World Food Books

Fuzoku Kitan
April 1974

1974, Japanese
Softcover, 210 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo

$55.00 $35.00 - Out of stock

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April 1974 issue of Fuzoku Kitan, an important Japanese SM magazine was published between 1960—1974, and edited by Hajime Takakura. Filled with SM stories and illustrations, along with colour and b/w gravure photographic kitan and fetish photoshoots and art galleries, the magazine published a wild array of subjects on sexual customs, especially a significant amount of queer and transgender sexuality, lots of cross-dressing, masochism, torture, sodomy, sadophelia and fem-dom material. Includes artwork by Tatsuji Okawa, Men's Naked Festival, artwork by Gene Bilbrew, Flowers In Full Bloom (Western SM photography and play), kinbaku photo gallery, fem-fem Western spanking photography, lots of stories from Japanese cross-dressers, readers confessions, a treasure-trove of illustrated transgressive fiction, almost all articles under nom de plumes! Also, excellent ads.

VG—Good copy, with light wear, tanning.

File under: Tatsuji Okawa Gene Bilbrew Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Fetishism / BDSM Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Counterculture SALE

Fuzoku Kitan : Masochist Ecstasy
April 1962

1962, Japanese
Softcover, 190 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo

$100.00 $80.00 - Out of stock

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Very rare early special "Masochist Ecstasy" issue of Fuzoku Kitan, an important Japanese SM magazine was published between 1960-1974, and edited by Hajime Takakura. Filled with SM stories and illustrations, along with colour and b/w gravure photographic kitan and fetish photoshoots and art galleries, the magazine published a wild array of subjects on sexual customs, especially a significant amount of western SM artists and material introduced to Japanese audiences and a great deal of queer sexuality. This issue from 1962 is probably one of the finest examples of this, featuring photographic spreads of Japanese and western male physique models, Japanese cross-dressers, Japanese and western female kinbaku/bondage photography, the "man, man, man, man's world!" feature of queer western romanesque illustration from George Quaintance, Tom of Finland, and others, illustrated cover article on Masochism, stories from Japanese cross-dressers, illustrated fiction of gay and lesbian SM stories, as well as lots of fem-dom, sodomy and sadophelia. Almost all articles under nom de plumes! Cover art by Tom of Finland.

Good copy, with edge wear and tanning from age. Binding great.

File under: Tom of Finland George Quaintance Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Eros Japanese Photography Fetishism / BDSM Counterculture Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées SALE

Fuzoku Kitan
March 1969

1969, Japanese
Softcover, 242 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo

$45.00 - Out of stock

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March 1969 issue of Fuzoku Kitan, an important Japanese SM magazine was published between 1960—1974, and edited by Hajime Takakura. Filled with SM stories and illustrations, along with colour and b/w gravure photographic kitan and fetish photoshoots and art galleries, the magazine published a wild array of subjects on sexual customs, especially a significant amount of queer and transgender sexuality, lots of cross-dressing, masochism, torture, sodomy, sadophelia and fem-dom material. Includes documentation of performance of author Isamu Kurita's "Aikyo" (Tadanori Yokoo, Akira Uno collaborator), fetish artworks by Gene Bilbrew and Eric Stanton, female equestrianism photography, fem-fem Western spanking photography, lots of stories from Japanese cross-dressers, readers confessions, a treasure-trove of illustrated transgressive fiction, almost all articles under nom de plumes! Also, excellent ads.

VG—Good copy, with light wear, tanning.

File under: Gene Bilbrew Eric Stanton Isamu Kurita Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Fetishism / BDSM Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Counterculture

Fuzoku Kitan
March 1972

1972, Japanese
Softcover, 190 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / good
Published by Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo

$45.00 $25.00 - Out of stock

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March 1972 issue of Fuzoku Kitan, an important Japanese SM magazine was published between 1960—1974, and edited by Hajime Takakura. Filled with SM stories and illustrations, along with colour and b/w gravure photographic kitan and fetish photoshoots and art galleries, the magazine published a wild array of subjects on sexual customs, especially a significant amount of queer and transgender sexuality, lots of cross-dressing, masochism, torture, sodomy, sadophelia and fem-dom material. Art gallery by master of kinbaku illustration Yoko Ozuma, equestrianism photography, lots of stories from Japanese cross-dressers, readers confessions, a treasure-trove of illustrated transgressive fiction, almost all articles under nom de plumes! Also, excellent ads.

VG—Good copy, with light cover/spine wear, tanning.

File under: Yoko Ozuma Bunken Shiryo Kankokai / Tokyo Periodicals Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+ Eros Out-of-print / Rare Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Counterculture Japanese Photography SALE

The Complete Fear of Kathy Acker
by Jack Skelley

2023, English
Softcover, 136 pages, 20.1 x 13.6 cm
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$35.00 - Out of stock

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The first complete edition of this notorious novel which maps the 1980s anarchic underground of Los Angeles.

Published in excerpts over almost four decades, Jack Skelley's "secretly legendary" novel is at once an homage to the thrillingly inventive spirit of Kathy Acker's cut-up novels and a definitive history of LA's underground culture of the mid-1980s.

Composed in bursts, Fear of Kathy Acker depicts Los Angeles through the eyes of a self-mocking narrator. Shifting styles and personae as he moves between Venice and Torrance, punk clubs and shopping malls, Disneyland and Dodger Stadium, Jack Skelley pushes the limits of language and identity while pursuing-like Kathy Acker-a quixotic literary mix of discipline and anarchy. In this adrenalized, cosmic, and comic chronicle of Los Angeles, Skelley's "real life" friends make cameo appearances alongside pop archetypes from Madonna to Billy Idol.

