(This book is sexually explicit.)

What did Sherlock Holmes read when he got horny? "The Pearl." He was in college when it first came out. He probably saved copies and shared them with Watson around the fire at 221B Baker Street years later.

There weren't too many copies--the police shut the magazine down after 18 months. Supposedly the reason was obscenity (well, plenty of that!) but I suspect the real reason, as I describe in an ending essay, was political.

So was the most famous porn magazine of the 19th century staid and puritanical? Not exactly.

Flagellation, or spanking, that Victorian fascination, is well in evidence. That's accompanied by threesomes, orgies, DP, interracial, bisexuality (female and male), deflowering, rimming, peeing, footjobs, incest, and a bukkake scene.

You probably haven't done anything that your great-grandparents didn't try!

What's inside: this edition has every issue of "The Pearl" (all 18) plus the last Christmas Annual. (I have been unable to locate the first Christmas Annual.) Each issue typically serialized 3 to 4 stories with 1 to 16 shorter items (often poems or songs). In manuscript, this was 700+ exciting pages.

This modern edition includes 18 illustrations, 149 annotations (in case you've forgotten what a tribade is) and a 2011 introduction and closing.

Time travel back to gaslit London and discover you can still be shocked!

Read More