Painful Pleasures

by Jean de Villiot 

First English Edition of 1,500. Published by: Gargoyle Press. New York, NY. c. 1931. 

Hardback is overall in VERY GOOD condition.

  • Covers exhibit moderate signs of commensurate age and wear. 
  • Boards are darkened with stains (most notably to the paper portions) and exhibit moderate shelfwear including rubbing, indentations and creases to the edges. Please see photos. 
  • Corners are bumped and moderately rubbed with creases and exposed board. Please see photos. 
  • Spine is firm with partially faded ink-stamped lettering and exhibits rubbing to the ends and ridges and a darkened sticker with faded writing to the lower area. Please see photos. 
  • Binding is secure. 
  • Illustrated endpapers are gently age-toned with minimal stains. 
  • Pastedowns exhibit affixed clippings related to the volume. Please see photos. 
  • Frontispiece is present and exhibits faint stains. Please see photos. 
  • Illustrated plates are present and unworn. 
  • Interior is gently age-toned with minimal foxing. 
  • Inside pages are free of writing and intentional marks.
  • Deckle edge textblock. 
  • Book may exhibit additional minor signs of age or wear.
  • JS20180924
279 pages. 5.75" by 8.5". 

Gargoyle Press of New York presents a limited edition anthology translated from the French by Walter J. Meusal with a variety of illustrations by E. Remsen including ten half-tone plates, headpieces and vignettes, prepared as a hardback volume bound in one quarter cloth binding with gilt-stamped paper overlay. 

Includes Is It Good or Bad? [Le Fouet par H. Baker, Est-ce bon ou mauvais?], Some Other Views.[Le Fouet par H. Baker, Une autre méthode], Eight Genuine Letters [Fustigations vécues, Correspondance], Flagellations at Clifton. [Le Scandale de flagellation de Clifton], The Adventure of Miss Flossie Evans. [L'Aventure de Miss Flossie Evans], A Hunting Experience. [Une aventure de chasse], Discipline at Paramé. [Fessées provinciales], The Extraordinary Courtship of Hector Demerre [Le Mariage au bord de l'eau].

The second and most sumptuous edition of this notable work. Four long stories, preceded by arguments, experiences, opinion, and eight genuine and original letters on the subject of flagellation. 

A notable volume, presenting conceptions of duty which dictate discipline through Pain; and the strange affinity which may exist between that emotion and its opposite, Pleasure. 

Painful Pleasures is an adaptation and translation of extracts from the French work Fustigations vécues by Jean de Villiot (Paris, Charles Carrington, 1907) and various letters from the Correspondence section of works published by Jean Fort in the Collection des Orties Blanches, like Jacques d'Icy's Paulette trahie (ca. 1924).

Paradoxically, most of the texts contained in Fustigations vécues are English texts translated in French: some of the 'Eight Genuine Letters' are a translation of Indecent Whipping (1885). The chapters from Le Fouet by H. Baker are from an English work of unknown origin. Other short stories like 'Flagellations at Clifton' and 'The Adventure of Miss Flossie Evans' may very well also be translations from English works.

About the authorship:
Georges Grassal de Choffat or Hugues Rebell was a French author. He wrote against Christianity and professed paganism while remaining a Catholic. An exponent of Friedrich Nietzsche, he was associated with the right-wing nationalist group Action Française.

Rebell wrote a number of pornographic works under the group pseudonym "Jean de Villiot", a prolific contributor to early 20th century French spanking literature, published by Charles Carrington.

Rebell is often dismissed as a failed author of pornography, remembered for only one title, Les nuits chaudes du Cap Français (1902), which won the Prix Nocturne in 1966. He was also a poet, whose Les Chants de la pluie et du soleil, dedicated to his friend René Boylesve, inspired André Gide in Les Nourritures Terrestres. He was also known as a polemicist of royalty because of his Union des trois aristocraties (1894), which treated the three aristocracies based on family name, money, and talent.

He wrote articles for the journals La Cocarde and Le Soleil, which were included in a collection of writings published in 1994 under the title De mon balcon. He wrote a defence of Oscar Wilde in the August issue of the literary magazine Mercure de France in 1895.

About Charles Carrington:
Charles Carrington (1857–1921) was a leading British publisher of erotica in late-19th and early 20th century Europe. Born Paul Harry Ferdinando in Bethnal Green, England on 11 November 1867, he moved in 1895 from London to Paris where he published and sold books in the rue Faubourg Montmartre and rue de Chateaudun; for a short period he moved his activities to Brussels. Carrington also published works of classical literature, including the first English translation of Aristophanes' "Comedies," and books by famous authors such as Oscar Wilde and Anatole France, in order to hide his "undercover" erotica publications under a veil of legitimacy. His books featured the erotic art of Martin van Maële. He published a French series La Flagellation a Travers le Monde mainly on English flagellation, identifying it as an English predilection.

Carrington went blind as a result of syphilis and the last few years of his life were spent in poverty as his mistress stole his valuable collection of rare books. He was placed in a lunatic asylum and died in 1921 at Ivry-sur-Seine, France.

AS IS! Please see photos. More photos available upon request.

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