf between their positions in society? One of the most controversial novels in English literature, Lady Chatterley’s Lover is an erotically charged and psychologically powerful depiction of adult relationships.
[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 400 pages | edited by Michael Squires and Paul Poplawski | foreword by Doris Lessing
Dangerous Liaisons by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1782)
Les Liaisons Dangereuses is a disturbing and ultimately damning portrayal of a decadent society. At its centre are two aristocrats, former lovers, who embark on a sophisticated game of seduction and manipulation to bring amusement to their jaded existences. While the Marquise de Merteuil challenges the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, the Vicomte is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. But as their intrigues become more duplicitous and they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, and deadly, than Merteuil and Valmont could have guessed.
[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 238 pages | translated by Helen Constantine
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller (1934)
Tropic of Cancer redefined the novel. Set in Paris in the 1930s, it features a starving American writer who lives a bohemian life among prostitutes, pimps, and artists. Banned in the US and the UK for more than thirty years because it was considered pornographic, Tropic of Cancer continued to be distributed in France and smuggled into other countries. When it was first published in the US in 1961, it led to more than 60 obscenity trials until a historic ruling by the Supreme Court defined it as a work of literature. Long hailed as a truly liberating book, daring and uncompromising, Tropic of Cancer is a cornerstone of modern literature that asks us to reconsider everything we know about art, freedom, and morality.
[UK] Penguin Modern Classics | 272 pages
[US] Grove | 318 pages | introduced by Karl Shapiro | preface by Anaïs Nin
Delta of Venus by Anaïs Nin (1940s, pub. 1977)
Nin conjures up a glittering cascade of sexual encounters. Creating her own ‘language of the senses’, she explores an area that was previously the domain of male writers and brings to it her own unique perceptions. Her vibrant and impassioned prose evokes the essence of female sexuality in a world where only love has meaning.
[UK] Penguin Modern Classics | 240 pages
[US] Mariner Books | 304 pages
Story of O by Pauline Réage (1954)
How far will a woman go to express her love? In this exquisite novel of passion and desire, the answer emerges through a daring exploration of the deepest bonds of sensual domination. “O” is a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer, determined to understand and prove her consuming devotion to her lover, René, through complete submission to his every whim, his every desire. It is a journey of forbidden, dangerous choices that sweeps her through the secret gardens of the sexual underground. From the inner sanctum of a private club where willing women are schooled in the art of subjugation to the excruciating embraces of René’s friend Sir Stephen, O tests the outermost limits of pleasure. For as O discovers, true freedom lies in her pure and complete willingness to do anything for love.
[UK] Corgi Books | 288 pages | translated by Sabine d’Estree (Richard Seaver)
[US] Ballantine Books | 240 pages | translated by Sabine d’Estree (Richard Seaver) | introduced by Sylvia Day
Venus in Furs by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1870)
Venus in Furs describes the obsessions of Severin von Kusiemski, a European nobleman who desires to be enslaved to a woman. Severin finds his ideal of voluptuous cruelty in the merciless Wanda von Dunajew. This is a passionate and powerful portrayal of one man’s struggle to enlighten and instruct himself and others in the realm of desire. Published in 1870, the novel gained notoriety and a degree of immortality for its author when the word “masochism” – derived from his name – entered the vocabulary of psychiatry.
[UK / US] Penguin Classics | 160 pages | translated by Joachim Neugroschel
The book descriptions above are taken from the publishers’ online blurbs.
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Also, a reminder to paid subscribers that this Wednesday is our monthly Wednesday Watch-along, when we watch a classic film together at 8pm UK time. We’ll be watching Brazil by Terry Gilliam (1985) on its 40th anniversary. All the details are here.
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So I just learned I'm a masochist. We have a small print of the Klimt painting that's on the Penguin "Venus in Furs" cover in our living room.
I adore Dangerous Liaisons. Getting my hands on the Duras right now - thank you for this great list!