Fanny Hill: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749) was the first widely-read English novel in the genre “Erotica.” It was written by John Cleland as he was serving hard time at a debtor’s prison in London. Over the centuries, the novel has been repeatedly banned by authorities, assuring its preeminent role in the history of the ongoing struggle against censorship of free expression.
Until Fanny Hill, previous heroines had conducted their amorous liaisons “off-stage.” Any erotic misadventures were described euphemistically. As women who had gone astray, they always repented, which made even their most outrageous dalliances somehow suitable for a moralistic readership. The protagonist of Fanny Hill, however, never repented a single moment of her sexual exploits … quite the contrary! And with Fanny, the devil is in the details, realistically described. (Summary by Denny Mike)
10 episodes
This is the first of five volumes. - Giacomo Casanova (1725 in Venice – 1798 in Dux, Bohemia, now Duchcov, Czech Republic) was a famous Venetian adventurer, writer, and womanizer. He used charm, guile, threats, intimidation, and aggression, when necessary, to conquer women, sometimes leaving behind children or debt. In his autobiography Histoire de ma vie (Story of My Life), regarded as one of the most authentic sources of the customs and norms of European social life during the 18th century, he mentions 122 women with whom he had sex.
Although he is often associated with Don Juan because both seduced many women, Casanova is in fact very different from his fictitious counterpart. While Don Juan is a legend, Casanova is a historical character. (Summary from Wikipedia)
43 episodes
The framing story concerns a man who dreams of speaking to Venus about love while she wears furs. The unnamed narrator tells his dreams to a friend, Severin, who tells him how to break him of his fascination with cruel women by reading a manuscript, Memoirs of a Supersensual Man.
This manuscript tells of a man, Severin von Kusiemski, so infatuated with a woman, Wanda von Dunajew, that he requests to be treated as her slave, and encourages her to treat him in progressively more degrading ways. At first Wanda does not understand or relate to the request, but after humouring Severin a bit she finds the advantages of the method to be interesting and enthusiastically embraces the idea; though at the same time, she disdains Severin for allowing her to do so. (Summary from Wikipedia)
9 episodes
The finished draft of a short novel by Mary Shelley. Its adult theme, concerning a father's incestuous love for his daughter and its consequences, meant that the manuscript was suppressed by Shelley's own father, and not published until 1959, more than a hundred years after her death.
12 episodes
Olavo Brás Martins dos Guimarães Bilac foi um jornalista e poeta brasileiro, membro fundador da Academia Brasileira de Letras. Criou a cadeira 15, cujo patrono é Gonçalves Dias. Sua obra compreende além de poemas, textos publicitários, crônicas, livros escolares e poesias satíricas. Foi considerado na sua época, o "Príncipe dos Poetas Brasileiros".Juntamente com Alberto de Oliveira e Raimundo Correia, foi a maior liderança e expressão do Parnasianismo no Brasil, constituindo a chamada Tríade Parnasiana. A publicação de Poesias, em 1888 rendeu-lhe a consagração. "Contos para Velhos" é uma coletânea de poemas e pequenas histórias de tema adulto, publicada sob o pseudônimo "Bob".(Sumário escrito por Vicente)
16 episodes
"Married Love" is one of the most famous 'sex education' manuals. First published in 1918, it sold tens of thousands of copies, and was one of the first publications to openly discuss issues such as variations in male and female sexual desire in a form which could be easily read and understood by the ordinary reader. This is the 6th, revised and expanded, edition, from 1919. The main text is mostly unchanged. An appendix has been added with some extra information on subjects such as sex during pregnancy. (Summary by Archive.org.)
14 episodes
Les Chansons de Bilitis furent publiées en 1894 : il s'agit d'une collection de poèmes sulfureux et passionnés par une déesse fictive, Bilitis, inventée par le véritable auteur Pierre Louÿs, et dont la vie est retracée dans la préface. Elle aurait vécu sur l'île de Lesbos où elle aurait été rivale de Sappho, puis à Chypre.Pierre Louÿs a poussé le jeu jusqu'à ponctuer ces poèmes érotiques de références pour perturber le lecteur (exemple: "non traduit"). (résumé par Nadine)
33 episodes
Beth Danson was about twenty-five and, besides her deep auburn-brown hair and lovely face, she boasted an equally attractive body. He found himself captivated by the warm thrust of her breasts beneath the silk blouse. The clear milk of her flesh, at the “V” of her throat excited him in a strange way. When he thought of her as his wife, it was frightening. It was as though someone had tossed him a woman and expected him to just fall into the routine of marriage. It wouldn’t be hard to come to love this woman, but it would take awhile. Hell, he didn’t know her. She was a complete stranger who had suddenly told him they were married. There was nothing familiar about her; even the fingers that were softly working over his face were alien. (Summary by Blurb from the Front Flap!)
