The Way of a Man with a Maid

Man With a Maid #1

by Anonymous

‘The Way of a Man with a Maid’ is a foray into pleasure, pain, lesbianism and etiquette – told from the viewpoint of a quintessential Edwardian gent. Having first appeared in Parisian journals around the turn of the century, it is widely acknowledged to be a defining example of the erotic genre, and reveals the dark underbelly of human sexuality. Do the best things come to the woman who waits? Jack has built a special place in a padded room of an old lunatic asylum named 'The Snuggery'. Filled with ropes, cushions, straps and feathers, he chooses Alice to complete the decoration. Imprisoned against her will, she is teased into submission. And in moments of passion, when Jack names her his 'wife', Alice finally surrenders her maidenhead, submitting to the power of his unbridled lust.

Genres: Erotica, Fiction, Classics, BDSM, Historical, Sexuality, 19th Century

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1885

About the author

Books can be attributed to "Anonymous" for several reasons:

* They are officially published under that name
* They are traditional stories not attributed to a specific author
* They are religious texts not generally attributed to a specific author

Books whose authorship is merely uncertain should be attributed to Unknown.

See also: Anonymous

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

Edwardian erotic literature, although in fact the only accurate word in that description is "Edwardian". It's an extended rape/humiliation/lesbian incest fantasy involving a torture room called The Snuggery (no, really) and it is both gross and phenomenally poorly written. The author's kink is not my kink and that's...really not OK at all, actually.

If you have a high tolerance for rape fantasy etc, you might find this an interesting period piece up to the point you hit phrases like "her virgin bubbies" or "the maidenhead of her bottom". I'd suggest reading almost anything else. The phone book is pretty good, and I have a Microsoft package with some interesting-looking terms and conditions.

[Sasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Alice came out of her room with only her shoes and stockings on," reads an imaginary woman to her inventor in Shirley Jackson's novel Hangsaman, and I was like oh, what's this now? Well, it's this book right here, an anonymously written 1908 BDSM smut novel.

Obviously I went and read it. It's free online! Hooray, internet. The best thing about it is that the sex dungeon the dude builds to trap the lady in, he calls it The Snuggery, which is just a terrific name for almost anything.

When completed, the 'Snuggery' (as I christened it) was in appearance a distinctly pretty and comfortable room, while in reality it was nothing more or less than a disguised torture chamber!

And now your living room has its Halloween costume. It has like hidden straps in the armchairs and whatnot - "bolts, rings, pulleys, etc." he says helpfully as though you'll be all oh, yeah, totally. Pulleys.

The book is adequately well-written. It's often funny, sometimes intentionally so. Whether you'll like it or not depends entirely on whether you're looking to read BDSM smut written a century ago. If that's your thing, you're welcome. Especially if you're into feathers? There's a lot of tickling, which, y'know, your mileage might vary but I hope it doesn't because erotic tickling is dumb.

Of course it is all very rapey. Rape is most of the plot. Our heroines (there are several) are of course aroused by the rape, which is how things often go in consensual BDSM fantasies. You have probably made up your own mind about how you feel about this sort of thing. It's nowhere near as intense as De Sade's stuff, but it is explicit.

I'm going to go ahead and confess that I didn't read Part II because I was pretty sure I had the general idea. I understand that there is lesbian incest stuff in part II, so...there's...that?

The title, btw, comes from the Bible. One of the wack books, Proverbs.

There are three things which are too wonderful for me, Four which I do not understand: The way of an eagle in the sky, The way of a serpent on a rock, The way of a ship in the middle of the sea, And the way of a man with a maid.

Which, you're like, honestly, that fourth thing you could probably figure out if you tried, right? And also the second thing is pretty straightforward. He's probably just hanging out there. Rocks are warm. WTF, King Solomon.

