Introduction
The appearance in America during the mid-1950's of commercially published, unexpurgated editions of D. H. Lawrence's erotic classic, Lady Chatterly's Lover, ushered in an era which, in retrospect, can be seen as nothing less than a renaissance of erotic literature. The novel, first published in Italy in 1928, had circulated for years as an under-the-counter item in bookstores at London and Paris and had been available in the United States in an expurgated edition, published by New American Library, since 1946. However, it was not until the unexpurgated editions of Grove Press (1958) and New American Library (1959) that it reached a mass audience in its original, no-holds-barred form. What followed was a veritable deluge of resurrected erotic classics, including the very-well-known Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, by John Cleland, published by G. P. Putnam & Sons in 1961; My Life and Loves by Frank Harris, published by Grove Press in 1963; Satyricon, by Petronius, published by University of Michigan Press in 1963, by Signet Books in 1964 and by Holloway House in 1965; Venus in India, by Captain Charles Devereaux, published by Holloway in 1966; the works of Marquis de Sade, published by Holloway in 1966 and by Grove in 1966 and 1967; the anonymously-authored Grushenka; Three Times a Woman, published by Holloway and by Brandon House, both in 1967; The Memoirs of Dolly Morton, attributed to Hugues Bebell, published by Holloway in 1967; Venus and Tannhaeuser, by Aubrey Beardsley, published by Award Books in 1967, and My Secret Life, attributed to Henry Spencer Ash-bee, published by Grove, by Collectors Publications and by Pendulum Books, all in 1967. The list is by no means comprehensive; a perusal of Books in Print and Paperback Books in Print reveals that there are no fewer than fifty-eight erotic classics presently available in unexpurgated form, some in as many as four or five editions: the total number of copies sold may be estimated conservatively at fifty million, with Fanny Hill alone accounting for eleven million and Lady Chatterly's Lover accounting for another six million
The reasons behind the popular acceptance of these works are not difficult to fathom; mankind has always displayed an interest in things erotic, whether the medium of communication was painting, literature, sculpture or whatever; hence, the appearance in print of previously-unavailable erotic writings filled a definite gap, and the pubMc was quick to make known its pleasure that the gap had been filledv Less obvious, however, are the reasons why works of antiquity or near antiquity have achieved wide circulation (Lady Chatterly's Lover, My Life and Loves and possibly Grushenka: Three Times a Woman are the only ones in the previously cited group written during the twentieth century; Satyricon dates back to 66 A.D.) while contemporary examples of the genre have gone begging for publishers. The answer, it would seem, lies in the 1957 U. S. Supreme Court decision (United States versus Roth) which states, in effect, that a work cannot be found obscene (and, therefore, legally unpunishable) unless (a) its dominant theme, when taken as a whole, appeals to prurient interests, (b) it exceeds contemporary standards of candor, and (c) it is utterly without redeeming social importance; the erotic classics, no matter how prurient and candid they may be, can always be said to have social importance in that they reveal something of the tempora and mores during and in which they were given birth, whereas contemporary works-or so goes the argument, anyway-reveal nothing but the author's (and the publisher's) desire to make money.
The reasoning, of course, is specious; if a nineteenth century erotic novel is revealing with respect to the nineteenth century and a fourteenth century erotic novel revealing with respect to the fourteenth century, a twentieth century erotic novel is revealing with respect to the twentieth century and therefore is of equal or greater social importance-greater in that the twentieth century's mores are vastly more important to us twentieth centurions than are the mores of any age past. Still, the penalties for publishing and/or selling an obscene book are severe-heavy fines and/or imprisonment for both the publisher and seller, to say nothing of formidable legal expenses involved in the defense of any obscenity charge-and thus, reason notwithstanding, publishers have refused to take a chance on any book which has not stood the test of time.
