Our friends at Feral House have a new book out called, Bawdy Tales and Trifles of Devilries for Ladies and Gentlemen of Experience.
From the publisher:
We want to introduce you to art and writing that has been banned throughout the western world for nearly 200 hundred years.
Bawdy Tales is a complete collection of Eugene Lepoittevin's drawings paired with a selection of historical "naughty" poetry, ballads, and bon mots from the 14th through the early 19th centuries.
Lepoittevin's Devils first appeared to rousing acclaim in 1832. His original devil character was an impish troublemaker. At the behest of his publisher, he created multiple series of lithographs featuring his devils ala erotique. The drawings are more humorous than titillating and reflect the sense of absurdity prevalent in European eroticism.
Even so, the pictures were long banned in Europe and the United States until the 1960s. The United States government went so far as to seize Dr. Kinsey's personal collection of the Lepoittevin lithographs in 1956.
Again, the images are rude and hysterically funny. The writings are culled from rare humorous sexually-charged pastiches covertly printed exclusively for collectors by underground publishers.
The pieces had been hidden in the Private Case of the British Library and the L'Enfer of the Biblioteque nationale du France before dedicated researchers uncovered the works from the 1970s until today.
Bawdy Tales is designed as an homage to those secretive banned books, using vegan leather and gold embossing to simulate vintage morocco binding. Art Historian Sarah Burns introduces Lepoittevin's work and career. Expert and collector of written erotica, "Lady Fanny Woodcock" contributes a short history of the erotic book in Western culture.
This book would have definitely been featured on SNL's "Tales of Ribaldry!"