This first-ever complete edition of the book includes new essays, playlists, and a map of the 1980s Los Angeles in which its manic protagonist lives and loves.

"Fear of Kathy Acker is one of the great lost masterpieces of '80s experimental fiction. That it's no longer an inaccessible legend is huge."—Dennis Cooper

"Jack Skelley pours it on like sometimes blam blam blam like the riff in "Death Valley '69" but mostly with a surfer's rhythm like the cool throb of his guitar, his writing the poetics of pink love and punk pool splash action, the sound I adore."—Thurston Moore

"Despite the dislike of seeing my own name, you're really a good writer—never what's expected."—Kathy Acker

"Deft, deadpan, dreadful, deliberate, delirious. Perfect adult bedtime reading."—Jane Rankin-Reid, White Hot Magazine

File under: Kathy Acker Kathy Acker Jack Skelley Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Fiction / Poetry LGBTQ+ Performance / Dance / Theater Art

Mel Odom
First Eyes

1982, English / Japanese
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Genko-sha / Tokyo

$100.00 - In stock -

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First printing of the first ever book on the work of queer American illustrator Mel Odom (b. 1950), published in Japan in 1982. Profusely illustrated throughout with Odom's dreamy, highly-stylised, erotically-charged fantasy illustrations, made famous adorning the paperback covers of novels by Patrick White and in the pages of Blue Boy and through Odom's award-winning and still lauded tenure at Playboy. Odom's delicate and dreamy men struck a chord with the viewing public. They were finally seeing male figures of lust depicted lovingly, softly, in the sea of aggressive hyper-masculinity that dominated gay aesthetics of the time. Alongside his many masterful works (that owe much to art deco, the silver screen, and pre-Raphaelite sensuality) reproduced together for the first time, First Eyes also includes Odom's childhood drawings, photographic portraits, his sculptural painted masks, and much more. All texts in English and Japanese.

Very Good copy with light tan/wear.

File under: Mel Odom Genko-sha / Tokyo Art Fashion Out-of-print / Rare LGBTQ+ Drawing Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Eros

Mother Clap's Molly House: Gay Subculture in England, 1700-1830
by Rictor Norton

1992, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 14.6 x 22.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Gay Men's Press / London

$160.00 - In stock -

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Very rare 1992 Gay Men's Press first printing of this pioneering historical study — the first comprehensive chronicle of the English gay community at its 18th-century roots, sporting for the first time a distinctive subculture with its "molly houses", "sodomites' walks", "maiden names" and gay slang. Rictor Norton's research into trial records and contemporary documents establishes a vital cornerstone for the reconstruction of gay history. Challenging in its demonstration that the molly subculture was primarily a working-class community of blacksmiths, milkmen, publicans and shopkeepers, Mother Clap's Molly House also records the exuberant lives of personalities such as Charles Hitchin the "thief-taker", the dramatists Samuel Foote and Isaac Bickerstaff, William Beckford of Fonthill, and Rev. John Church, prosecuted for his blessing of gay marriages. All these are set against a backdrop of persecution, blackmail and the pillory. And yes, "Mother Clap's" actually was the name of a prominent molly house!

Rictor Norton earned his Ph.D. from Florida State University for a study of homosexual themes in English Renaissance Literature, the basis for his book The Homosexual Literary Tradition, and he edited a highly-acclaimed issue of College English devoted to The Homosexual Imagination. He moved to London in 1973, and was an editor for Gay News from 1974-1978.

VG—Good copy with some light wear, tiny closed tear to cover right edge, foxing to endpapers and block edge, otherwise Very Good copy throughout, uncreased spine.

File under: Rictor Norton Gay Men's Press / London LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare Counterculture Theory / Essay Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism

Forbidden History : The State, Society, and the Regulation of Sexuality in Modern Europe
Edited by John C. Fout

1992, English
Softcover, 410 pages, 23.17 x 16.66 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by University of Chicago Press / Chicago

$45.00 - Out of stock

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From incest to infanticide, from breast-feeding and women's sexuality to female prostitution, from pornography to reproductive politics, and from the first homosexual rights movement to AIDS—this anthology addresses these and other crucial questions concerning the regulation of sexuality: How have society's values and attitudes toward sexuality and morality changed over the centuries? Why and how has the state sought to criminalize certain forms of sexual behavior and to control reproduction? How have churches tried to influence the state in its regulation of sexuality?

Contributions from a diverse group of prominent scholars representing a variety of disciplines are included in this anthology that spans European history. Essays by Randolph Trumbach on "Sex, Gender, and Identity in Modern Culture: Male Sodomy and Female Prostitution in Enlightenment London"; Ruth Perry on "Colonizing the Breast: Sexuality and Maternity in Eighteenth Century England"; Theo van der Meer on "Female Same-Sex Offenders in Late Eighteenth Century Amsterdam"; Robin Ann Sheets on "Pornography, Fairy Tales, and Feminism: Angela Carter's 'The Bloody Chamber'"; and James W. Jones on "Discourses on and of AIDS in West Germany, 1986-1990." Offering the most up-to-date scholarship from a significant and growing field, this collection is essential for both students and faculty in social history, family history, women's and gender studies, gay studies, sociology and literature. These essays were originally published in the Journal of the History of Sexuality.

John C. Fout is professor of history at Bard College. He is the founding editor of the Journal of the History of Sexuality, and general editor of The Chicago Series on Sexuality, History, and Society, a book series published by the University of Chicago Press.

Very Good copy.