This is not to say that no one published works of high erotic content. For more than ten years, the bestsellers lists have as often as not been topped by novels which, in terms of candor and prurience, can hold their own in traditional erotic company. Among the group are James Jones' From Here to Eternity, Norman Mailer's The Deer Park and What Are We Doing in Vietnam? Harold Robbins' The Carpetbaggers and The Adventurers, the James Bond spy novels of Ian Fleming, the pseudo-sociological forays of John O'Hara, Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls and, most recently, Philip Roth's Portnoy's Complaint name only a few. Indeed, the exception among current fiction bestsellers is the novel which does not abound in erotic episodes. However, these novels escape the stigma of obscenity by weaving their erotic episodes around a framework of nonerotic plots-in other words, by pretending to subordinate eroticism to "action" or to the author's "message"-whereas the genuine erotic novel confronts sex directly, unhypocritically and without pretext of a nonerotic raison d'etre. The ploy has worked; the erotically charged bestsellers have without exception remained "safe," i.e., nonpros-ecutable, publications.
The first publishers to attempt "unsafe" publications, i.e., genuine contemporary erotic novels, were Grove and Putnam, who, in 1963 and 1964 respectively, went to press with Naked Lunch by William Burroughs and Candy by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg. Both works were prosecuted in several jurisdictions, but neither was found obscene. The precedents set in these cases created a legal climate extremely favorable to the publication of other erotic works, and the years since have seen the emergence of nearly a dozen which almost certainly will enjoy "classic" status among future generations, including Last Exit to Brooklyn, by Hubert J. Selby Jr.; The Story of O, by Pauline Reage; The Soft Machine, by Burroughs; The Ginger Man, by J. P. Donleavy; Thongs, by Carmen-cita de las Lunas; and The Image, by Jean de Berg.
To this list may now be added . It is a novel which, like all genuine erotic novels must, focuses directly upon sex. However-and this, too, is a criterion for erotic novels which aspire to greatness-it is no mere catalogue of sexual gymnastics. It abounds in social and psychological insights. It is satiric in the true sense of the word, in that it holds the vices and follies of its time up to ridicule. And it maintains throughout a pace and a readability-in short, a literariness-which would do any novel, erotic or nonerotic, proud. When one considers the drabness of the vast majority of erotic works-their paucity of inventiveness, their primitive characterizations, their utter lack of intelligent dialogue-one realizes how truly epic actually is.
The book is set in contemporary America, or, more precisely, in America of the early 1940's. The principal characters are a defense attorney, Conrad S. Gamett, whose zeal in defending his clients is surpassed only by his zeal in seducing virgins, and a twenty-one year old virgin named Clara Reeves, whose loyalty to her virgin state competes constantly with her loyalty to her sister, Rita, whom she believes to be the victim of a band of criminal debauchees led by a sinister creature known as "The Scorpion." As Clara, in search of evidence which will bring the captors of her sister to justice, prowls the suburban estate where the debauchees cavort, she finds her virginity constantly imperiled.
The funtimental emotion in these battles of Vice versus Virtue is not lust or carnal desire but shame-shame of everything and anything sexual. Time and time again Clara voices sentiments of disgust at her own sexuality and at the sexuality of the people with whom she comes into contact. In one scene with Gar-nett she says: "I wish you wouldn't look at me when you feel me or feel me when you look at me. I feel terribly dirty inside, and I feel even dirtier when you look at me and feel me at the same time." Later, after an encounter with a beautiful bisexual woman, she says: "It's you who should be ashamed now." And the woman replies: "Maybe I am, and that's the real thrill. If you don't feel ashamed, what's the use of being a bitch and a wanton?" Several chapters later, there is this variation of the same theme, with Clara saying to Garnett: "I'm so ashamed of myself for lying here without any clothes on and letting you do anything you want to me. For letting you look at me like this. I know what you want. I can feel it in your fingers. I can feel it in my own legs, in my thighs, even-down there, inside me. And now I'm ashamed because I can't control my body ... because my body wants your mouth to press against me as much as my mind wants it to stop."
On still another occasion, the author writes: "Garnett had had enough of the game. He had torn down her defenses, and he knew that he could take her whenever he wanted her. So now there was really no point in taking her. Once he had taken her, she would never be ashamed again. And, for the nonce, nothing pleased him as much as her shame."
And, the author continues a few paragraphs later: "Out on the street, he wondered if she really would cry, and he decided in the affirmative. The notion gave him a pleasant feeling of strength and superiority. It was nace to know that he had found a girl who was so innocent that she would cry, even in this day and age, because he had made her undress before him and read dirty words from books and because he had played with her body and her sex. And he was glad that she would be crying and remembering him after he had gone."
