~INTRODUCTION~

Despite the rigid moral codes of the period, our Victorian ancestors had an interest in erotic media every bit as keen as our own. Innumerable creators cocked a snook at convention by producing erotic literature, photographs, postcards, and artwork which was published in secret and illicitly distributed to the intense displeasure of the religious and political leaders of the time, despite the best efforts of would-be censors such as Anthony Comstock.

Dauntless pioneers struck boldly out into new fields of erotic endeavour, pushing back the boundaries of pornography and sexual pleasure and exploring fields which many might think were thoroughly modern, but which I propose to demonstrate were anything but.

The short notes below are excerpted from my current work in progress, and are mainly intended to hopefully elicit contributions and comments from interested parties.

QUINTAIN'S MENAGERIE

Quintain had acquired some peculiar tastes in his career and had discovered that he could obtain the finest degree of sexual pleasure only while costumed as an animal, or in the company of a bedmate thus attired, and this is what his London establishment specialised in.... [Read More]

TENTACLES OF DESIRE

...while in Japan, Joshua Handley formed a deep and enduring fascination with the erotic imagery of that endlessly inventive nation, becoming particularly interested in certain paintings which depicted nude pearl divers being molested by octopi.... His work occasioned adverse comment: it was one thing to depict ladies being ravished by cephalopods, quite another to suggest that they were enjoying the experience.... [Read More]

THE 50 MILES PER HOUR CLUB

It had long been common for certain of the more exclusive bawdy houses to have suites of rooms furnished and decorated in various novel themes, the better to satisfy the customer's fancies. These included such settings as a Turkish harem, classical Rome, ancient Egypt, etcetera, with the ladies of the brothel decked out in the appropriate costumes.... Some customers wished rather to enact fantasies set firmly in the modern day, and the most common of these was to make love on a moving train.... [Read More]

THE SAPPHIC ACADEMY OF MADAME ZULEIKA

Anglo-American author Charles Lubbock displays a wealth of imagination and invention in this forgotten classic of Victorian pornographic literature, devising and describing new and bizarre erotic devices and situations on virtually every other page and introducing us to the fearsome Madame Zuleika as she presides over a hotbed of lesbian lust and the unconventional use of animal costumes.... [Read More]

MISS FAWN CHASTISED; OR, THE MISADVENTURES OF A YOUNG DEER

Illustrator Arthur Vonner emigrated from Germany in 1896 and came to London, where his talent for illustration soon secured him a comfortable position creating a seemingly endless series of insipid childrens' books featuring the adventures of various innocent woodland animals. Little did the readers of his leadenly worthy childrens' books suspect that kindly Mr Vonner was an aficianado of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch and had a taste for placing his innocent deer and bunny rabbits in more... grown-up predicaments..... [Read More]

DR HUGHES' PASTIME : THE DARK SIDE OF VICTORIAN TAXIDERMY

Dr. Peter Hughes of Trinford (1862-1908), in addition to his humdrum duties as a smalltown medical practitioner, was also an enthusiastic amateur taxidermist who constructed a vast quantity of novel and elaborately detailed tableaux featuring dressed and posed stuffed animals. But there was a darker side to Dr. Hughes' taxidermy, which did not come to public notice during his lifetime. He had a number of wealthy admirers of his work who were willing to pay handsomely for various 'special' tableaux to be constructed to their particular specifications..... [Read More]