Victorian Books

Lady Chatterley's lover

D. H Lawrence

By: Shanghai Commercial Press Amazon Marketplace: 5 new & used starting at $16.50

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( L ) -> Lawrence, D.H.
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> Victorian
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> General -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 89 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Mixed feelings on this one... 3 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

On the whole, I would say that this book is considered a classic mostly because of its legendary troubles with the censors. Don't get me wrong - it was an alright book, interesting enough to hold my attention for the most part. However, I don't think that I'll be recommending it any time soon.

First off, I agree with the other commenters about Lawrence's basic lack of knowledge about female anatomy. My god. It's as if there's nothing at all that Clifford could have done for Connie. And apparently Connie is (in Lawrence's eyes) the apex of womanhood because she's one of the (very) few who can reach climax without any clitoral stimulation. Jesus christ, this isn't a book about sex. It's a book about misinformation!

Aside from that, what do we have?

We have Connie, who's barely sympathetic as a protagonist. I'd put her somewhere between Emma Bovary and Anna Karenina on the sympathy scale. On the one hand, who can't sympathize with her situation? She's trapped in an essentially joyless life. On the other hand, she's also a terrible snob. Witness the way that she looks down on the people of Tevershall - "Oh, everything is good and beautiful in Ye Olde English Woode where I screw my husband's gamekeeper, but that dirty dirty little town with all those hunched-over people who work for a living... how disgusting!"

And then we've got Mellors, who, quite frankly, I found kinda annoying. Is it just me, or does he come off as somewhat mentally deficient? Whenever he lapsed into "broad," I always imagined him talking like some kind of Scottish version of Cookie Monster.

And the ranting, oh my god, the ranting. Ok, Lawrence, we GET IT. Mellors is supposed to be the Man O' The Woods. The Green Man. The Great Horned God. Pan. But did you really have to spell it out for us in heavy handed sermons before and after every sex scene? Couldn't you have left just a little for us to figure out for ourselves?

Really, the only character who I kinda liked was Clifford. Sure, he was pathetic. But he knew it. He knew that he was, quite literally, the last of a dying breed. At the same time, though, he had a detached sort of irony, and that great British gift of understatement. You got the feeling that he was smart, and maybe even had a sense of humor. Who knows, perhaps this character would have seemed more terrifying back in the day, back when the British aristocracy was still kind of a threat to someone.

Oh yeah, and that one scene where we're really supposed to hate him? The one where his wheelchair gets stuck up on the hill? I actually felt kinda sorry for him there.

Ultimately, I'll say this about Lady Chatterly's Lover - I like what Lawrence was trying to do, but I don't really feel like he pulled it off. He makes some valid points about getting in touch with our physical, emotional, and spiritual natures. However, this gets obscured by some of his personal prejudices, as well as his total lack of understanding about women and their anatomy.

Editorial Review:

Here is Lawrence's most famous work as he originally wrote it, restored with scholarly diligence and including "A Propos of Lady Chatterly's Lover," Lawrence's final thoughts on the male-female relationship in the modern world.

The Back Passage

James Lear

Amazon Price: $11.16 List Price: $13.95 Usually ships in 10 to 13 days By: Cleis Press Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $5.95

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Gay & Lesbian -> Literature & Fiction -> Fiction -> Gay
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> Victorian
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 38 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

Agatha Christie, move over! Hard-core sex and scandal meet in this brilliantly funny whodunit. A seaside village, an English country house, a family of wealthy eccentrics and their equally peculiar servants, a determined detective — all the ingredients are here for a cozy Agatha Christie-style whodunit. But wait — Edward "Mitch" Mitchell is no Hercule Poirot, and The Back Passage is no Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Mitch is a handsome, insatiable 22-year-old hunk who never lets a clue stand in the way of a steamy encounter, whether it’s with the local constabulary, the house secretary, or his school chum and fellow athlete Boy Morgan, who becomes his Watson when they’re not busy boffing each other. When Reg Walworth is found dead in a cabinet, Sir James Eagle has his servant Meeks immediately arrested as the killer. But Mitch’s observant eye pegs more plausible possibilities: polysexual chauffeur Hibbert, queenly pervert Leonard Eagle, missing scion Rex, sadistic copper Kennington, even Sir James Eagle himself. Blackmail, police corruption, a dizzying network of spyholes and secret passages, watersports, and a nonstop queer orgy backstairs and everyplace else mark this hilariously hard-core mystery by a major new talent.

