|
Occasional examples unpredictably presented. May 2002 |
Between Plain Green Covers
Praise for the Discrete Erotic Novel
Praise for the Discrete Erotic Novel
When it comes to collecting older erotica, my interests vary a great deal. Sometimes I'll focus on the books Samuel Roth published. Other times, I'm on a broader binge, looking for titles from any of the major presses from that era, such as Rarity Press, Falstaff Books, or Panurge Press. Often, I avidly prowl for early flagellation ilk.
But one of my favorites loves is collecting discrete paperback erotica. Unlike its cousin, the sleaze paperback - with its lurid covers lying somewhere between an E.C. comic and True Confessions magazine - discrete erotica is a Plain Jane, an ugly duckling even. No hot-stuff cover art, no marquee copy to hook you. Just a simple title/author/publisher surrounded by ornamental flourishes on a single color background.
It's as close to a brown paper wrapper as you're wont to get.
I don't have a lot of these paperbacks and what I do have dates back to (most likely) the early 1950s. The earliest were "Printed in Paris" English-language novels. Some, like those from Oceanic-Press, were uniquely stamped with NOT TO BE IMPORTED INTO THE UNITED KINGDOM OR THE U.S.A. on their back covers.
Later, as obscenity laws were challenged and overturned, outright proclamations replaced the disclaimers. The American editions of Traveller's Companion Series from Olympia Press trumpeted that "the battle for free expression has been won. The freedom to write, to read and to think is now accepted as one of the most authentic and valuable expressions of a true democracy."
The British editions of Olympia Press titles took a slightly more hedonistic tone, perhaps because the fab, mod, jet-setting lifestyle emerged there first.
- "The ambition of the new Traveller's Companion Series is to become the image of the newly-won liberties: the right for everyone to think, to write and to read freely - for pleasure alone."
One wonders if the European perception of America was that it might've been primed for democratic freedom but was not yet ready for outright pleasure. That or else bringing Henry Miller's work home to native shores was worth crowing about even in the low-end of the biz.
But what printed pleasures there were in Europe before that day. We're talking smut the likes of which was uncommonly seen in America before then. One little red pamphlet in my clutches, Devices of Love by Sarah Deli, details an all-girl threesome which becomes a foursome after a young man stumbles upon them. Replete with typographic errors, it has several photographs of oral sex in action on the inside while, on the outside, boasts "illustrated from life" and "Printed in France" yet wasn't bold enough to list a traceable publisher. Regardless, its hot sex descriptions will leave you one-handed. Really.
It's debatable whether the earlier books ever made it to the British Isles or the U.S. Maybe they didn't. Maybe the post-war censorship laws actually worked. Or maybe they sold discretely everywhere, marketed as forbidden fruit. Undoubtedly, Printed in France meant "get your smut here" in the decades just before Ginsberg v. New York?
However, another likely scenario existed: Pehaps these books fell into the collective hands of the large, post-war American forces that were then stationed in Europe. It's the only legitimate demand for English-language erotica I can think of. I suspect that next to tattoos and prostitutes, easily obtainable porn might've been a rite of passage for many a GI. (Add to that your first glimpse at a bikini if you were lucky enough to be stationed in the Mediterranean.)
Although I have a variety of sundry items from this era, I have a particular fondness for Olympia Press. Its publisher, Maurice Girodias, brought Nabokov, Miller, Genet, and Burroughs into print abroad before they could be legally published domestically, and he was well-poised to jump into the fray the minute he could legally do so. He struck deals with Bee-Line Books in American and New English Library in England to simultaneously release Olympia Press's Traveller's Companion titles in their respective countries. One could read everything from dirty book versions about Homer and Robinson Crusoe as well as legit works by de Sade, Genet, and Beardsley. And then vicariously enjoy wild works like Until She Screams -- with no one the wiser, given the plain green cover of Olympia Press books.
I've managed to collect enough of both international print runs to suggest that the English editions were better quality books, printed on higher quality paper and in a slightly larger format. Bee-Line Books almost looks fly-by-night by comparison: Every title I have sports a different NYC address, making me wonder if the publishers ran one step ahead of their creditors, skipping their rent, or if they simply vagabonded their way through cheap rental properties to save money. Of course, it's distinctly possible that Bee-Line Books sold so well that they cash-cowed their way from lower Manhattan to Park Avenue within one year's time.
Hopefully, I'll discover the answer when I read Girodias's 1980 autobiography, The Frog Prince, and John de St Jorre's 1994 biography, Venus Bound, this summer. Maybe I'll also learn the answer to such idle curiosities as:
- Was Girodias truly celebrating a freer press or was it a showman's ploy to sell books? (So many pornographers have been one step removed from P.T. Barnum that I just have to ak.)
- Why the distinction between Olympia Press (green cover) and Ophelia Press (pink cover)? Was the latter romance titles for women or, perhaps, the zygote of women's erotica? (Here, I reveal what a neophyte I am.)
- Was Girodias's heated exchange with Gore Vidal in the pages of The New York Review of Books a genuine feud or a showman's grandstanding for more visibility? (He certainly spent a lot of time defending himself.)
Stay tuned. Film at eleven.
My most charming Olympia Press title is from the era right before erotica's decriminalization, and it's something of an "only driven on Sundays by a little old lady" item. I bought it from a book dealer who claims it "kept him company" for many a season when he was abroad. Unlike its more modern counterpart, this Olympia Press title came in two volumes and featured little in the way of title pages and publisher's information, so close to anonymous that it was distinguished only by a tiny A Traveller's Companion footer on the cover. (No wonder Girodias complained about bowdlerized and pirated versions in his later editions.)
Another distinctive feature, it was smaller than the modern paperback - palm-sized and small enough to slip easily into a shirt pocket - and, if not for its thickness, I'd say it looks more like a pamphlet than a book. Its cover has faded to blue yet it's in remarkably good condition for a well-tendered item. Of course, the sum of these particulars I find utterly charming, bibliophile that I am.
But what I like most of this book is its title and contents. The House of Borgia by Mark Van Heller is a thoroughly one-handed read, full of anti-cleric and anti-papal smut. It harkens back to earlier centuries when the common man's only recourse against religious abuse was to take it to the streets in the form of printed pornography. But this book wasn't meant to cast the clergy in poor light. If Borgia is any indication, the long tradition of sedition through pornography was well its way to being reduced to a template for hedonism.
So I cherish this book poignantly. Given today's headline news, Borgia, in a roundabout way proves an old cliché: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Only with today's debaucheries, we don't have pornography to fall back on as a tool of protest.
I'd say that's progress, but I'm not sure that it wholly is.
But mostly, I like this little number because it's petite in its discretion. It's meant to be squirreled away and enjoyed vicariously. It lacks completely the in-your-face blare of illustration that came with vintage sleaze, which still typifies pornography to today.
Best of all, it's a book and it's mine to enjoy, decades after its printing. I can't think of a better appreciation than that.