Bawdy Tales & Trifles of Devilries

A delightful romp through a garden of devilish enticements.

Commissioned by and for wealthy aristocrats for their private amusements, we introduce you to a selection of stories, poems, limericks, and bon mots assured to delight the most refined of connoisseurs. Complimented by rare erotic lithographs by renowned illustrator Eugene Lepoittevin.

Lepoittevin’s Devils first appeared to acclaim in 1832. His original devil was an impish troublemaker. At the behest of his publisher, he created a new 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 drawings were long banned in Europe and the United States, with the government going so far as to confiscate copies intended for the Kinsey Institute in 1956.

The selection of writings is culled from humorous erotic pastiches and rare writing privately printed for exclusive collectors by underground publishers that have long been hidden in the Private Case of the British Library and the L’Enfer of the Biblioteque nationale du France.

Bawdy Tales is designed with the collector in mind, utilizing vegan leather and gold embossing to simulate period morocco binding. Includes a bound-in black ribbon bookmark.

Art Historian Sarah Burns introduces Lepoittevin’s work and career. Expert collector of written erotica, “Lady Fanny Woodcock” contributes a short history of the erotic book in Western culture.

Sarah Burns (Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) is Professor Emeritus of Art History, Indiana University, Bloomington. She is the author of The Emphatically Queer Career of Perkins Harnly and His Bohemian Friends (Process, 2021).

“Lady Fanny Woodcock” is the sobriquet of a respected collector of erotic books and student of their bibliographic history.