Pierre Louÿs (1870–1925)

My version has the Willy Pogány illustrations and is translated by Alvah C. Bessie.
I’ve been aware of this and meaning to read it for decades. I really don’t know from where—I seem to remember it occasionally cropping up in vague references or allusions. I had no real idea what it was about, but it seemed to be something that some knowledgeable and respected writers had read, and I had vague ideas of eroticism and there were some misty and not really remembered connections with Anaïs Nin and James Joyce in the junk rooms of my memory. So I read it.
I have to admit that I started it with a certain amount of prejudice, knowing that Louÿs had created a, so to speak, forgery. To my surprise, though, I found the character, Bilitis, quite easy to believe in. Once I got my head away from expecting her to be a genuine ancient Greek, I found her story intriguing and, often, quite moving. I’m writing as a male, of course, and very aware that the words were actually written (and translated) by a male and I do wonder if a female would find her voice so genuine, but I really felt for her depictions of unrequited love and of growing old and losing her looks. Time has robbed the erotic bits of any shock value they may have had but I found them reasonably convincing and wasn’t overly aware of them as simply male-gaze titillation.
I thought it quite good and I am glad to have finally read it (though it will always be a minor niggle with me that a male wrote it—don’t really know how to get my head around that).… (more)

I give this bizarre little piece of Decadent erotica four stars. It’s purported to be “translated” from the second century dramatist/writer Lucian but from what little I’ve been able to glean from other sources is actually all the creation of the “translator” [a:Pierre Louÿs|47465|Pierre Louÿs|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1217345711p2/47465.jpg]. Oddly there is an introduction that talks about Lucian’s writing, etc. that lends verisimilitude to the whole thing.

The research I’ve done calls the whole a novel but it’s in the form of little, only partially connected, dramas, each only a few pages long. The book is full of prostitutes, lesbians, homosexuals, cuckolds, and the fiction is quite modern and entertaining. Probably considered racy in its time, there is nothing explicit and the English is in an archaic thee and thou to enhance its authenticity. It probably was a brown wrapper item in its day though.

I actually bought the book for the lovely Decadent Deco illustrations by [a:Beresford Egan|7212540|Beresford Egan|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] which oddly and delightfully have nothing to do with the text.

The book is first edition numbered and on handmade paper copyright 1929 from Fortune Press which seems to have made a business out of unconventional books on everything from demonology and the occult to Mother Goose.… (more)