Wayland Young has written of this psychosexual aspect of our culture in his treatise, Eros Denied: "New plains of knowledge about human consciousness are coming over the horizon, and it is very doubtful that the traditional concepts will be able to cope with them. Nor do I believe it is any longer interesting to relay the orthodox Christian view, whether in traditional form or dressed up as 'psychological maturity' It doesn't work, and most people are not interested in trying to make it work. Meanwhile, children grow up and are handed a scheme for their sex lives which doesn't take account of what happens, only of what is pense of our own is an easy out, and to decry our own said ought to happen. To praise other systems at ex-an even easier one."
Yet, before new systems can be formulated to replace the old, the old must be decried. The author of decries them by means of the literary device which is best suited to the task-satire. In his hands, the constantly recurring theme of sexual shame stands as a monumental indictment of the moral climate of mid-twentieth century America.
And he does a great deal more, both on a sociological and psychological plane. For example, he explores in detail the seldom discussed but very prevalent sexual behavior described by psychologists as "erotolalia." The phenomenon is defined by Dr. Duncan MacDougald, in Encyclopedia of Sexual Behavior (Hawthorn Books, 1964), as "a craving to hear, use and generally experience (sexual) terms as an important aspect of sexual excitement and gratification." Put more bluntly, the erotolaliac is excited sexually-and sometimes achieves sexual gratification to orgasm-by voicing such phrases as "fuck."
"prick."
"cock."
"cunt," et cetera, or by hearing these terms voiced by another person. Marquis de Sade, in Juliette, in La Philosophic dans le boudoir and in Les Cent-Vingt Journees de So-dome, was the first to write scenes which were obviously erotolalic in nature; Southern and Hoffenberg offered similar scenes in Candy, and other authors have since presented episodes in which erotolalic pleasure is implied. However, is the only work-or, at least, the only work known to this writer-in which an attempt is made not only to introduce erotolalia into a sexual liaison but also to examine the feelings toward the phenomenon of the parties involved. A typical scene is the following, in which Garnett persuades Clara to read aloud to him certain erotic passages from the diary of her missing sister, Rita:
She hesitated for a moment, then began reading in a low price. "'It was wonderful last night, more wonderful than ever ... I went to his apartment. He was waiting for me. We didn't say a word, but he kissed me as soon as I entered the room. When he did, our bodies touched, and I knew that he had been thinking of me, for I felt-felt-'"
"Go on. What's the matter?'
"I can't read that word."
He took the book from her hands and studied it. "Brick" he informed her. "I felt his prick' ... Do you understand?'
"Yes. But I can't read words like that out loud to you."
He chuckled softly. "Dear, sweet girl. I'm sorry to have to ask you to do this. But your innocence will keep such words from actually touching you ... Every word in this diary may be important to us."
He put the book back in her hands. "Come, now. Read some more."
'I'll try," she promised bravely...." I knew that he had been thinking of me, for I felt his-prick-pressing against my belly...."
And, a few paragraphs later:
"What's wrong, Clara?" asked Garnett. "Why have you stopped?'
"I-I just can't go on. That-that word. That awful word!"
"But, my child, it's only a ivord." He folded his arms across his lap so that she could not see the physical effect which her hesitant pronouncing of the word had upon him. "Wasn't it Shakespeare who said, 'What's in a word"? "
"But, Mr. Garnett, it's disgusting. It's the most disgusting word I know."
"The most disgusting?"
"Well, maybe the second-most disgusting. Or the third."
"But why should it disgust you?"
"I-I don't know. I really don't know."
Another phenomenon which the author of The Devil's Brand explores on a psychological level is masochism. Countless novels have been written in which heroines experience pleasure as a result of being beaten, whipped or otherwise maltreated. However, few of these works probe fully the reactions of the victims. The following passage, taken from the diary of Clara's sister, Rita, demonstrates the attention paid by the author of to these reactions:
"When he had given me a switching that smarted beautifully, he threw the birch rod into the fire and took off his clothes. I lay at his feet, adoring him while he undressed. My bottom was burning and my insides itched like crazy. Switching certainly is a wonderful invention! And, for me, it's certainly wonderful to belong so thoroughly to a man that he can even beat you!