Gabriel's Woman

Robin Schone

Amazon Price: $13.50 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Kensington Amazon Marketplace: 60 new & used starting at $3.49

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Genre Fiction -> Historical
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> Adult Fiction

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 76 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

I Loved it! 4 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

It has been A while since I've read this book but it is one that is not easily forgotten. I was wary at first because I didn't know if I would be able to understand or appreciate the relationship between Gabriel and Michael. I quickly overcame that wariness. Michael is the man that Gabriel grew up with on the streets when they were orphans. They were both forced to become prostitutes. Gabriel was A prostitute for the men and Michael was one for the women. Gabriel has since become A wealthy man and has given up prostitution and sex altogether .The relationship between the two friends became estranged when Gabriel was kidnapped and raped by A man who looked like Michael, and Gabriel was forced to enjoy it. Gabriel feels shame and anger at what has happened to him. His feelings towards Michael is bordering on hate and hero worship. All he could think about is revenge. Victoria goes to his brothel to sell her virginity because she is destitute. Gabriel see's it as an opportunity to draw his enemies to him. He never thought that she would end up healing, and loving A man like him, or that he could open his heart enough to fall in love himself.

My wary feelings on reading this book totally disappeared after reading the first few pages. I was hooked and could not put the book down for A second. When I found out more about Gabriel and Michael's relationship I understood why Gabriel felt the way he did about Michael. Any apprehension that I felt about their relationship was washed away when I saw how Victoria was healing him from all his demons. This book was extremely entertaining! I loved every minute of it! I only wish that the hero was A little bit younger [he was 40] and that it had A more conventional ending. Give this book A chance, you won't be disappointed! By the way, the love scenes were great!

Editorial Review:

In the erotic tour de force The Lover, readers met not only brooding, passionate Michel des Anges, but his lifelong friend--the mysterious Gabriel, a man with a past as dark as the London night. Now, renowned author Robin Schone explores one of her most talked-about characters in a novel that reveals the blackest secrets of a man's soul...and the explosive heart of a woman's desire.

The Art Of Seduction

Destitute and terrorized by a nameless pursuer, thirty-four-year-old Victoria Childers has only one thing of value left--her innocence. Its price will buy her safety. But Gabriel, the dangerously beautiful man who purchases her, doesn't want her virginity--he wants the man who stalks her. Trapped together in a house where every desire can be fulfilled, Victoria and Gabriel are plunged into a deadly game of passion and pursuit, where the greatest threat is carnal hunger and the only rule is survival.

The 158-Pound Marriage

John Irving

List Price: $7.95 By: Random House Amazon Marketplace: 18 new & used starting at $23.62

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( I ) -> Irving, John
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Women's Fiction -> Domestic Life
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> Victorian

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 27 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Editorial Review:

"Irving looks cunningly beyond the eye-catching gyrations of the mating dance to the morning-after implications."
--The Washington Post

The darker vision and sexual ambiguities of this erotic, ironic tale about a ménage a quatre in a New England university town foreshadow those of The World According to Garp; but this very trim and precise novel is a marked departure from the author's generally robust, boisterous style. Though Mr. Irving's cool eye spares none of his foursome, he writes with genuine compassion for the sexual tests and illusions they perpetrate on each other; but the sexual intrigue between them demonstrates how even the kind can be ungenerous, and even the well-intentioned, destructive.

"One of the most remarkable things about John Irving's first three novels, viewed from the vantage of The World According to Garp, is that they can be read as one extended fictional enterprise. . . . The 158-Pound Marriage is as lean and concentrated as a mine shaft."
--Terrence Des Pres

Man With a Maid: And Other Victorian Stories

Anonymous

Amazon Price: $10.17 List Price: $14.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Circlet Press Amazon Marketplace: 23 new & used starting at $3.36

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> British -> Contemporary

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

13 pieces of Victorian variety 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 7 people found this review helpful.

It is a common stereotype that Victorian [...] was all caning, servants, and beaten children. Granted those are common themes but this collection shows more variety than that. We find old men and rejected men stealing innocence and women who have cast aside the sexual mores of their time to become preedators themselves. There are some hierarchical situations but most of the action takes place between social and age peers. I've removed one star from my rating because there are two important things missing from this book. The first are simple introductions to the pieces; even if we don't know the author we can know when it written and which country it was created in. Victorianism was fairly wide=spread for several decades but how it played out varied. Second the pieces need to be identified when they are only sections from a larger work or a series of stories. This would enable those who find the writting exciting to find other Victorian porn.