File under: John C. Fout Angela Carter Robin Ann Sheets Randolph Trumbach Ruth Perry Theo van der Meer James W. Jones University of Chicago Press / Chicago Out-of-print / Rare Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language Philosophy Eros Feminism Sociology / Politics Crime / Violence LGBTQ+ Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

I, Boombox
by Robert Glück

2023, English
Softcover, 194 pages, 14.6 x 22.23 cm
Published by Roof Books / New York

$48.00 - Out of stock

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Robert Glück's new book I, Boombox is a long poem fashioned from the author's misreadings. In that sense, it's a queer autobiography in which Glück dreams on the page. Winner of the Gertrude Stein Award for Innovative Poetry in English.

"Rimbaud infamously claimed that I is an other, but for Bob I is a flicker of error, or a wandering ear that invents. He has made a home for several decades of errant listening in this sinuous long poem, which light heartedly teases the modernist tradition it also subverts. In true mock-heroic manner, Bob reveals from his gay marble desk how God's laughter glides in and out of garden festival, action film, and sublet alike. I have been waiting for this book for years and it sweetly exceeds all of my hopes."—Lisa Robertson

"In I, Boombox, Robert Glück makes it clear that dreams are as real as the spurts of sentences we use to discover them. Scoring the 'umbilical/indescribabilia' that accompanies unconscious feeling into a thin strip of thickly montaged verse, the 'invisible speakers' that populate Glück's poem--their misreadings and cant half-truths, their headlines and lies--turn dream's content into poetic foam. In this mind's eye--the 'suburb' is blithely rendered into a thing 'superb, ' and 'loneliness' roars with the face of a 'lioness /and intimacy.' I, Boombox is a poem of frothy divinations tempered by the slapstick of speech. It suggests that desire without sense is desire nevertheless--and this is a delight to understand."—Shiv Kotecha

Robert Glück served as director of San Francisco State University's The Poetry Center, co-director of Small Press Traffic Literary Center, and associate editor at Lapis Press. His books include two novels, Jack the Modernist and Margery Kempe, two books of stories, ELEMENTS OF A COFFEE SERVICE and Denny Smith, a book of poems, Reader, and with Kathleen Fraser, a book of prose poems, In Commemoration of the Visit. With Bruce Boone, Glück translated La Fontaine for a book of that name. With Camille Roy, Mary Berger, and Gail Scott, he edited Biting the Error: Writers on Narrative. Glück prefaced Between Life and Death, a volume of Frank Moore's paintings, and, with artist Dean Smith, made the film Aliengnosis, based on readings from I, Boombox. Other books include Communal Nude: Collected Essays, and Parables, an editioned artist book with Cuban artists José Angel Toirac and Meira Marrero D'az. Margery Kempe was republished by NYRB Classics in 2020 and his novel About Ed by NYRB in 2023.

File under: Robert Glück Roof Books / New York LGBTQ+ Fiction / Poetry

Good Sex Illustrated
By Tony Duvert

2007, English
Softcover, 216 pages, 15.5 x 23 cm
Published by Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles

$35.00 - In stock -

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Translated with introduction by Bruce Benderson

A scathing view of sex manuals for children and society's hypocrisy of over sex that argues for the rights of children to their own bodies and their own sexuality.

Why is pleasure "doubled" when it's "shared"?... Do you really have to cut pleasure in two so that it'll exist? I mean, if it's doubled when there are two of you, then it must be tripled when there are three, quadrupled when there are four, centupled when there are a hundred, right? Is it O.K. for a hundred to share? And if I get used to trying it all alone, why is it that I'll never love anyone again? Is it that good alone and that awful with others? ; from Good Sex Illustrated First published in France in 1973, Good Sex Illustrated gleefully deciphers the subtext of a popular sex education manual for children produced during that period. In so doing, Duvert mounts a scabrous and scathing critique of how deftly the "sex-positive" ethos was harnessed to promote the ideal of the nuclear family. Like Michel Houllebecq, Duvert is highly attuned to all the hypocrisies of late twentieth century western "sexual liberation" mass movements. As Bruce Benderson notes in his introduction, Good Sex Illustrated shows that, "in our sexual order, orgasm follows the patterns of any other kind of capital... 'good sex' is a voracious profit machine." But unlike Houllebecq, Duvert writes from a passionate belief in the integrity of unpoliced sex and of pleasure. Even more controversially now than when the book was first published, Duvert asserts the child's right to his or her own playful, unproductive sexuality. Bruce Benderson's translation will belatedly introduce English-speaking audiences to the most infamous gay French writer since Jean Gênet.

Tony Duvert (1945–2008) earned a reputation as the “enfant terrible” of the generation of French authors known for defining the postwar Nouveau Roman. Expelled from school at the age of 12 for homosexuality (and then put through a psychoanalytic “cure” for his condition), Duvert declared war on family life and societal norms through a controversial series of novels and essays (whose frequent controversial depictions of child sexuality and pedophilia often lead his publisher to sell his works by subscription only). He won the Prix Medicis in 1973 for his novel Strange Landscape. His reputation faded in the 1980s, however, and he withdrew from society. He died in isolation in July 2008 in the commune of Thoré-la-Rochette in central France.

File under: Bruce Benderson Tony Duvert Semiotext(e) / Los Angeles Eros LGBTQ+ Theory / Essay

Jean Cocteau
Erotica Drawings

1991, English
Hardcover (w. dust jacket), 110 pages, 20.3 x 28.3 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Peter Owen Ltd. / London

$160.00 - In stock -

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First hardcover edition of this splendid collection of Jean Cocteau's Erotica Drawings, published by Peter Owen Ltd., London, published in 1991.

Although better known for his poetry, films and novels, Jean Cocteau experimented with drawing from childhood, and his caricatures have become iconic of his unique vision of people and life. This beautiful book collects four decades of his erotic drawings, many of which could not be published in the artist's lifetime. With images of some of Cocteau's famous lovers, including author Raymond Radiguet and actor Jean Marais.

