The Venetian Carnival

Being an Erotic Preamble to Miss Austen's Pride & Prejudice as recounted by Dr. Christopher Hart with illustrations by the late Herr Georg Emmanuel Opitz

In this scurrilous erotic prequel to Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen's famous family have forsaken Longbourn for the 'malodorous canals' of Venice, which are soon reverberating with the lusty cries of the five Bennet daughters as they encounter imperious Austrian Army officers, incestuous servants, inventive gondoliers, intrusive priests and monks and even an intemperate Lord Byron... all of which is lubriciously recounted in Lizzie Bennet's letters home.

'It is indeed an extraordinary sensation, at once burning, and tight, and exhausting, and to be jostled and thrust into by two such lusty men as that, one a young lad and one a monk - well, it is the very height, and depth, of pleasure.'

Having left his birthplace of Prague to study art at Dresden under Gian-Battista Casanova, Opitz began his career by painting oils and miniatures. From 1807 he limited himself to popular scenes. Coming to Paris in the entourage of the Duchess of Conslande, Opitz then visited Heidelberg, Altenberg and settled at last in Leipzig where he died in 1841. Prolific in watercolour and gouache, Opitz's erotic scenes are subtle and imaginative variants of his pictures of Parisian life and the Leipzig Fair. Though he had a sharp eye for the absurd and self-important, the artist's spirit was generous; consequently his erotica achieves that rare combination of being sexually arousing at the same time as being extremely funny.