It's weird and awkward to review porn. Listen, rapey stuff is fine, lesbian incest is whatever, but I draw the line at erotic tickling. That shit is fucked up.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

You know how, during Victorian times, there was a great wealth of vaudeville and doctors using vibrators on female patients and such naughty stuff, as if the very emphasis on hiding coffee table legs because they supposedly made men think of women's ankles produced, in direct contrast, a great thirst for porn. If you had thought that maybe, a hundred years and more ago, people's imaginations were much tamer than they are today, you'd be very very wrong (in fact, the history of sex is literally as old as time! It'd have to be, when you think about it, but what I mean is that "porn" is just as ancient!).

I wanted to preface this review with that paragraph in order to give it a bit of context, and so you won't be surprised when I tell you that this book, originally published in Parisian journals around the turn of the 19th century (the original publication date is unknown but considered to be about 1908), would make modern erotic novels (of which I've read several) blush.

It begins with the narrator, Jack, the "quintessential Edwardian gentleman", plotting his revenge on Alice, a pretty young lady in his social circle who rejected his suit. His vague plans clarify when he rents an apartment in what was once a mental asylum: it includes a windowless inner room with just a skylight above, completely soundproof and even still has metal rings embedded in the walls and pillars! He dubs it his "snuggery" and buys some specially designed furniture for it, chairs and couches with cleverly hidden straps and cuffs and winches. Then he sets to work making Alice comfortable in his presence, inviting her and her sister over for tea, until the day comes when Alice takes refuge from a storm and he traps her in the snuggery! Now he can enact his revenge on Alice's sweet body at his leisure.

He not only succeeds in his original plan, he also manages to "convert" Alice to his sexual nature. Jack encourages her in this, and helps her trap first her pert maid, Fanny, and then a lovely young widow, Connie. Jack ends up with a veritable harem of three women who help him entrap a lady and her marriageable daughter, who have been pestering Jack with broad hints at marriage.

On the one hand, the prose makes the story rather hilarious, and on the other the wealth of detail becomes rather too much. I had to read it in bits so as not to feel overwhelmed with it all. Jack, who narrates with glee, is very excitable and litters his sentences with exclamation points - his enthusiasm and excitement is tantamount. It also made him seem rather immature, and I have to wonder at the level of experience of the author because some of the scenarios are highly unlikely (I don't mean the scenarios themselves so much as the effect on the women victims).

Most of the time, the novel was so over-the-top and silly that it was quite funny. Towards the end, especially the part where Jack and his harem set to work corrupting Lady Betty and her daughter Molly, it was rather repulsive. But that's erotica for you - it's not necessarily "sexy". It's more a detailed exploration of repressed sexuality and coming to terms with your desires, "needs" and so forth. It's psychological. I'm not sure just how much I would read into The Way of a Man With a Maid, though. For the most part it seems to be meant simply as wicked titillation. And highly gratuitous at that. I chose to read it as smut.

I want to share the writing style with you, and I'd love to show you the kind of language used which is decidedly erotic but not at all romantic; I couldn't do so without being distasteful so I've randomly chosen a paragraph that's fairly innocent:

Confused, shamefaced and in horrible dread, Alice stood trembling in front of me, her eyes tightly closed as if to avoid the sign of my naked self, her bosom agitatedly palpitating till her breasts seemed almost to be dancing! I leant back in my chair luxuriously as I gloated over the voluptuously charming spectacle, allowing her a little time in which to recover herself somewhat before I set to work to feel her again. (p.43)

Exuberant, isn't it?

I've acquired a few other books in this Forbidden Classics series and I'm very curious about them. It's so fascinating to get this insight into the sexual escapades, perceptions, attitudes and so on, of earlier periods. Because like I said, porn is ancient in all cultures. The blurb from the publisher describes this book as "a foray into pleasure, pain, lesbianism and etiquette", and there is definitely "that" between the lines, in the depths of Alice's eyes, that make this a perfect "up yours" to Freud.

[V.W. Singer · Rating 5 out of 5]

First published in 1908, this classic of erotica has largely been forgotten or ignored by todays readers. Others criticise it for it's lack of imagination, strange social attitudes, and unrealistic or incomprehensible behaviour of its characters. And yet, I have chosen to give the book five stars. Let me tell you why.