"As soon as he was naked, I asked his permission to kiss him. He said yes, and I brought my eager lips to his thighs and his belly and his prick ... But he wouldn't let me put it in my mouth, no matter how much I begged him. Instead, he took me to the sofa, and we stretched out, side by side, our bellies touching, and he teased me for awhile ...
"I was just an instrument to him then. ... J was just a cunt. If he had cut off my head and my hands and feet, it wouldn't matter. All he wanted was that one outlet for his fiery passions. I could do nothing but lay there on my back, with my legs around him and my hands helping him, until he reached his goals. When he came, it was as if his whole body were filled with nothing but semen. I was inundated.
"At that moment, I loved him with all my heart and soul. I came again and again. There were green and yellow lights going off in my head, and the whole room swam around me. It was like a forest fire, spinning out all over me from inside my cunt and from my burning buttocks. I clutched at him so hard that my nails pierced his skin, but I didn't care and neither did he. It was glorious!". .
Also examined is the phenomenon of exhibitionism, defined by Dr. Paul J. Gillette in Psychodynamics of Unconventional Sex Behavior and Unusual Practices (Holloway House, 1966) as "the display of one's own sexual properties, or the performance before other persons of a sex act, for the purpose of sexual gratification." Exhibitionism is the most common of all sex crimes, accounting for thirty-five percent of all arrests. Yet, few authors of erotica even mention the practice, let alone inquire into the motivations of the practitioners. In , nearly two full chapters are devoted to the subject, and the reactions of characters are explored fully.
Typical of the incisiveness and candor with which the author approaches the matter is this explanation by an acquaintance of Clara as to how she became involved in exhibitionistic acts.
"Oh, you know how it is. The first time, you're in an alcoholic fog, and, when someone suggests it, it seems like a grand idea. Then, the second time, you just pretend to he drunk, and you watch everybody else out of the corner of your eye. After that, you don't bother to pretend anything-you don't need an excuse for liking to have people watch you."
Also, the author of explores the well known double standard of morality. The following exchanges between Clara and Garnett spells out the attitude most clearly:
"Why do you let me do this to you?" he asked.. . "Because you told me to."
"Is that the only reason."
"Yes.. . "
"Aren't you letting me do this because you want me to?"
"No! Oh, heavens no! I don't want you to do it at all. I want to go away in a corner and cry. I hate it."
"Do you hate me, too?"
"No, I don't hate you. Men are like that, I guess. But I shouldn't let you do it-not for anything, not even for Rita. I didn't know you'd want to do this when you came here tonight, or I never would have asked you to come."
"But don't you like what I'm doing to you, even a Utile bit'? "
"No. Not at all. I despise it. I loathe it."
And, some chapters later, there is also a remarkably prophetic passage relating to a single standard sexuality very similar to that which appears to prevail-or at least to be gaining popularity-among younger people in the post-sexual revolution 1960's. The attitude is voiced by the same girl who has been quoted on the subject of exhibitionism. Her exchange with Clara is as follows:
Clara shook her head. She ... seemed bewildered. "You mean that man is going to marry you after seeing you down there, doing all those things?"
"Why not?" asked the girl breezily. "This is the twentieth century, you know. Men nowadays want a sample of your brand of sex before they marry you and promise to cherish you for the rest of their life. And references won't do. It has to be a sample." She looked at Clara intently for a moment. "Don't you think I'll make a good wife."
"Why, why ... I don't know. Well, I think I will. I can cook and sew and make beds, and I can make love all night without tiring or tiring of it. And I know enough little tricks to keep my husband happily at home for quite a while before he starts wanting some variety in his sex life. And I'm in wonderful shape to have babies. And I'm relatively well informed about politics and literature and things like that. And Tm easy to get along with. That's what makes a marriage stick-compatibility, both sexual and intellectual. Not all this garbage you see in the movies about undying love. Believe me, if a wife can't keep her house clean and attractive, and feed her husband well, and satisfy him in bed, then no matter how undying she thought their love was, she's going to find her husband spending late nights in the office and taking frequent weekend trips 'out of town.'" Clara sighed, seemingly, dazzled.. . "Now, don't misunderstand me," the blonde went on. "I don't mean that you have to be as much of a trollop as I am to be successfully married. But, contrary to popular belief, if you are, it won't hurt a thing-and sometimes it even helps."....
