TOlet’s face it: when it comes to erotic books, prejudice is always around the corner. There are those who consider them light reading, those who associate them with niche tastes and those who immediately think of contemporary bestsellers like Fifty Shades. Yet erotic literature has a centuries-long history and contains some of the most fascinating, controversial and influential novels ever written. Works that scandalized their time, defied censorship and earned a place in the history of literature. Six classics to (re)discover this summer, letting yourself be guided by curiosity.
Erotic books, a centuries-long history
If today we sneer at the shelves dedicated to erotic literature, it’s because over the years this genre of novels has lost part of its charm, becoming a product considered second-class. In reality behind these novels which today are accompanied by some sneers and mischievous smiles, there is a very long tradition that has lasted for millennia. Just think that the very first stories of this kind date back to Ancient Egypt and the Greece of the philosophers, not to mention the Kamasutra by Vatsyayana, dated 300 AD and considered at the time a philosophical, moral and didactic work and today a pillar of the genre.
Even in more recent centuries, world literature has been characterized by works of a sexual nature, which from books considered scandalous at the time have then become true masterpieces over the decades, often also brought to the big screen. Just think about Lady Chatterley’s Lovera Lolita or again to Dangerous Liaisons. Up to, yes, the famous ones Fifty Shades who had the merit of clearing customs and making pop a topic like BDSM sex, unknown to most.
But which books to start with to get back to the genre? We have selected six historic titles which, despite censorship, scandals and even trials and changes in laws on pornography, have still reached us. To be (re)discovered during the summer.
Released in England in 1928, Lady Chatterley’s lover it immediately caused a sensation and scandal. In fact, the work tells of the forbidden, and perhaps for this reason even more passionate, love between the young Lady Chatterley and the gamekeeper.
The reason for this shock in the English society of the time were both the very descriptive descriptions of the sexual exploits of the couple, never before described in such an explicit way, and the fact that the author recounts with equal sincerity the marriage between Lady Chatterley and her husband, an invalid and imposing one. The apparent story of sex thus becomes a sensual love story, devoid of shame and modesty.
2. Dangerous Liaisons, by Choderlos de Laclos
An epistolary novel which, 244 years after its publication (1782), continues to fascinate and intrigue. This work has everything: sex, power, jealousy and revenge.
The protagonists are the Viscount of Valmont and the Marquise of Merteuil who, letter after letter, weave a set of intrigues and sadistic plots playing with the feelings of others and arriving at the inevitable tragic epilogue. The famous 1986 film starring John Malkovich, Michelle Pfeiffer and Glenn Close was then made from the work.
3. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
First published in Paris in 1955, Lolita caused immediate scandal for its content. At the center is the obsession that an almost forty-year-old French literature professor feels for the twelve-year-old Dolores, later nicknamed Lolita by him. A term that has now become synonymous with a very young girl with seductive attitudes.
A story written in the first person and on the road, on American roads, as the feeling of the stepfather-lover grows, the young Lolita becomes impenetrable and unattainable. A success also confirmed by Kubrick’s subsequent film adaptation.
4. The Venus Delta by Anaïs Nin
Fifteen stories published in 1977, but written in the 1940s, initially written for a private client nicknamed The Collector and who remained anonymous until the 1970s. Stories through which the Cuban-born writer manages to instill not only psychological depth but above all to address taboo topics such as incest, homosexuality, marital infidelity but also pedophilia and sexual violence.
A curiosity: Anaïs Nin had a relationship with Henry Miller, who was also the author of several works considered erotic.
5. Tropic of Cancer, by Henry Miller
An erotic novel not strictly speaking, but defined as such due to the many sex scenes present, it is the story of the narrator’s wild life. First released in France in 1934, it is set in Paris and when it was published in the United States in 1961 it caused such a scandal that it gave rise to an obscenity trial which later led to the revision of pornography laws.
The author then also wrote Tropic of Capricornalso released in 1934, and Opus Pistorum which tells of the erotic happiness of Alf, an American in Paris in the 1930s.
6. The cursed novels, by Marquis De Sade
If we talk about erotic literature we cannot fail to also consider the Marquis De Sade, the man at the origin of the term “sadism” and its meaning, experiencing sexual pleasure in causing suffering to others. It goes without saying that sex predominates in his works, as do the most perverse and even transgressive sexual practices.
The entire collection is titled The Cursed Novels and They Include The misfortunes of virtue, Justine or the misfortunes of virtue, The new Justine or the disasters of virtue, Juliette or the prosperity of vice and Le 120 days of Sodom or the school of libertinism all published between 1787 and 1804.
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