[Spoiler Warning!]



For a start, this book is just about the precursor to all the basic BDSM tropes and fantasy stories to be found today.

Haughty woman snubs her boyfriend. Boyfriend builds a secret "dungeon" in his house, and fills it with sexually adapted furniture and other equipment. He kidnaps her and imprisons her in the "Snuggery", his name for the dungeon.

There he ties her up and has his way with her. She is stripped, and her entire body is touched and handled while she cries out in distress.

There are scenes of tickling and orgasm denial, as well as forced orgasms.

Flagellation and corporal punishment fans are not left out, and the young woman is lightly whipped with a rubber riding whip.

And of course there is sex (intercourse) with the virgin victim, who is much more willing by this time.

The book goes on the recount how his girlfriend helps him find more women who also "benefit" from the joys of "sadism", or what we would call BDSM. Later scenes include lesbian sex and punishment as well.

There is even a scene of bondage, punishment and (semi) lesbian incest between a (step) mother and her daughter!

Indeed, it sounds familiar, not because it is imitative or unimaginative, but because it is the original that so many others have have used as an example in the more than 100 years since it was published.

The book is well written, (mostly) light hearted and what modern BDSM practitioners would call "safe, sane, and consensual". Yes the language is different, but no more unacceptable than the language or attitudes of the characters in a Jane Austen novel. They are people of their time, and the book provides a fascinating peek into the more healthy sexual fantasies of the Victorians, who were far less rigid and sexless than the very name of the period suggests.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

i found this book simply enthralling. had never read a book like it before. got me hot and bothered, was entertaining, and well-written. i just really enjoyed it.

[Jo · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an educational piece on what turned our Edwardian ancestors on, this was fascinating. It was clearly written by a man with the attitude that all women want it really and once they've been 'had' they'll become wanton little hussies who'll hump anything that moves. Some of it was kind of hot but mostly it just made me giggle at how ridiculous it was.

[Sonia Almeida Dias (Peixinho de Prata) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like these old erotica books, and this was funny in its way, however it was very repetitive and by the middle of it I just wanted it to end. The mother/daughter scene is completely unnecessary, and I barely skimmed through it.

https://peixinhodepratablog.wordpress...

[Helena · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ridiculous and repetitive, with a dash of unnecessary incest. Easily the most useless book I've ever read.

[Sylvie · Rating 2 out of 5]

how time has changed. what was considered best-selling, scandalous literature in Victorian times now reads like a note between two sixth-grade boys. well, there are some SAT level words in it, but other than that...eh.

it would also be a whole lot sexier if she didn't keep screaming "no." just sayin'.

[jimmy rostova]

SHAKING MY HEAD while logging this to make it clear I do not approve of it at all but sadly I did read the whole thing out of curiosity and I’m logging it for posterity. Please don’t cancel me it was a very bad thing to read and I should be rewarded for surviving it.

[Siddhartha Sajal · Rating 2 out of 5]

It is nothing but a rape porn story.... and actually it has no literature value.

[Geoff Wooldridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have seen The Way of a Man With a Maid described as either Victorian or Edwardian erotica. I am not aware of exactly when it was published, and the author is unknown - Anonymous.

Some might call it pornography - perhaps it is, although, despite its frequent use of crude language and its explicit depiction of sexual activities, it is quite well written. Anonymous was clearly educated, and could write a coherent and well-constructed narrative.

I can quite well imagine that the Victorian gentleman would have found this tale to be quite titillating, shocking even, within a niche market.

We generally consider the Victorians to be quite chaste, prudish and sexually repressed, but there was obviously plenty going on in the bedrooms that wasn't openly discussed in polite society.

In fact, the Queen, who gave birth to 12 children, was known to be quite an enthusiastic rider of her German stallion, Albert, in the Royal chambers, and there were plenty of rumours about the nature of the widowed monarch's relationship to her Scottish Mr Fix-it, John Brown, in her more senior years.