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (1889—1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the surrealist, avant-garde, and Dadaist movements; and one of the most influential figures in early 20th-century art as a whole.

Very Good copy with VG dust jacket.

File under: Jean Cocteau Jean Cocteau Peter Owen Ltd. / London Art Drawing Eros Out-of-print / Rare LGBTQ+

Le Sang et La Rose No. 1, 1968

1968, Japanese / French
Softcover, 228 pages, 23 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo

$110.00 - Out of stock

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Revue de Érotologie, Homosexualité, Sadisme, Masochisme, Fétischisme, Narcissime, Infantilisme, Magie, Occultisme, Humour Noir, Complexe Psychisme. What more could you ask for? Le Sang Et La Rose is a masterpiece of the Japanese underground. A groundbreaking, powerful, yet short-lived Japanese arts and literary journal published in Tokyo from late 1968—mid 1969, published in a total of four luxurious, now collectible, volumes. The first three issues were edited by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), a legendary, controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade, and specialist in medieval demonology. The importance of this magazine to the Japanese avant-garde and radical culture cannot be overstated.

Born from a period of political, social and economical turmoil in Japan, Le Sang Et La Rose may be understood as a emblematic distillation and product of the late ‘60s student rebellion and anti-authoritarian underground culture. Wilfully politically subversive, the publication drew upon a vast range of perspectives - from criticism, literature, obscure esoteric sciences, art, eroticism, radical avant-garde and a historical-rooted Japanese counterculture; featuring literature, theory, art, photography, illustration and graphic design from the most innovative and subversive Japanese and international (predominately French) artists, authors and critics, spanning the themes above. As instigator, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa in effect formulated the magazine’s design to be a spiritual and political operative that would weaponize its readers minds. This stance was made clear in the 1969 manifesto text — "My 1969" — in which Shibusawa discuss' how he perceived the ‘60s as being the age of ideas, ideas as weapons, and outlined a distain towards systems of power, moralism, State oppression, sanitised and harmless liberalism, dogmatic academic sciences and an outright distrust for ideological, progressive literary scholars who advocate "freedom of expression", but have never caused friction with the judicial power. The magazine sketched out an aim to push towards a new kind of personal freedom, intellect, autonomy and moral compass. Here, the concept of ‘erotism’ — as discussed by Georges Bataille in his highly influential 1957 book "Erotism: Death and Sensuality" — acts as a critical force. 

Issue no. 1 (1968) sets the scene perfectly, opening with Japanese author Yukio Mishima depicted as Saint Sebastian by photographer Kishin Shinoyama in a pictorial feature "Les Morts Masculines", a photographic homage to Georges Bataille that also features the photography of Eikoh Hosoe, Ikkō Narahara, Masahisa Fukase, and Osamu Hayasaki, with models including Butoh founder Tatsumi Hijikata, actor Akira Mita, author Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, actor Jin Nakayama, playwright Jūrō Kara, and others. Other features include " All Japanese are Perverse" — stories by Japanese writers including Yukio Mishima, Taruho Inagaki, Yutaka Haniya, Shinji Sōya; Henry Miller's letters to Anais Nin; a colour gallery of artwork by Belgian painter Paul Delvaux; articles on Vampire fantasy in the arts (including many original illustrations; Witches (illustrated by James Ensor); Oriental Eros, Ancient Indian poetry; Kama Sutra; female bi-sexuality; the history of gay (Danshoku) theatre in Japan; the full-colour art gallery "Masturbation Machine", featuring avant-garde artists Natsuyuki Nakanishi, Masuo Ikeda, Setsu Nagasawa, Carlos Marchioli, Kuniyoshi Kaneko, Masakazu Horiuchi, Tadanori Yokoo, Koji Suzuki, Tommy Ungerer; the fully illustrated museum supplement "Pain and Pleasure : On Torture" by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa with artworks throughout history; pornographic stories by Guillaume Apollinaire and Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne (who coined the term "Pornographer"); fiction by Pierre Morion (pseudo. André Pieyre de Mandiargues); critic Jin'ichi Uekusa on the controversial writings of Roger Peyrefitte, illustrations by Ernst, Bellmer, Labisse, Fini, Lam, and much more.

Tatsuhiko Shibusawa (1928—1987), was a well-known and controversial Japanese novelist, art critic, and translator of French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille and Marquis de Sade. In 1960 he and his publisher, Kyōji Ishii, were trialled for public obscenity over the publishing of Shibusawa's translation of de Sade's Juliette into the Japanese language. What was to be known as the "Sade Trial" took 9 years and although many of Japan's leading authors testified for the defense, in 1969 the Japanese Supreme Court ruled them guilty and charged. This did not deter Shibusawa, whose essays on black magic, demonology and eroticism were popular reading in Japan, and in 1981 he was awarded the 9th Izumi Kyoka Literature Prize.

Good copy with some spine damage and tanning/wear.

