Harper Perennial Forbidden Classics – The Pearl - Tapa blanda

‘Lady Pokingham’ and ‘La Rose d’Amour’ are taken from ‘The Pearl’ (A Magazine of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading), which was first published between 1879 and 1880 and revelled unashamedly in its reputation for salubrious gossip from the upper echelons of society.

Are there really two sides to every story?

Follow the story of Beatrice in Volume One, ‘Lady Pokingham’, where sordid adventures in the sexual underworld are commonplace, and virginal fantasies, flagellation and Catholic guilt manifest into streams of erotic poetry.

In Volume Two, ‘La Rose d'Amour’, a young man is influenced by his lusty young cousins, who invite him to join an illicit club of debauchery and brandy-saturated orgies, where pearl necklaces and see-through negligees are the only dress codes required.

‘The Pearl’s’ authors remain anonymous, yet these serialised extracts are a strong example of the sexual adventures contained within this subterranean erotic journal.