Personally, I didn't find the story particularly erotic. Like much literature of this ilk, it becomes repetitious. One can only read so much about the erogenous parts of the male and female anatomies, and the methods by which they can be stimulated and coupled before it all becomes a little ho-hum.

I also prefer erotica to be a least a little seductive and permissive, but the sexual action in this tale is mostly coercive, vengeful and undertaken without permission, at least initially. Many of Jack's actions would certainly be considered rape and sexual assault in the modern context. I think even Jack understood that he was behaving neither morally nor legally.

Jack sets out to sexually conquer Alice, who has previously rejected his advances, as a means of revenge, using restraining devices in a special sound-proof room in his house to entrap, unclothe and sexually violate her. Although he goes out of his way not to hurt the girl physically, he nevertheless subjects Alice to severe mental anguish and physical violation against her will.

But in the nature of fantasy that is erotica and pornography, the violated woman, having had her hidden sexual demon unleashed, becomes a willing accomplice to assist Jack in undertaking similar violations of Alice's maid, Fanny, and her friend Connie, who was widowed aged 22 without having consummated her marriage.

Ultimately, the three women team up with Jack to likewise entrap, violate and humiliate an older woman and her 18 year old virgin daughter in an all-in orgiastic finale.

This is fantasy erotica, but there is no way I condone the actions depicted as being acceptable or realistic. Don't try this at home folks. The only way to read this is within the context of the history of erotica through time and culture.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Got gifted this book for my 20th birthday, I have 6 out of 10 of these forbidden classics, I've read the other five over the past decade.

With no exact publication date or author whose been outted (by force or by choice), this book is estimated to be released around "the turn of the century", with it being found in Parisian journals, unlike its predecessors who had a estimated release date and outted authors.

Told from an Edwardian gents point of view, this plays into pleasure,pain,lesbianism and etiquette, as well as incest (mother & daughter).

Unlike the other 5 books I have and read, this doesn't have a story line. Its straight up porn. Detailed porn, from floggers, feather ticklers, bondage and specifically designed furniture, including descriptions of pubic hair, naked bodies and physical touchs.

It's also a story of submission BUT non consensual; not CNC, but straight up NC.

A story of the power of a man tricking woman into his "snuggery" and doing as he pleases such as taking their virginity through rough handling and force submission.

Since this was found as a journal, one can only assume a man with a thirst to be "spent" was dreaming of his fantasy or even a man who saw himself as Don Juan; and actually writing down his acts.

[Monnette · Rating 3 out of 5]

what the freak did I just read...

you know when you watch a slasher film... like American Psycho... and you HAVE to watch Christian Bale kill all those people... meticulously plan their deaths then clean up after them? That's how I felt reading about the rapes of five women. The first, Alice, was a virgin who had turned down the advances of Jack and as punishment, he planned her rape... even getting custom made furniture that clasps on its occupant to hold them in place. Somehow Alice enjoys it and helps him rape first her maid, and with her maid, her dear friend. It was okay to read those parts as long as I kept telling myself it was fiction and written in the early 1900s. Jack was never abusive to the women... he turned them on first and gently effed them... he seemed to enjoy most the degradation they displayed-the mortification- than the physicality of the act. The women later became lesbionoc (spelling?) and enjoyed each other. Then came the rape of the last two women. A mother daughter set. This was the hardest part to read because it really was rape... the women and Jack conspired to punish the mother and daughter and take pleasure in making them do incestuous acts and finally Jack forces himself on the daughter who is a virgin... and he's not gentle at all.

the book bothers me.. I'm going to admit that... and I can't believe I finished it. really... I couldn't put it down.. I had to know what was going to happen. I wouldn't recommend it to just anyone and I'm surprised it's a library book ( considering there are a lot of titles libraries don't have)... but it was a very interesting read.

and now I'm curious about the affect (or is it effect?) of a feather....