File under: Max Ernst Léonor Fini Felix Labisse Wilfredo Lam Hans Bellmer Paul Delvaux Natsuyuki Nakanishi Masuo Ikeda Setsu Nagasawa Carlos Marchioli Kuniyoshi Kaneko Masakazu Horiuchi Tadanori Yokoo Koji Suzuki Tommy Ungerer Tatsumi Hijikata Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Eikoh Hosoe Ikkō Narahara Masahisa Fukase Osamu Hayasaki Kishin Shinoyama James Ensor Tatsuhiko Shibusawa Jin'ichi Uekusa Roger Peyrefitte Yukio Mishima Taruho Inagaki Yutaka Haniya Shinji Sōya Henry Miller Suehiro Tanemura Guillaume Apollinaire Andre Pieyre De Mandiargues Nicolas Restif de la Bretonne Jūrō Kara Tensei Shuppan / Tokyo Fiction / Poetry Japanese Photography Occult / Esoterica Philosophy Photography Art Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Fetishism / BDSM LGBTQ+ Eros Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Counterculture Surrealism Symbolism / Decadence / Fin de siècle Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Ancient / Medieval / Gothic

Queering the Renaissance
Edited by Jonathan Goldberg

1994, English
Softcover, 388 pages, 24 x 16.5 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Duke University Press / North Carolina

$55.00 - In stock -

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Queering the Renaissance offers a major reassessment of the field of Renaissance studies. Gathering essays by sixteen critics working within the perspective of gay and lesbian studies, this collection redraws the map of sexuality and gender studies in the Renaissance. Taken together, these essays move beyond limiting notions of identity politics by locating historically forms of same-sex desire that are not organized in terms of modern definitions of homosexual and heterosexual.

The presence of contemporary history can be felt throughout the volume, beginning with an investigation of the uses of Renaissance precedents in the 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision Bowers v. Hardwick, to a piece on the foundations of 'our' national imaginary, and an afterword that addresses how identity politics has shaped the work of early modern historians. The volume examines canonical and noncanonical texts, including highly coded poems of the fifteenth-century Italian poet Burchiello, a tale from Marguerite de Navarre's Heptameron, and Erasmus's letters to a young male acolyte. English texts provide a central focus, including works by Spenser, Shakespeare, Bacon, Donne, Beaumont and Fletcher, Crashaw, and Dryden. Broad suveys of the complex terrains of friendship and sodomy are explored in one essay, while another offers a cross-cultural reading of the discursive sites of lesbian desire.

Accessibly written, boldly interdisciplinary, Queering the Renaissance will be indispensable for literary critics, historians, and theorists seeking to understand the representation of same-sex desire in the early modern period.

Contributors. Alan Bray, Marcie Frank, Carla Freccero, Jonathan Goldberg, Janet Halley, Graham Hammill, Margaret Hunt, Donald N. Mager, Jeff Masten, Elizabeth Pittenger, Richard Rambuss, Alan K. Smith, Dorothy Stephens, Forrest Tyler Stevens, Valerie Traub, Michael Warner

Industry Reviews
"An outstanding collection . . . Not only does it contribute importantly to emerging areas of gay/lesbian studies and the history of sexuality by historicizing what has been for the most part a relentlessly presentist field; it makes significant scholarly contributions to traditional fields in Renaissance studies."-Karen Newman, Brown University

File under: Jonathan Goldberg Alan Bray Marcie Frank Carla Freccero Janet Halley Graham Hammill Margaret Hunt Donald N. Mager Jeff Masten Elizabeth Pittenger Richard Rambuss Alan K. Smith Dorothy Stephens Forrest Tyler Stevens Valerie Traub Michael Warner Duke University Press / North Carolina LGBTQ+ Art Painting Theory / Essay Renaissance / Neoclassicism / Romanticism Literary Theory / Semiotics / Language

Kohei Yoshiyuki
Document Park

1980, Japanese
Softcover (w. dust jacket and obi strip), 114 pages, 26 x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Seven Sha / Tokyo

$900.00 - Out of stock

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Stunning first edition of Kohei Yoshiyuki's cult classic photo book, Document: The Park (Document Park), published in 1980 by Seven Sha, Tokyo. Yoshiyuki's voyeuristic masterpiece, The Park is like no other photo book. A controversial volume of 74 photographs taken by the photographer using a 35mm camera, infrared film, and flash, Yoshiyuki documented a secret community of lovers and voyeurs who gathered in Shinjuku Park and Yoyogi Park between 1971 and 1973. His pictures document the people who gathered in these parks for clandestine trysts under the cloak of darkness, as well as the many spectators lurking in the bushes who watched—and sometimes participated in—these couplings. With their raw, snapshot-like quality, these images not only uncover the hidden illicit sexual encounters of their subjects, both homosexual and heterosexual, but they also serve as a chronicle of a Japan we rarely see. As Martin Parr writes in The Photobook: A History, Volume II, The Park is "a brilliant piece of social documentation, capturing perfectly the loneliness, sadness and desperation that so often accompany sexual or human relationships in a big, hard metropolis like Tokyo."

A beautifully printed book, complete with original dust-jacket and obi-strip. Includes two conversations with Kohei Yoshiyuki with Kenichi Matsumoto and Nobuyoshi Araki.

Kohei Yoshiyuki (b. 1946—2022)   came to recognition in 1972 when material from his photo project “The Park” was featured in magazine Shukan Shincho, and a year later, in respected photo journal Camera Mainichi.  However, it was the 1979 photo exhibition “The Park” at Komai Gallery and 1980 photo book “Document: The Park” that established him within the contemporary photographic landscape. Since then, Yoshiyuki was a recurrent fixture in Japan debauchery journal Super Photo Magazine along photographers: Nobuyoshi Araki, Daido Moriyama, Keizo Kitajima and Seiji Kurata.

Very Good copy with tanning to front-right edge of dust jacket. Light edge wear/age to jacket and obi. A lovely copy, well preserved.