20 episodes
Liebesgeschichten aus Japan: Am Biwasee, nahe der uralten Kaiserstadt Kioto, haben die Japaner acht Landschaftsgesichter von unsterblicher Leidenschaft entdeckt.
Dauthendey hat sich für dieses Buch von einer alten japanischen Tradition inspirieren lassen. Acht Ansichten des Biwa-Sees oder Acht Ansichten von Ōmi (Ōmi Hakkei) ist der Titel vieler Serien von Bildern oder Gedichten, in denen japanische Künstler die Landschaft um den Biwasee darstellen. Die “Acht Ansichten” gibt es seit dem 15. Jahrhundert, sie bestehen aus den festgelegten realen Orten, die Dauthendey zu seine Erzählungen inspiriert haben. Die Geschichten, dass sei vorab verraten, sind oft traurig, und doch sind sie sehr schön, wie die Liebe ja oft in der Literatur dann am schönsten ist, wenn sie unglücklich ist.(Zusammenfassung von Hokuspokus)
12 episodes
Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel was born in 1772 at Hannover, Holy Roman Empire, to Johann Adolf Schlegel and Johanna Christiane Erdmuthe Hübsch. He attended Jena University and made friends with many of the writers known by his brother August Wilhelm Schlegel. His first book was About the Diotima, written in 1795, and four years later he wrote Lucinda. The translator, Calvin Thomas, called Lucinda a "naughty book", but that was in 1914. I have no idea where it stands now in the world of literature. It was made up of many disconnected parts. - Summary by Craig Campbell
13 episodes
Sonata de estío es la segunda de las cuatro sonatas escritas por Valle Inclán. Publicada por primera vez en 1903. Continúa la narración de los amoríos del marqués de Bradomín. Esta vez en un viaje a México donde conoce a la niña "Chole". - Summary by Montse González.
15 episodes
Aspects Of Love is an anthology of poetic explorations on the theme of erotic love - though one of the "poets" represented here is better known, even than as a dramatist, as the philosopher, Plato. His Symposium heads off this set of erotic explorations. In The Symposium's philosophic play, he depicts a scene of men cosing together over dinner, each describing what he finds in his experience of love. I have followed this pattern in the choice of works for this anthology - in a similar manner, each of these works deals in a radically different way with the discovery of love. Whether philandering or married, heterosexual, lesbian or gay, under cover of friendship or as flagrant delight, from Plato through Donne, Whitman, Shakespeare or Sappho. we will not cease from exploration till we reach at last, as The Symposium does, a vision of the union of love as a discovery of the Divine. Surely there must be something here for everyone. - Summary by Tony Addison
20 episodes
Maybe--tomorrow, by Jay Little (pseudonym for Clarence Lewis Miller) published in 1952* based in the confusing latter part of his teenage years, tells the story of the introverted and forlorn Gaylord LeClarie coming to terms with the world around him and who he is. Gaylord must navigate everything from sex, his own sexuality and his own gender identity. friendship, Love and self-acceptance in a sometimes hostile world... - Summary by Curt Troutwine
29 episodes
Songs of Love and Life by Zora Cross was a phenomenon in the author's native Australia in 1917. The original privately-published edition quickly sold out, and an expanded edition was produced a month later. Its erotic content, a rejection of old Victorian values, along with anti-war and feminist themes, catapulted the then 27-year-old Cross to the forefront of Australian poets. She was lauded and praised, but slowly fell into disfavor. Here we present the expanded version of her book, with the addition of four poems dropped from the privately-printed edition, which appear at the end of the recording. - Summary by cavaetProof-listeners: AudreyL1, zavaa01, cavaet
105 episodes