Passages such as these abound in The Devil's Brand. It is because of them that the work rises far above both erotic and nonerotic novels of the pedestrian variety and qualifies as a genuine work of literature.
The questions now arise: How did come to be written? And: Who wrote it?
For the answer to the first question, we may turn to Gershon Legman, the former bibliographer for the late Dr. Alfred C. Kinsey's Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University, and unquestionably the world's most highly esteemed authority on erotic literature. Legman, in an essay, Pisanus Fraxi and His Books (from The Horn Book, published by University Books in 1964), recalls that an aging oil millionaire in Ard-more, Oklahoma, a devotee of erotic literature without peer, had during the late 1930's and early 1940's arranged to have two new erotic manuscripts written to order for him every week. Says Legman: "The manuscripts were written by impecunious authors, tracked down and invited to work by a Hollywood literary agent and a private bookseller in New York, and by their sub-agents, each of whom got a sizable cut of the price paid by the millionaire. The authors received, for their part, as little as $50 to $100 for each 100-page manuscript, depending in part on their literary reputation, but mostly on how good a fight they could put up with the sub-agents, or 'bagmen.' ... I have had in my hands at one time or another, over fifty of these manuscripts, by various writers, intended for the Oklahoma millionaire, but in carbon copies surreptitiously made for and retained by the agents, for publication later when the millionaire would be dead."
According to Legman, (originally titled The Devil's Advocate) was one of these manuscripts. It was presented to the Oklahoma millionaire as a novel by Henry Miller, whose Tropic of Cancer, Tropic of Capricorn and other works, published during the 1930's at Paris, had earned him a reputation as the English language's foremost eroticist. The real author, says Legman, was "a talented young American, exceptionally gifted at pastiche, named R. S., who is also the author of The Oxford Professor." (The latter is a work in several volumes, well known among erotic scholars, circulated in under-the-counter markets in Paris and London during and after World War II, but at this writing not yet published on the open market.)
After the millionaire was given his copy, Legman continues, a mimeographed edition was published at New York in 1942, "ascribed on its title-page to 'Wood C. Lamont,' in order to cast the onus of authorship on the late American poet and litterateur, Clement Wood, who had earlier hacked numerous manuscripts for the same organization-but not this one!"
Legman does not say so, but actually three editions of the work eventually found their way into circulation. In addition to the mimeographed edition ascribed to "Wood C. Lamont"-an edition of approximately one hundred single-spaced typewritten pages-there was a second," hundred-page mimeographed edition published in Mexico City and ascribed on its title page to one "Bob DeMexico," and a third, extremely limited, unsigned edition, consisting of approximately one dozen carbon copies, each numbering nearly two hundred single-spaced typewritten pages, also published in New York. It is this last edition which probably resembles most closely the version presented to the Oklahoma millionaire, and it is this edition from which the present adaptation was prepared. (Both the Mexican edition and the New York carbon copy edition were illustrated with erotic drawings.)
Regardless of the author's identity, the fact remains that The Devils Brand is an extraordinary work. Legman, with characteristic understatement, calls it "an extremely well-written erotic novel." But it is far more than just that. It is satire, pastiche and sociological treatise all rolled into one. It merits a place among the all-time greats of erotic literature-the Fanny Hills and the Dolly Mortons, the Tropic of Cancers and the Candys-as a work which does far more than erotica generally purports to do.
Ralph Ginzburg, the publisher who perhaps has done more for erotic literature than any man alive during the twentieth century, has written: "Every nation gets the pornography it deserves ... and if we forbid the writing of erotica to all but those willing to break the law, we have no complaint if the results are mean and inartistic."
The author of broke what at the time was the law, but the results of his labors are neither mean nor inartistic. The select few who had access to the original limited editions of his extraordinary novel-and now the mass audience to whom the present edition is being made available-are his beneficiaries.
Stanley Whelan, Ph.D. Los Angeles, California February, 1969