Letters from a Friend in Paris

Harry Hargrave, an English photographer at large in Deuxième Empire Paris, seduces every pretty girl he can, in any way that he is able to. When Harry encounters a family that appears to have a guilty secret, gradually he discovers that they are all copulating without the least regard for their kinship.

The anonymous author has used incest as a subtle convenience for his plot, for Harry steadfastly works his way through the whole family in ménages à trois, quatre or even cinq. This has been called 'one of the wickedest books of its kind' and lives up to its reputation rather well, I think. Not for the faint-hearted, it is, literally, a catalogue of dark sexual perversions with its recurring themes bisexuality, incest, defloration, buggery (of both sexes), lesbianism, teenage sex... the list is long.

'Sophie then mounted her, and presented her bottom to me. Lou told me to take possession of Sophie's bottom-hole this time while she would frig her clitoris and postilion me, she herself being sucked by Sophie. I plunged as usual for a shove or two in the delightful young cunt, and being well-moistened gently glided into her tight, throbbing, heated arsehole...'

Published in 1873 in a tiny edition of 150, Letters from a Friend in Paris has both scandalized and delighted generations of readers. The author is a sort of sexual Munchausen, recounting improbable feats of sexual athleticism, but his style is superbly 'lubricious', to use one of his favourite words; taken with a pinch of salt, I must say that I found it bothentertaining and highly arousing. This fascinating book is one of the great prototypes for the pornographic novel of the present day.

The Illustrator

For the Scarlet Library edition of the scurrilous work, which has never before been published in an illustrated edition, we have commissioned a set of illustrations in rich, brilliant colour, from the pen of the outstanding new artist Michael Faraday. They are triumphs of eroticism, and exquisitely appropriate for the text.