[Vittoria Corella · Rating 3 out of 5]

http://victoriansolstice.forumfree.it...…

"Why doesn't someone simply report Jack to the police?"
Te lo chiedi dall’inizio alla fine: ma a ‘sto tizio non lo denuncia nessuno?
Libro erotico sottile come un preservativo ricavato da una camera d’aria del giro d’Italia, narra le prodezze di Jack (un nome, un destino) che ogni volta che viene rifiutato da una ragazza, la rapisce, la porta in una specie di sotterraneo molto De Sade e la stupra con tale e tanta fantasia, che la tizia di turno, invece che denunciarlo appena mette il naso fuori dal Dungeon, se ne innamora perdutamente e diventa sua complice nel successivo rapimento, tanto che verso la fine il sotterraneo è affollato come Zara il sabato pomeriggio durante i saldi. E tutte ste oche belle contente di farsi legare al soffitto e prenderlo in tutti i modi possibili e immaginabili, oltre a trasformarsi tutte in Lesbiche, lesbicissime, ovvio, che quando Jack è impegnato altrove, mica possono stare lì a guardare!
Grandi ansiti, sollevamenti di petti voluttuosi, esclamazioni da triplo esclamativo: il regno dell’erotico vittoriano. L’autore ignora che le donne se eccitate si ‘bagnano’ e le fa esplodere in ondate liquide al momento dell’orgasmo tipo gavettone a ferragosto.
Secondo me l’autore era l’equivalente della ragazzina infoiata che scrive le fanfiction porno di Harry Potter, ma non l’ha mai visto dal vivo (no, non Harry Potter)
Divertente: tutti qui dentro partono normali e diventano depravati con grande elasticità.

Come sempre dalla premitata ditta Anonymous (no, non gli Hackers)

[Tracey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one of those books you know you should not enjoy but you just can't help but like it. You first start reading it and realise it's about Jack is planning on capturing Alice and rapping your till she submits to him and he doe's lots of things to her which she really enjoys. He ends up getting four more women and doing the same but with these one's Alice help it is a very sexy hot erotica if you just put the rape out of your head and just enjoy the experiences the women go through, he doesn't hurt them and he is kind to them. He does all this without anyone finding out and I did not like a few act's he did with a couple of the women I found it distasteful but that's my opinion other's might like it. He done all this in an old building that used to be a special place in a padded room of an old lunatic asylum. Jack filled it with ropes, cushions, straps, and feathers. This is were he rapes all five women into submission. If the asylum was still operating I believe Jack would be in their as he is like a crazy sex crazed man such as the way he thinks of women and the way he just imprisons them and rapes them he is just crazy. If he hadn't raped them and they actually consented to the sexual act I would have gave it a 4 star. Overall I liked it and enjoyed the sexual acts.

[Eve Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story was an entertaining piece of easy reading. I soon noted that it is deffinitely not meant to be taken seriously. The storytelling makes it quite obvious. So out the window go my feminist initial "Oh how dare he!" reactions and in comes the "Oh how he certainly does!" reactions.
With all its very frank descriptions of matters of, well, sex it cannot have been meant for no other reason than to be something fun readers can enjoy without judgement.
And, theeeeeen...It got quite repetetive, and well, it all was pretty much a bore. I do enjoy a good story and sex doesn't distract it, it's just when all the sex is the main focus its get mundane.
And, well frankly:

[Ri · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fact that the majority of the sex described in this is non-consensual could make the writing offensive or shocking to the modern reader. Jack is an enterprising rapist who somehow gets away with it every time, and even converts his victims into lovers and accomplices. This beggars belief in the first instance, but when it happens two more times, you just shrug your shoulders or roll your eyes and go along with it; because, just like modern erotica, the credulity of the plot tends to be beside the point.

As with other examples of erotica from late the 19th or early 20th century, it's the odd juxtaposition of the proper language with the improper behaviour that makes it fascinating and perhaps more erotic than its modern equivalent. The time and setting heighten the impression of taboos.