File under: Kohei Yoshiyuki Nobuyoshi Araki Nobuyoshi Araki Seven Sha / Tokyo Eros Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Out-of-print / Rare Japanese Photography Photography Fetishism / BDSM Art Counterculture LGBTQ+

PANSY December 1978 Edition 11

1978, Japanese
Softcover (staple-bound), 25.5 x 18 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Queer Kids / Tokyo

$90.00 - In stock -

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Super rare glam rock issue of the super rare PANSY fanzine, published by Queer Kids in Tokyo in the 1970s. Never seen another issue ever before (apparently 12 were produced), PANSY applies the queer gaze to the world of glam rock, post punk, new romantic... T-Rex/Marc Bolan, New York Dolls, David Bowie, Japan, Slade, Roxy Music, Raped, Brats ... photographing, interviewing, and profiling the princes of the new androgynous wave with school diary visual sensibility and DIY hand-collage aesthetic throughout. Includes a New York Dolls family tree, loads of magazine clipped pictures, and hand-written Japanese texts. Very obscure, very charming, very Japanese.

Very Good copy with small previous sticker damage to top of spine (front/back), otherwise only light edge wear and age.

File under: T-Rex Marc Bolan New York Dolls David Bowie Japan Slade Roxy Music Raped Brats Queer Kids / Tokyo Sound / Music Performance / Dance / Theater Periodicals Out-of-print / Rare LGBTQ+

Newspaper
Steve Lawrence, Peter Hujar, Andrew Ullrick

2023, English
Softcover, 416 pages
Published by Primary Information / New York

$84.00 - Out of stock

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Published by Steve Lawrence and edited with Peter Hujar and Andrew Ullrick, Newspaper was published in New York City between 1968 and 1971.

Newspaper was a wordless, picture-only periodical that ran for fourteen issues and featured the disparate practices of over forty artists. With an editorial focus on placing appropriated material alongside new works, the periodical sought to codify a visual language of high and low culture that represented contemporary society in the late 1960s. While largely overlooked in art-historical discourse, Newspaper showcased many of the most revered artists working in the United States at the time, as well as an emerging coterie of queer artists.

The mid to late sixties was a flourishing period for artists experimenting with new media formats such as books, records, and magazines to create or distribute their work. Newspaper was one of the first artist-published tabloids of its era, preceding Andy Warhol’s Interview and Les Levine’s Culture Hero, both of which debuted in 1969. However, in contrast to other tabloids, Newspaper focused strictly on images.

At a time when photography was not being exhibited regularly in galleries, Newspaper provided an alternative exhibition space for the medium and some of the era’s greatest photographers. The publication’s large size and unbound format encouraged readers to take it apart and hang its pages, which was how Newspaper was installed at the Museum of Modern Art’s influential Information show in 1970.

This is not to say that Newspaper only existed within the narrow confines of the art world, far from it. It lived within (and shared contributors with) a robust network of underground and queer periodicals like The New York Review of Sex, Rags, and Gay Power, among others. Yet, unlike many of these tabloids, Newspaper has largely disappeared from the discourse around underground magazines, queer publishing, and artists’ periodicals.

All fourteen issues of Newspaper are compiled in this volume for the first time.

Featured artists include: Diane Arbus, Art Workers Coalition, Richard Avedon, Clyde Baines, Sheyla Baykal, Peter Beard, Brigid Berlin, Richard Bernstein, Ann Douglas, Paul Fisher, Maurice Hogenboom, Peter Hujar, Scott Hyde, Christo and Jeanne-Claude Javacheff, Ray Johnson, Edwin Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Gerald Laing, Dorothea Lange, Steve Lawrence, Jeff Lew, Roy Lichtenstein, Frank Mercado, Duane Michals, Jack Mitchell, Forrest “Frosty” Myers, Billy Name, Stephen Paley, Warner Pearson, Jurgen Warner Piepke, Charles Pratt, Joseph Raffael, Mel Ramos, Lilo Raymond, Ruspoli-Rodriguez, Lucas Samaras, Alan Saret, Bill Schwedler, Leni Sinclair, Norman Snyder, Elizabeth Staal, Stanley Stellar, Terry Stevenson, Paul Thek, Andrew Ullrick, Andy Warhol, William T. Wiley, and May Wilson.

Editor: Marcelo Gabriel Yáñez
Managing Editor: James Hoff
Designer: Rick Myers
Copy editor: Allison Dubinsky

File under: Diane Arbus Art Workers Coalition Richard Avedon Clyde Baines Sheyla Baykal Peter Beard Brigid Berlin Richard Bernstein Ann Douglas Paul Fisher Maurice Hogenboom Peter Hujar Scott Hyde Christo and Jeanne-Claude Javacheff Ray Johnson Edwin Klein Yayoi Kusama Gerald Laing Dorothea Lange Steve Lawrence Jeff Lew Roy Lichtenstein Frank Mercado Duane Michals Jack Mitchell Forrest “Frosty” Myers Billy Name Stephen Paley Warner Pearson Jurgen Warner Piepke Charles Pratt Joseph Raffael Mel Ramos Lilo Raymond Ruspoli-Rodriguez Lucas Samaras Alan Saret Bill Schwedler Leni Sinclair Norman Snyder Elizabeth Staal Stanley Stellar Terry Stevenson Paul Thek Andrew Ullrick Andy Warhol William T. Wiley May Wilson Rick Myers Primary Information / New York Art Photography Conceptual Art Pop Art LGBTQ+ Counterculture

I Didn't See It Coming
by William E. Jones

2023, English
Softcover, 288 pages, 20.32 x 12.7 cm
Published by We Heard You Like Books / Los Angeles

$32.00 - In stock -

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I Didn't See It Coming is the dark and exciting culmination of William E. Jones's trilogy of novels set in Los Angeles. The new book begins several years after the end of the second novel. I Should Have Known Better's former art school students and their companions face decisions about whether they should continue their frivolous adventures or begin to lead more conventional lives. As these bright young things approach middle age--and gentrification swallows up affordable neighborhoods--they find themselves dealing with real life in all its unpleasantness against a background of news about the war in Iraq. Due to stubbornness or inertia, the narrator sticks to his bohemian ways, finding work in the porn industry, while his friends settle down, flourish as artists, leave town, or destroy themselves.

