Being Frank

Frank and I by Anonymous

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Here's one of those curiosities of Victorian and Edwardian erotic literature (technically Edwardian in this case, being published in 1902). In ‘Frank and I’, our 30 something, pleasure-seeking aristocratic narrator Charles is on the look out for young men to tutor and tame in accordance with his own proclivities. He encounters Francis - or ‘Frank’, whose minor crimes are an excuse for chastisement. A sound thrashing ensues… At which point, the first twist: ‘Francis’ is in fact more a ‘Frances’, a comely a teenage girl.
What follows is a very detailed, and yes, frank, account of the girl’s education in the sexual pleasures of corporal punishment in the course of Charles’ and Frank’s long-term relationship.
Graceful in its prose, the language and some of the activities on the book are nevertheless of a certain period. Not so much the sexual practices as the age of ‘Frank’, and the age difference between herself and the narrator Charles, who today would be regarded as a sexual predator. Scenes with those of an age that would today be considered minors may disturb the present-day reader. It unsettled me. Some of its descriptions reminded me of The Pearl, the late Victorian magazine “of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading”, though it is far better written.
Not sure if it’s a really a “classic” or just of a certain vintage.

I believe this has been filmed under the title ‘Lady Libertine’, but have not seen it.



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