The English Governess

by John Glassco, Miles Underwood, Michael Gnarowski (introduction)

A classic of Canadian erotica, this is the original restored edition of the flagellation story Glassco crafted for the notorious Paris publisher Maurice Girodias and his Olympia Press.

John Glassco (1909-1981) came from an established Montréal family, and lived the better part of his life near the village of Foster in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. He was a distinguished poet, novelist, essayist and translator—the Glassco prize for translation was named after him. His works include the widely acclaimed Memoirs of Montparnasse (1970), A Point of Sky (1964), The Fatal Woman (1974) and Selected Poems (1971) for which he won the Governor General’s Award.

Michael Gnorowski, who introduces The English Governess, knew Glassco for many years. He has recently published a new edition of Glassco’s Selected Poems with notes and an introduction, 1997, and edited Glassco’s Memoirs of Montparnasse with an introduction and annotation for Oxford University Press, 1995.

Genres: Erotica, BDSM, Classics

133 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1960

About the author

He also published under the pseudonyms Miles Underwood, Sylvia Bayer, George Colman and Jean De Saint-Luc.

John Glassco was a Canadian poet, memoirist, novelist and translator. Glassco will be remembered for his brilliant autobiography, his elegant, classical poems, his translations and his erotica.

See also Encyclopaedia Britannica

Reviews

[Zakfar Magni · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is good for a classic. Composition of its text is so impressive that I've decided to add an additional star to my originally planned rating. It is so good that if the book was not an erotica it could be used in schools/colleges for educational purpose. But as an erotica there are several issues with it. At first, the fact that the main character is a young boy who went through such cruelty made it feel rather bad to even someone like me who loves reading Femdom books of extreme cruelty. Many others will not find it much entertaining. Then there are several parts in the book that feel like boring interludes. Many of the scenes also feel repetitive. Though I will still recommend it to everyone interested in Femdom erotica, as its extremely rare to read a book on the subject with an artistic crafting same as this.

[MaleReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this title because I heard it was a literary classic about female domination. Because I had read “Venus in fur”, which is also a classic in femdom literature, I was expecting a work of similar rank. I was quite disappointed. It’s almost only discipline through corporal punishment, and a bit of humiliation. I didn't connect much with the characters as it is more telling than showing. There is quite a bit of vanilla sex and the s&m portion is very extreme, repetitive and unarousing.