Her Three Daughters by Pierre Louÿs

Translated into modern English by R J Dent

Her Three Daughters by Pierre Louÿs, translated from the French into modern English by R J Dent, published by New Urge, is now available.

Synopsis: A young man moves into a new apartment and receives an advanced education in the permutations of sex from a mother and her three—surprisingly well-educated—daughters. Part memoir, part confession, Her Three Daughters is Pierre Louÿs at his erotic best.

“Louÿs’s jolly saga of sexual insatiability…is one of the handful of erotic works that achieve true literary status.” — Susan Sontag

“Among all Pierre Louÿs’s books, this is undoubtedly my favourite, the most moving, most uplifting and sometimes the most terrifying, the purest, the least artificial and the most modern. A masterpiece.” —André Pieyre de Mandiargues

“Amazing! It’s erotica, but high-quality erotica!” — Jean d’Ormesson

“One of the most moving books ever written on the fatality of desires.” —Annie Le Brun

“Here, without question, is Pierre Louÿs’ erotic masterpiece. The strength of the novel does not come from its eventual biographical value, but from the constant transgression that manifests itself within it—containing all the erotic themes dear to the writer, elevated to a singular power. We also find here the key qualities of Louÿs’ style: the liveliness of the dialogue, the precision of the language, the irony, the relentlessness with which certain obscene words are constantly repeated. This scandalous book constitutes a total profanation and derision of the bourgeois universe to which the author belonged.” —Jean-Paul Goujon

Book details:

Title: Her Three Daughters

Author: Pierre Louÿs

Translator: R J Dent

Language: English

Publisher: New Urge

Publication Date: February 13, 2023

ISBN: 979-8986922478

Format: Paperback

Pages: 340

Dimensions: 12.85 cm x 2.16 cm x 19.84 cm (5.06 inches x 0.85 inches x 7.81 inches)

Weight: 15.5 ounces (439.41 grams)

Book details (publisher): https://blackscatbooks.com/2023/02/26/all-in-the-family/

Book details (translator): http://www.rjdent.com/her-three-daughters/

Purchase link (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0BW2GGCQP

Purchase link (US): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BW2GGCQP

Purchase link (Can): https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0BW2GGCQP

Purchase link (Aus): https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BW2GGCQP

Purchase link (Italy): https://www.amazon.it/dp/B0BW2GGCQP/

Purchase link (Holl): https://www.amazon.nl/dp/B0BW2GGCQP/

Purchase link (Fr): https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0BW2GGCQP/

Purchase link (Ger): https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BW2GGCQP/

Translator’s website: www.rjdent.com

Strange Fruit by Lilian Smith

Strange Fruit is a 1944 bestselling debut novel by American author Lillian Smith.

It deals with the then-forbidden and controversial theme of interracial romance. Its working title was Jordan is so Chilly, but Smith retitled it Strange Fruit prior to publication

Initially, the book was met with controversy over its depiction of interracial romance and sex.

It was banned from several locations including the United States Postal Office. Strange Fruit was also banned from being mailed through the U.S. Postal Service until President Franklin D. Roosevelt interceded at his wife Eleanor’s request.

After the book’s release, it was banned in Boston and Detroit for ‘lewdness’ and crude language. Of the book’s banning, Smith commented: ‘These people fear a book like Strange Fruit with a profound dread; and will seize on any pretext, however silly, to keep others and themselves, from having access to it.’

The book sold well and within a few months of its initial publication in February, topped the bestseller list of the New York Times Book Review.

A Georgia newspaper complained that the relationship in the book made ‘courtship between Negroes and whites appear attractive’ and Smith worried that the focus on the romance in the book would detract from its political message.

A reviewer for the Milwaukee Journal claimed the book ‘indicts the thing called ‘white supremacy’ and was a ‘grand opera’.

A 1944 review from The Rotarian praised the novel, calling it ‘absorbingly dramatic’ and citing its realism as a highlight. 

Smith refrained from portraying her protagonist, Nonnie, in any of the then typical racist stereotypes of black women as either mammies or Jezebels, making her closer to images of the ‘ideal’ white woman: beautiful, kind, compassionate, and loving. For Smith, Nonnie simply happened to be black. Nonnie was not written to be ashamed of her blackness, nor written to be an ‘honorary white woman’.

In her 1956 autobiography, singer Billie Holiday wrote that Smith named the book after the 1939 song ‘Strange Fruit’, written by Lewis Allen, which was about lynching and racism against African Americans.

Smith denied this, insisting that the book’s title referred to the ‘damaged, twisted people (both black and white) who are the products or results of our racist culture.’

The Rites of Ecstasy by Hélène Lavelle

Translated from the French by Valéry Soers

In the tradition of Decadent literature, spiced with Gothic, this provocative novel takes the reader on a voyage through dream, reverie, fantasy, memory and imagination – recounting the raptures and the initiation tortures of a young woman, Gabrielle, by the Vicomtesse, the Comte and their entourage in The Domain.

Sexually explicit without being crude, The Rites of Ecstasy is the story of a woman whose libido and personality lead her to increasingly submissive behaviour – allowing herself to be sexually used, violently beaten, and physically mutilated, which ultimately leads her to discover who – and what – she really is. As Gabrielle’s submission deepens and becomes more extreme, the novel simultaneously deepens its thematic explorations of the relationship between surrender and freedom, the nature and the demands of love, and the transcendent aspects of sexual desire.

A sublime novel that explores love, subservience, cruelty and dominance. The Rites of Ecstasy is a deeply erotic literary work, and as such, Hélène Lavelle’s novel is seductive and dangerous.

This is a novel for connoisseurs of erotic literature, an adult book in every sense, an interesting and intelligent novel of ideas, expressed with eloquence, elegance and wit; beautifully written by Hélène Lavelle, and lucidly translated into sophisticated English by Valéry Soers.

“This modern classic deserves to be ranked alongside the great French erotic masterpieces, Story of O and The Image , and very few others. Not for the faint-hearted or the narrow-minded, this story of love, excess, degradation, cruelty, tenderness and beauty is for all women whose fantasies and desires embrace the intensely erotic.” — Dawn Avril Fitzroy

Title: The Rites of Ecstasy

Author: Hélène Lavelle

Translator: Valéry Soers

Publisher: New Urge Editions

ISBN-10: 1735615900

ISBN-13: 978-1735615905

Format: Paperback

Pages: 238

Language: English

Weight: 15.5 ounces (439.41 grams)

Dimensions: 6.14 x 0.6 x 9.21 inches (15.6 x 1.52 x 23.39 cm)

Purchase link (US): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1735615900

Purchase link (UK): https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/1735615900

Purchase link (Aus): https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1735615900

Hélène Lavelle has also written Le Château du Comte, which is a sequel to The Rites of Ecstasy. Details of Le Château du Comte are available here: Le Château du Comte