The Devil's Whisper

Birth pangs, then: The Devil's Whisper

Once in a while it gives us a particular thrill to help give birth to a book that has been a long time in gestation. It was only as a result of an unusual correspondence that took place between Erotic Review Books and a lady in Canada that we became aware of a rare and beautiful set of highly erotic 1930s prints. Then came Henri Breton's complementary manuscript: the merging of these two halves, of these two particular talents, lift The Devil's Whisper out of the ordinary.

A Sea Captain's erotic tales

Author Henri Breton brings us the Sea Captain, a rough diamond and a genial fraud, who 'was rather fond of ports' even though 'he had never commanded a ship'. In the style of The Arabian Nights, he and his friends sit around in the cafés of Marseille's Vieux Port enjoying the lively street life and recounting to each other stories of beautiful women and strong men, their passions and sexual adventures.

The text is incredibly dirty, and not a little politically incorrect, containing scenes of lesbianism, group sex, whoring and incest, so please be warned. The setting is the Mediterranean of the mid-1950s and early 1960s. And, unusually, the stories illustrate this set of brilliant images by Mario Tauzin - an unusual case of a book's text illustrating the pictures rather than the other way around. Not unlike a literary version Moussorgsky's Pictures from an Exhibition.

It's an exciting artistic find, but...

...Who the devil was Mario Tauzin? Very little is known about this artist born at the turn of the last century, despite his name appearing in many anthologies of erotic art. This, his only internationally famous body of work was published in 1930, and out of the group of thirty images, only four or five have ever been seen by a wide public. Erotic Review Books is very proud to present the entire set of these rare prints and we are reproducing them in book form for the first time - ever.

Acquaintance of Picasso?

Tauzin's strong style is instantly recognizable by its sensuous line and exquisite detail; it benefits, also, from two enormously important influences: the twentieth century giant, Picasso and the work of the great eighteenth century Japanese print makers such as Utamaro and Hokusai. The artist's name suggests French-Italian parentage. He certainly exhibited in France, and, just three years after the appearance of Picasso's famous erotic Vollard Suite, Tauzin's own prints were issued. Picasso's life is well documented, so it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that the two knew each other. But there's no doubt that their styles during that period of their work are highly sympathetic.

Fish Soup...

This bizarre combination has produced a new and unique piece of erotica that we hope will be a classic. There is already considerable interest - a buzz of excitement even - in the world of erotic publishing about its arrival and I would like to think that Erotic Review Books has once again brought you something that is special and exclusive. It's a sort of beautiful bouillabaisse of a book: a wonderful, sophisticated mixture of spicy stories and brilliant, classic illustrations that we can't begin to do justice to in this short text!

...at an extraordinarily good price

No serious erotic library should be without at least one of these editions - and I don't think for one moment that you'll be disappointed . Unfortunately, all good things come to an end and I can't guarantee that stocks of the limited editions of this book will last forever, so please, don't delay too long!