{"product_id":"erotic-stories-isbn-9780375712395","title":"Erotic Stories","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eErotic Stories \u003c\/i\u003eis a treasury of amorous tales from around the world, ranging from ancient Greek myths to modern stories of longing and lust.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e From the innocent yearning of Daphnis and Chloe evoked by Longus to the sadomasochism of Pauline Réage’s \u003ci\u003eStory of O\u003c\/i\u003e, this anthology explores human desire across the ages in all its dark complexity. Whether intensely raw or subtly insinuating, the short stories gathered here—by writers as different as Boccaccio and Chekhov, Anaïs Nin and Allan Gurganus—are calculated to unsettle and arouse. Here too are scenes from such classic novels as Choderlos de Laclos’s \u003ci\u003eLes Liaisons Dangereuses \u003c\/i\u003eand Nicholson Baker’s \u003ci\u003eThe Fermata, \u003c\/i\u003efrom Junichiro Tanizaki’s \u003ci\u003eThe Key \u003c\/i\u003eand Sarah Waters’s \u003ci\u003eTipping the Velvet. \u003c\/i\u003eAccounts of ardor and transgression also flow from unexpected pens: an astonishingly explicit scene from Edith Wharton’s unfinished “Beatrice Palmato,” for example, and Guy de Maupassant’s heated “Idyll,” which describes a young peasant woman offering her breast to a starving stranger on a train. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Hunger is the fierce undercurrent to these tales: the gnawing lust of one lover for another, or the greedy pursuit of a particular inclination. The elegant depravity of an eighteenth-century French aristocrat, the dreamlike seductions of an Egyptian jinni in the form of a snake, the brutal anonymity of a highway truck-stop encounter—the stories in this richly varied collection reveal that the urge to articulate sexual desire is as inventive as it is timeless.\u003c\/p\u003eEROTIC AWAKENINGS\u003cbr\u003e Longus, from \u003ci\u003eDaphnis and Chloe\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e Michèle Roberts, “Colette Looks Back”\u003cbr\u003e Sarah Waters, from \u003ci\u003eTipping the Velvet\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eGAMES OF SEDUCTION\u003cbr\u003e Choderlos de Laclos, from \u003ci\u003eLes Liaisons Dangereuses\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e Boccaccio, from \u003ci\u003eDecameron\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e Elizabeth Speller, “Thought Waves”\u003cbr\u003e Nicholson Baker, from \u003ci\u003eThe Fermata\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eSEXUAL ALCHEMY\u003cbr\u003e Apuleius, from \u003ci\u003eThe Golden Ass\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e Alifa Rifaat, “My World of the Unknown”\u003cbr\u003e Angelica Jacob, “Misha”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLOVE HURTS\u003cbr\u003e E. M. Forster, “Dr Woolacott”\u003cbr\u003e Pauline Réage, from \u003ci\u003eThe Story of O\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e Edith Templeton, from \u003ci\u003eGordon\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, from \u003ci\u003eVenus in Furs\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eMOMENTS OF ECSTASY\u003cbr\u003e Guy de Maupassant, “Idyll”\u003cbr\u003e Edith Wharton, “My Little Girl”\u003cbr\u003e Anaïs Nin, “Marcel”\u003cbr\u003e Sarah Hall, “The Beautiful Indifference”\u003cbr\u003e Andrew Davies, from \u003ci\u003eGetting Hurt\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMARRIED PASSION\u003cbr\u003e Junichiro Tanizaki, from \u003ci\u003eThe Key\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEXTRA-MARITAL EXCURSIONS\u003cbr\u003e Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Dog”\u003cbr\u003e D. H. Lawrence, from \u003ci\u003eLady Chatterly's Lover\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Allan Gurganas, “Forced Use”\u003cbr\u003e Hanif Kureishi, “Nightlight”ROWAN PELLING is a British journalist and broadcaster who has contributed regularly to \u003ci\u003eThe Independent on Sunday, The Mail on Sunday\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eGQ\u003c\/i\u003e, and is now a columnist for \u003ci\u003eThe Daily Telegraph\u003c\/i\u003e. She is the former editor of the monthly magazine \u003ci\u003eThe Erotic Review\u003c\/i\u003e and was a judge of the Man Booker Prize in 2004.\u003ci\u003eExcerpted from the Preface\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e No strand of literature seems so thronged with pitfalls as that dealing with sexual intimacy. One writer's notion of an erotic frisson can easily be a thousand readers; an aphrodisiac; for every book lover who thrills at the baroque excesses of \u003ci\u003eStory of O\u003c\/i\u003e, there are plenty who seek gentler refuges for sensual pleasure. So I was only too aware that compiling this volume would prove no easy task. The eight years I spent editing an erotic literary magazine served to tell me how few lubricious tales appeal to the great majority of readers, or stand the test of time. Disputes over taste in humour seem minor compared to quarrels about what could judiciously be called sexy, or indeed, gratuitous. It is hard not to hear the pained voice of the prosecutor in the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial enquiring whether this were the kind of book 'you would wish your wife or servants to read'. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e Nevertheless, I discerned firm threads of consensus on the genre: the finest erotic stories are honest to the point of discomfort, even if that truth is emotional, rather than factual; they make you marvel at the author's simultaneous audacity and vulnerability; they are paced with such finesse that narrative peaks prove as cathartic as the culmination of a true seduction and they offer a master class in the language of desire—whether that vernacular be subtle or explicit—invoking all five senses. There must be leeway for the more unsettling reaches of sensation, yet the passions described should be disconcertingly familiar.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e I have tried my hardest in this volume to track down literary works that best reflect the irrepressible drive of erotic desire in all its illogical, tender and torturous manifestations. From the pastoral playground of \u003ci\u003eDaphnis and Chloe\u003c\/i\u003e to the adulterers' basement in Hanif Kureishi's 'Nightlight', every stage of seduction is traced—even to the point of the first flickering intimation of ennui. It is extraordinary to feel the nervous joy and innocence of first love leaping fresh as paint from Longus's prose nineteen centuries after his death. Who knew that Edith Wharton, mistress of erotic undercurrent, could be so explicit in her private writing? 'My Little Girl' was found among Wharton's unpublished papers after her death and is as highly charged as any sex scene written in our supposedly liberated age. As for amorous obsession, who can match Junichiro Tanizaki's description of the man whose most cherished fantasy is to stare uninterrupted at the pure white skin of his wife?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e It's sobering to reflect that some tales in this book were not generally available until the second half of the twentieth century, due to opprobrium and censorship. Or, as Phillip Larkin noted, 'Sexual intercourse began\/ In nineteen sixty-three... Between the end of the Chatterley ban\/ And the Beatles' first LP.\" It is also impossible to ignore the stark contrast between E. M. Forster's constrained allegory of gay passion, 'Dr Woolacott' (written at a time when homosexual acts were illegal), and Allan Gurganus's visceral, expansive story about a married man lured into the woods by a cocksure youth. The debate will long continue as to whether cultural restrictions and the challenge of taboos have often compelled writers to greater imaginative heights; consider the fantastical seduction of the woman who takes a djinn, in the form of a snake, as a lover in Alifa Rifaat’s 'My World of the Unknown'. Whatever the truth of the matter readers of these tales can be left in little doubt creativity is born of the act of love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e Rowan Pelling","brand":"Everyman's Library","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46300031975653,"sku":"NP9780375712395","price":25.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780375712395.jpg?v=1767726342","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/erotic-stories-isbn-9780375712395","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}