Books: Victorian Satyriasis

MY SECRET LIFE (11 vols. bound as 2). Anonymous. 2,359 pages. Grove. $30.

The entreporneurs of Grove Press have at last struck real pay dirt, the anti-Comstock lode of lewd literature. It should make queasy readers reach for their Turns, which as everybody knows, is smut spelled backward.

In content, this first commercial publication of My Secret Life makes Fanny Hill look like Mary Poppins. It rivals Casanova's memoirs in sheer size (2,359 pages) and weight (61 lbs.); and in the number of women dealt with (1,250 by the author's own count, 2,500 by another scholar's system), it surpasses all contenders. It...

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