[Sangeeta K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Imagine fifty shades of grey on steroids, in the Edwardian era, possibly in either colonized America or post colonial England -this is as succinct a description I could muster. I won't even get into the nitty-gritty, this was a cheap book I bought from Sri Lanka because I was bored and needed reading material.

Should you pick up your own copy, play this drinking game - Everytime a character says, "Oh!" "Don't, Jack!" "Cunt" "Prick" "Boiling essence" and "Spend", take a shot.

You wouldn't possibly survive past 100 pages.

[Ivy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Mother/Daughter incest was unnecessary and made me cringe, but otherwise a very enjoyable read.

[Mr Lawrence]

If you want to read badly written erotic novels dip into some written recently. 'The Way of a Man with a Maid' may not be a great work of literature but it has panache, style and even humour ( though I acknowledge to appreciate the humour you have to accept the writer is creating fantasy not reflecting life in the late Nineteenth Century )
I came across it as an adolescent and found it wildly exciting. I've read it many times since and it still arouses me ( and that's the true test of an erotic novel ). I think some of the requirements for this kind of writing, which 'The Way..' illustrates successfully are:
1. not to be in too much of a hurry. The first chapter outlines the characters, their situations and their earlier relationship. When Jack finally traps Alice and undresses her the 'disrobing' is detailed garment by garment until she is naked and he then provides a detailed description of the beauties of her body.
2. in most modern pornography the accounts of sexual acts are brutal ( particularly towards the woman ) and the style is crass and crude. Jack's sequence of sexual activities with Alice are forceful - because she is initially unwilling - but done with attention to her needs as well as his own. He threatens, but lightheartedly because he wants to bring her to recognise her own sexual hunger and to introduce her to the richness of alternative ways of making love.
Am I playing down the male dominance which characterises the novel ? Probably, but remember it was written at a time when such behaviour was commonplace and rememer, also, that without Jack's use of force Alice would not accept his advances and there would be no story.
It's also worth keeping in mind that Jack is not wildly promiscuous: the women he seduces are invited into a group and enjoy each other in subsequent meetings.
Yes, it's pornographic in as much as it describes of all kinds of sexual pleasure and yes, it's seen from a man's perspective but the action is never frightening or brutal and the writing reflects this in its gentle tone and its humour.

[Don Brynelsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the term "Victorian Erotica" is mentioned, this book is usually the first to come to mind. Having had two film adaption based upon it, it has long been in the public contiousness. It is essentially the story of an Edwardian gentleman of relatively high station named Jack Armstrong who decides to exact his revenge on the young woman of the same social circle who spurned his overtures of marriage by luring her to his private seduction/ torture chamber called the snuggery where she is stripped of her clothes before being subjected to several forms of rape and S&M until she is converted into a debauched nymphomaniac eager to join Jack in first the seduction and degradation of her own ladies maid, then a young widow of her acquaintance . The next target of Jack and his now equally depraved female accomplices is a stuck up society matron and her virginal young daughter who during the course of their "Training" are compelled to perform a number of incestuous sexual acts on each other (and as it turns out, enjoying it!)

This book is very graphic and explicet in it's depictions of the rape,torture, S&M , and other deviant sexual acts perpetrated by Jack on his female victims and they on each other, giving the lie to the notion that the Victorians were sexually repressed prudes. Not a great work of literature by any means, it could be best discribed with a term my late father used to describe my collection of historical smut novels and collections of historical pornography, calling them "Horny books" meant to be held in one hand while you stroked yourself off with the other.

[Tasha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Kinda surprised this is in the "always available" section of Overdrive, the ebook portal for the American library system. It's a 1908 erotic novel of sorts, ridiculously lurid and graphic, about a man who creates a fantasy dungeon full of nigh-magical torture-furniture, then starts trapping women in it and raping them, although as soon as they experience sex, they get so inflamed and addicted that they drop all their inhibitions and become his willing accomplices in trapping more women.