I Didn't See It Coming continues the stories of all of the major characters in the trilogy, including Moira, the idealistic leftist who emigrates to Mexico; Bernie, the brilliant but wildly impractical teacher and book collector; Paul, the promiscuous and acidly witty fop; and Winston, the Balkan immigrant who returns to Europe and is catapulted to art stardom. The novel also reveals the fate of Temo, the love of the narrator's life, who disappears under mysterious circumstances at the conclusion of I Should Have Known Better. I Didn't See It Coming is a page turner bristling with energy and brimming with the kind of explicit sex scenes that readers have come to expect from the author of I'm Open to Anything and True Homosexual Experiences.

File under: William E. Jones We Heard You Like Books / Los Angeles Eros LGBTQ+ Fiction / Poetry

 Too Negative No. 5
July 1995

1995, Japanese
Softcover, 210 pages, 21 x 15 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tom Shobo / Japan

$140.00 - Out of stock

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 Too Negative No. 5 July 1995. Now rare and highly collectible, Too Negative, the "Forbidden Picture Book", was a visceral and visually explosive glossy cult arts magazine that reflected the gory-depraved-beyond salvation-bad taste expressions visible in international subculture at the height of 1990s underground publishing, a time when art was pushing the limits of taste and morality. Edited solely by legendary Japanese publisher and gallery owner Kotaro Kobayashi and published by Tom Publication Inc. between 1994—2000, each thick, glossy volume takes on the aesthetics of a vibrant fashion magazine in the great Japanese "mook" format (the magazine book) packed cover to cover with themes of Eros and Thanatos, such as fetishism, erotica, medical/autopsy photography, death journalism, Japanese bondage, grotesque and neo-surrealist art, crime scene photography, tattooing/irezumi, piercing, and all things of the mondo, macabre, bizarro realm. Frequent collaborators and featured artists were Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Joel-Peter Witkin, Trevor Brown, Kiyoshi Ikejiri, to name a few. With a Japanese publishing lineage that may be found in earlier bounding-pushing periodicals such as the 1920s erotic grotesque magazine Hentai Shiriou (Pervert Documents), Tasuhiko Shibusawa’s incredible 1960s avant-garde journal Le Sang Et La Rose, or Fiction Inc’s SALE2 journal published from 1980—mid 1990s, Too Negative, and affiliated periodicals such as ORG, Spiral, Schizo, etc. took their subjects to another level of extremism, even by Japanese standards.

Not for the faint hearted.

This issue,    Too Negative No. 6 August 1995, features Thailand corpse/death photography by Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Trevor Brown artwork, Crime Museum photography, Chokudo Shibuya, Kiyoshi Ikejiri, western hardcore porn, asshole photography by Goro Asawa, Kotaro Kobayashi, x-ray porn, western obesity porn / adipophilia, Berlin sex, death art by noise artist Raita Ishikawa, Lisa Palac's Future Sex, piercing fetish, bizarre sex, medical photography, plus much more.  

Very Good copy.

File under: Kotaro Kobayashi Trevor Brown Kiyotaka Tsurisaki Raita Ishikawa Chokudo Shibuya Kiyoshi Ikejiri Goro Asawa Tom Shobo / Japan Crime / Violence Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Eros Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Art Counterculture Fetishism / BDSM Film / Video Photography Theory / Essay LGBTQ+

 Too Negative No. 6
August 1995

1995, Japanese
Softcover, 210 pages, 15 cm x 21 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Tom Shobo / Japan

$140.00 - Out of stock

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 Too Negative No. 6 August 1995. Now rare and highly collectible, Too Negative, the "Forbidden Picture Book", was a visceral and visually explosive glossy cult arts magazine that reflected the gory-depraved-beyond salvation-bad taste expressions visible in international subculture at the height of 1990s underground publishing, a time when art was pushing the limits of taste and morality. Edited solely by legendary Japanese publisher and gallery owner Kotaro Kobayashi and published by Tom Publication Inc. between 1994—2000, each thick, glossy volume takes on the aesthetics of a vibrant fashion magazine in the great Japanese "mook" format (the magazine book) packed cover to cover with themes of Eros and Thanatos, such as fetishism, erotica, medical/autopsy photography, death journalism, Japanese bondage, grotesque and neo-surrealist art, crime scene photography, tattooing/irezumi, piercing, and all things of the mondo, macabre, bizarro realm. Frequent collaborators and featured artists were Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, Joel-Peter Witkin, Trevor Brown, Kiyoshi Ikejiri, to name a few. With a Japanese publishing lineage that may be found in earlier bounding-pushing periodicals such as the 1920s erotic grotesque magazine Hentai Shiriou (Pervert Documents), Tasuhiko Shibusawa’s incredible 1960s avant-garde journal Le Sang Et La Rose, or Fiction Inc’s SALE2 journal published from 1980—mid 1990s, Too Negative, and affiliated periodicals such as ORG, Spiral, Schizo, etc. took their subjects to another level of extremism, even by Japanese standards.

Not for the faint hearted.

This issue,    Too Negative No. 6 August 1995, features corpse/death photography by Kotaro Kobayashi, fetish photography by Kiyoshi Ikejiri, Japanese neo-surrealist Sakuba Tomomi, upclose genital "non-retouching" collage/photography by Goro Asawa and Yoshiki Tsutsumi, death art by noise artist Raita Ishikawa, formaldehyde fetus photography by Kiyotaka Tsurisaki, genital piercing and modification, demented collage and collected imagery/medical/freak photography/illustration/porn, extreme anatomy imagery, lactating, pissing, western obesity porn / adipophilia, 'Bild Des Verbrechens In Ela Granti' crime scene photography from legend early 20th Century Japanese book, porn star John Holmes, artwork by Trevor Brown, plus much more.  

