Dirty Books

Between the 1930s and the 1950s, in New York and in Paris, daring publishers such as Obelisk Press, Olympia Press and Grove Press were producing banned pornographic literature, written by young, impecunious writers, poets, and artists, many anonymously. Some of those involved were, or became, famous, while others drifted back into penury and obscurity. This book tells their stories, and the stories of publishers, who distributed pornography to satisfy the rising demands of a society starved of erotic fantasy.

Dirty books is an exploration into the coming together of low and high art, of avant-garde modernist literature and unadulterated porn, of censorship and aestheticized obscenity. It offers a fascinating moment in pornographic history, where artistic expression broke free, crisscrossing boundaries of acceptability, and the profits made from erotica helped launch the careers of literary cult figures.