For a little while early on, in the part that still acknowledges society and reads a bit like an actual literary novel, it's an interesting novelty, for the period's sexual slang (some of which has persisted to the present, and some of which has decidedly not) and all the societal assumptions about how people interact socially. And it's kind of absorbing to see what was considered especially taboo well over a century ago. But it gets real repetitive real fast, as the same scenario plays out over and over — if I understand correctly, this was published as a serial, and it definitely reads like someone spelling out their limited set of fetishes over widely spaced installments, rather than in something actually designed as a novel. This is definitely a book by someone who was really, really into feathers, humiliation, bondage, and eventually (and pretty unpleasantly) forced incest. Oh, and also exclamation points. A TON of exclamation points. YMMV on whether you find any of this a draw, but I think we can all agree that the endless exclamation points are a bit much.

[Pamela Grant · Rating 1 out of 5]

so… my copy has volume one and two, “the tragedy” and “the comedy”. i’m going to have to shelf it after having finished the tragedy and a couple pages of comedy.

cons: it’s repetitive and disgusting, i’ve never read erotica before so i was interested in such an early example. rape is pretty much the whole one and only event that takes place the entire volume, aside from one opening chapter explaining that the guy was “jilted” by some girl and is now gonna get an apartment with soundproof room to trap her in and take her virginity in retaliation. no backstory aside from that is given at all and no context for any of their past, he never even used a word besides “jilted” to explain his motive. lazy to me but i guess the readers of the time probably wanted the action right away. action they got, the whole rest of it takes place during one day and she’s just fucked in different ways over and over. she’s like screaming and he makes her bleed and then he gives her an aphrodisiac and she like starts to like it. i suppose the rest of the book is them initiating others into it. idk just very basic and reminiscent of modern porn to me. nothing excited me aside from a couple sexy descriptions of her body but that’s a really low bar. he makes her cum over and over in so many scenes and it’s so cringe to me.

pros: electricity is pretty new in the time of its writing, so it’s cool to hear the author scheme up powered furniture to assist in restraining her. and it’s a precursor to so much modern bsdm content. i also like that he calls pussy “mont venus”

[Sheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

🔥🔥🔥🔥
I was fortunate to find an audiobook version read by a woman (Unknown) who sounds an awful lot like Eva Green. Her dark sultry voice took the heat factor up several notches.
This is some heavy Victorian/Edwardian porn, lots of coercion and restraints and torturing women into sexual submission. Once the seal is broken, so to speak, the women become willing depraved participants in the games.
As in Autobiography of a Flea, a surprising amount of attention is paid to female arousal and orgasm--- clearly the perception that sex was mostly for procreation or at best male pleasure is somewhat skewed.
These folks were having a hot time, and it makes for very spicy reading/listening today.

[Cep Subhan KM · Rating 4 out of 5]

I understand why it becomes the "forbidden classics" : it has its own class in the genre. Two last chapters are the most amazing parts which play on the power of imagination. Some people believe that imagination is provoked better by visual appearance and I don't think so. Trust me, for a more intellectual mind, text is the best one.

[merv · Rating 1 out of 5]

victorian smut #2 lets acknowledge the elephant in the room and move on. its grape smut. yup. i don't even think someone who likes this kind of thing would find it hot. its a shitty cornhub ad in fancy writing. a 14 year old with unrestricted internet access on ao3 would obliterate this loser. no wonder he chose to stay anonymous

[Eli (Potterhead) · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF... and glad I didn’t once I read the reviews about the mother daughter ending. Maybe the main guy and girl, possibly the maid after that, but anymore was just hard to believe. The repetitiveness killed it for me definitely.

[Jane]

I got a few chapters into part two and decided that was enough.

It was an interesting read in how almost contemporary it felt in terms of erotica and porn tropes, especially in light of how anti-sex people have become regarding movies, etc. Not terribly well written though and very repetitive.

[Cassandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure what to think about this one. It reads like someone’s rape fantasy as Jack, the main character, eventually has his first lover bring other women into his life to “toy” with…
I know who the intended readers are and I’m definitely not one of them.