Very Good copy.

File under: Trevor Brown Kiyoshi Ikejiri Kotaro Kobayashi Kiyotaka Tsurisaki Tom Shobo / Japan Ero Guro / Erotic / Grotesque Eros Illustration / Graphic Art / Bandes Dessinées Occult / Esoterica Fetishism / BDSM Counterculture Transgressive / Visceral / Abject Periodicals Art Out-of-print / Rare Japanese Photography Photography Film / Video LGBTQ+

L&M (Lesbian & Masochism) Vol. 12
January 1993

1993, Japanese
Softcover, 300 pages, 21.2 x 15.1 cm
1st Edition, Out of print title / used / very good
Published by Kasakura / Tokyo

$60.00 - In stock -

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Published in Winter 1993, issue 12 of L&M (Lesbian & Masochism), published by Kasakura Publishing, originally as a special edition of Video X magazine, then onward as its own publication from the late 1980s until 1994. The title says it all, vivid colour photo features and content centring around lesbian and masochism fetish Queen themes, with regular photography by Norio Sugiura ( SM Fan, SM Select, etc.), Koji Yuhara, Shiko Shima ( Specialty S&M, Yume Club, Speculum, etc.), and models such as Mori Miki, Izumi Kawakami, Sachiko Sugiura, Tomomi Harada, Ayumu Hibino Mai Ito, Reika Mizuki, Queen Serina, Queen Mizuki, Ayaka Shiki, and many others.

Very Good copy.

File under: Norio Sugiura Koji Yuhara Shiko Shima Kasakura / Tokyo Transgressive / Visceral / Abject LGBTQ+ Out-of-print / Rare Periodicals Japanese Photography Fetishism / BDSM Eros

Alex Vivian
ON DISPLAY AND QUESTIONED

2023, English
Softcover (in sealed cardboard case), 110 pages, 30 x 22 mm
Ed. of 300,
Published by Guzzler / Rosanna

$50.00 - In stock -

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On Display and Questioned : Two exhibitions by Alex Vivian; two interviews with Alex Vivian, 2022, published in a limited edition of 300 copies, each sealed in cardboard mailer. Illustrated throughout with colour plates cataloguing the Victorian exhibitions FIEND? 5–20.12.2020, Guzzler, Rosanna and Porn: squared, hung, drawn, quartered. 11.3–2.4.22, Centre D’editions Melbourne, each accompanied by interviews with artist Alex Vivian by editor and art historian David Homewood. Designed by Alexandra Margetic; photographed by Luke Sands.

Keywords: aid; amyl nitrate; Arial; average gay male (AGM); baseball; bathhouse; condom; cricket; Futura; Genet, Jean; Gerry, Cheesemouth; Golub, Leon; Haring, Keith; Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC); Kruger, Barbara; Lingard, Grant; Melbourne Wankers Club (MWC); Pettibon, Raymond; pornography; rugby; smegma; Treasury Gardens.

File under: Luke Sands David Homewood Alex Vivian Alexandra Margetic David Homewood Guzzler / Rosanna Painting Australian Art Art LGBTQ+

WORMS 1

2019, English
Softcover, 92 pages, 27 x 18 cm
Published by Worms / London

$33.00 $10.00 - Out of stock

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Worms is a bi-annual literary style magazine that celebrates female/non-binary writer culture.

This inaugural issue, offers a fresh perspective on the accessibility of literature, writers and style. Here, you will find features with Chris Kraus and Ariana Reines about online writing, an exploration into Kathy Acker’s books and influence on contemporary culture, interviews with young upcoming authors and more.

File under: Chris Kraus Ariana Reines Worms / London LGBTQ+ Feminism Fiction / Poetry Theory / Essay Periodicals Art SALE

WORMS 2

2020, English
Softcover, 92 pages, 27 x 18 cm
Published by Worms / London

$33.00 - Out of stock

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Worms is a bi-annual literary style magazine that celebrates female/non-binary writer culture.

Worms 2 the ‘Revolting Women’ issue looks at women who are literally disgusting, figuratively revolting. With a focus on writers who operate on the fringes of literature, ‘revolt' in a Worms context is vast-ranging. This issue includes features with Maggie Nelson, Tilly Lawless, Sarah Schulman, Amelia Abraham, Juliana Huxtable, Juliet Jacques, Olivia Sudjic and more.

File under: Maggie Nelson Tilly Lawless Sarah Schulman Amelia Abraham Juliana Huxtable Juliet Jacques Olivia Sudjic Worms / London Art Periodicals Feminism LGBTQ+ Fiction / Poetry Theory / Essay

WORMS 3

2021, English
Softcover, 92 pgs, 27 x 18 cm
Published by Worms / London

$33.00 $10.00 - Out of stock

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Worms is a bi-annual literary style magazine that celebrates female/non-binary writer culture.

Worms 3, the ‘biomythography’ issue, looks at personal myth-making and the stories that shape us.

Featuring Michelle Tea, Moyra Davey, Lynne Tillman, Johanna Hedva, Jenny Hval, Ellen van Neervan, Caroline Calloway, Julie Enszerl and more.

File under: Michelle Tea Moyra Davey Lynne Tillman Johanna Hedva Jenny Hval Ellen van Neervan Caroline Calloway Julie Enszerl Worms / London LGBTQ+ Feminism Periodicals Theory / Essay Art Fiction / Poetry SALE