Editorial Review:

This omnibus volume combines examples of the best of Victorian erotica, including

* The English Governess

* The Pearl

* The Autobiography of a Flea

* Man With A Maid, the popular Victorian classic which has sold hundreds of thousands of volumes in the 80 years since it first appeared

Man With A Maid tells the story of Jack, a Victorian gentleman, who plots sweet revenge on the fiancee who jilts him, not to mention her maid, a close friend, and his rival's mother-in-law. Setting up residence in the 'Snuggery,' once the soundproof ""mad room"" of an insane asylum, he subjects Alice and the rest of his female company to bondage and orgiastic sexuality, dealing out both pleasure and pain in exacting revenge.

History: Fiction or Science? (Chronology, No. 1)

Anatoly Fomenko

Amazon Price: $9.95 List Price: $9.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Mithec Amazon Marketplace: 9 new & used starting at $7.69

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Ethnic & National -> Irish
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> People, A-Z -> ( A ) -> Augustine, Saint
Subjects -> History -> Ancient -> Assyria, Babylonia & Sumer

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 44 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Some people will swallow anything 1 out of 5 stars.
7 of 10 people found this review helpful.

Looking through this book reminded me of the movie "A Beautiful Mind". A brilliant mathematician constructs a fantasy world complete in every detail. The only problem is that it doesn't exist, and that he's as mad as a hatter.

Just two examples of the many "possibilities" suggested by our schizoid author:

(1) The Biblical flood and the Trojan War were the same event because Noah was Aeneas, who fled Troy to found Rome. (Noah and Aeneas had names that sound alike. Thus it is proven.)

(2) Nine kings fled the fall of the Tower of Babel and seven kings founded Rome. Therefore, Rome was founded by the kings who fled the fall of the Tower of Babel. (In the author's words, the Biblical figure of nine is "close enough" to the Roman figure of seven.)

Need I go on?

Editorial Review:

Recorded history is a finely-woven magic fabric of intricate lies about events predating the sixteenth century. There is not a single piece of evidence that can be reliably and independently traced back earlier than the eleventh century. This book details events that are substantiated by hard facts and logic, and validated by new astronomical research and statistical analysis of ancient sources.

The Naked Civil Servant (Penguin Classics)

Quentin Crisp

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin Classics Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $6.75

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Arts & Literature -> Authors
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Memoirs
Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> Specific Groups -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Memoir of a narcissist. 3 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

"When the telegram announcing my father's death arrived, I felt nothing except irritation at the thought of having to go home, attend the funeral, and come back."

Quentin Crisp is not a likeable human being. About one quarter way into this book, I was tempted to throw it aside for good. But given its generally favorable reviews, I felt I should give it another chance. And a peculiar thing happened. Although Crisp does nothing to present himself in a more favorable light - if anything, he goes out of his way to make the point that the reader's approval matters nothing to him - by the two-third mark, one cannot help but develop a grudging admiration for the man.

It's hard to know why this happens - perhaps just a case of sympathy for the underdog. Crisp was born in a time when homosexuality really was the love that dare not speak its name, and made his mark by never obliging those who would have him live life in a shadow, instead choosing to flaunt his difference. This book is an account of the price exacted. While the reader may be moved toward a grudging admiration for Crisp's refusal to be ground down by the prejudice and cruelty surrounding him, it's impossible to feel any real sympathy for the man. Because, ultimately, this is the autobiography of a narcissist. Reviews of this book invariably mention its wit and brilliant self-mockery, qualities I found singularly absent. Given a 200-page book in which no other character appears as remotely human, as anything other than a sketch or cipher, and in which the author admits to never having loved, or been loved, the final effect of this strangely empty memoir is bleak indeed. I feel a certain admiration for Quentin Crisp. But I can't say that I enjoyed spending time in his company.

Editorial Review:

In 1931, gay liberation was not a movement--it was simply unthinkable. But in that year, Quentin Crisp made the courageous decision to "come out" as a homosexual. This exhibitionist with the henna-dyed hair was harrassed, ridiculed and beaten. Nevertheless, he claimed his right to be himself--whatever the consequences. The Naked Civil Servant is both a comic masterpiece and a unique testament to the resilience of the human spirit. 2 cassettes.

Seductive

Thea Devine

Amazon Price: $12.00 List Price: $12.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Kensington Amazon Marketplace: 80 new & used starting at $0.37

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> Victorian
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 19 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

The best erotic story I've ever read!... 5 out of 5 stars.
6 of 6 people found this review helpful.

