num_pages: 419
description: The Literary Companion to Sex is the perfect bedside book for young or old, straight or gay. This comprehensive anthology contains passages or poems that are erotic, comic or instructive, from the Bible to the present day. The passages were chosen for their realism, humour, or sheer oddity. Material is arranged according to period, not by sexual activity, although most of the main fetishes are represented from shoes and knickers to flagellation (Le Vice Anglais!).Included are the old favourites that turn up in every erotic anthology - such as Rochester or Fanny Hill - but there are also many rare items like the taster from the seventeenth century Panegyrick upon Cundums and Butler's epic poem on the burning of a hogshead full of dildoes. Eastern literature is also well represented from the Arabian Nights to the frankest of Chinese novels, Chin P'ing Mei. There are surprising items from 'respectable' authors - Milton is rather good on how angels do it and Crabbe provides lecherous Peter Pratt, the gardener, who takes a great deal of pleasure in telling people how to propagate cucumbers.Where no explicit old translation exists, passages or poems were retranslated to give an accurate rendition of the original author's meaning: above all, The Literary Companion to Sex contains no censorship.
language: English
title: The literary companion to sex: an anthology of prose and poetry
titlecomplete: The literary companion to sex: an anthology of prose and poetry
genres: Fiction
ratings_count: 26
publisher: Sinclair-Stevenson Limited