Holy Smoke! this book is hot!!!... this book is definately NOT for those that are into sweet romantic stories, if you prefer those, then go find another book or look for the Harlequin novels, but if you're a hardcore reader and enjoy hot-explicit-in your face-mind blowing sex scenes, then this is the book to get. It also has a great plot, but it doesn't bore you with hundreds of pages of nonsense to the point you want to put the book away, you won't be able to put it away because if you do, you'll be wanting cold shower.

The book is about a widow, Elizabeth (was stuck in an unhappy marriage for 7 years with no children) with a manipulating father that thinks that he's finally going to enjoy his daughter's inheritance and that Elizabeth be with the love of her life, a man that abandoned her sometime in her past. A handsome hero, related to Elizabeth's dead husband, comes along to claim 'his' inheritance and the heroine's body, in order for her to keep her share and her father's pocket with money, she gives herself to the hero (very willingly but still wants to be with the other man she loves)... she enjoys the love lessons she's getting from the hero and a magnificent pearl necklace that it's used to drive her insane with pleasure. But in between all this passion, robberies, murders and mysteries occur, and it's up to the hero to keep Elizabeth satisfied and find the thief/murderer.

Great story if you prefer to read hardcore erotic novels. I highly recommend this one!

The Spell

Alan Hollinghurst

Amazon Price: $10.20 List Price: $15.00 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Penguin (Non-Classics) Amazon Marketplace: 47 new & used starting at $3.40

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Gay & Lesbian -> Literature & Fiction -> Fiction -> Gay
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Authors, A-Z -> ( H ) -> Hollinghurst, Alan
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Erotica -> Victorian

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

OVER-RATED! 1 out of 5 stars.
7 of 16 people found this review helpful.

Tedious. That's the best word I can find to describe this book. Yes, Hollinghurst is a good writer but there's more to writing than exhausting and exhaustive descriptions of every mouth movement, eyebrow-raise, hand-gesture, tilt of the head! Things have to happen too! Major plot-occurrences should be SHOWN rather than talked about second-hand after the fact! There's got to be some sort of rising action to the plot! I swear, if you blink you'll miss the climax to this book. And if you do, you probably won't care. The four main characters are barely tolerable, let alone likeable. The reader never knows who to root for! And Alex, the one character who MIGHT warrant some reader affection and loyalty, is a drip. I couldn't care less if his relationship with Danny worked out or not.

The only reason I slogged through to the end of this book was to see if it could somehow redeem itself. It didn't. Trust me, you'll be spending as much time counting how many excruciating pages are left to read as you will actually reading.

Editorial Review:

Here are the interlocking affairs of four men: Robin Woodfield, an architect in his late forties trying to build an idyllic life in Dorset with his young lover, Justin, a would-be actor increasingly disenchanted with the countryside; Robin's attractive and dangerously volatile twenty-two-year-old son Danny; and Justin's former boyfriend Alex, whose life is unexpectedly transformed by a night of house music and a tab of ecstasy.

As each falls under the spell of romance or drugs, country living or rough trade, a richly ironic picture emerges of the illusions of love, and of the clashing imperatives of modern gay life: the hunger for contact and the fear of commitment, the need for permanence and the continual disruptions of sex. Ultimately, The Spell details the restlessness of every human heart.

Masterpieces of Victorian Erotica

Amazon Price: $12.21 List Price: $17.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Magic Carpet Books Amazon Marketplace: 22 new & used starting at $11.01

Buy at Amazon.com

Browse similar items by category:
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> Short Stories -> General AAS
Subjects -> Literature & Fiction -> World Literature -> United States -> General

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

There is no shortage of great works to compete for the title “masterpiece of Victorian erotica.” Indeed, as readers familiar with Dickens or Trollope can attest, the Victorians were nothing if not prolific. Yet to be a masterpiece, a work has to distinguish itself in many ways. It can be without equal in its subgenre or the apotheosis of its tradition. It can offer a deeper insight, a more vivid image, or a more surprising turn. Or it can be unique, truly peerless in its style, plot or execution. Having distinguished themselves in these ways, the works in this volume represent the very best of the Victorian erotic imagination. There’s poetry and prose, narrative and instructional guide; there’s fetish, queer, s-m, and vanilla; and there’s bawdy, tender and daring. For the newcomer to the Victorian erotic universe, these stories are the place to start. For the connoisseur, this collection offers undiscovered delicacies. For everyone, these stories cannot fail to arouse, stimulate and amaze with their delightful sexiness and bold originality.