Secret and Forbidden -Paul Tabori

[paranthropoid]

Since time began man —and woman —has been attracted to the Tree of Knowledge, to the Forbidden Fruit. Whatever passions and pleasures have been banned, he has sought to experience.
In this brilliant book, we present part of the endless pageant of these passions and pleasures — such as the Secret Sects of Eros, from the Adamites to the grim Skoptsis,who made sex a religion and turned religious ritual into wild orgies.
The author describes the Theatres of Eros, those pornographic and private spectacles which seventeenth and eighteenth century France delighted in and for which authors of the highest repute contributed pieces—witty but wicked, original but obscene.
There is an exploration of forbidden vices, drugs and stimulants of exotic countries, a journey into the banned and barred lands of the vast continent of human urges and deviations. Richly illustrated, this is a feast for the connoisseur, with a wealth of unusual and never-before-published lore.
Paul Tabori spent ten years on the research of Secret and Forbidden. He has specialized in out-of-the-way subjects and is recognized as one of the great experts of the psychopathology of sex.

[Craig Herbertson]

What a great cover. it's the slightly hunched shoulders of the bloke that give it that vault charm.

[paranthropoid]

Oops! My first post on this forum, and I make a dog's brekkie of it by omitting my comments. Which were:

Paul Tabori (1908-1974) was a screenwriter and parapsychologist ( he wrote the official bio of Harry Price, Ghost Hunter). This book was originally published under the pseudonym 'Christopher Stevens' (he also published as 'Peter Stafford'). It's just as interesting as the cover implies: packed with out-of the way information, but very sketchy - it's rather like reading the notes for a much longer work, or works. And a few references and a bibliography would have been welcome, too.

[sara]

That cover is fantastic, where do the artists dream these up from?

Anyhow, here’s my Tabori contribution –

From the bawdy underground literature of a repressed era, some erotic gems that mock hypocrisy and uplift the Satyric spirit...

“The Chevalier remembered so well the lips, the velvety skin, the green of her eyes. And so he dreamt that night – a delicious wonderful dream in which she attended with sweet abandon to her bodice, her hoopskirt, her lacy petticoats and baptiste drawers, until finally her rosy purity shivered and burned in his arms. It was a prolonged and marvellous dream.”


PAUL TABORI is the wry and witty author of New English Library’s bestselling “Erotic Edwardian Fairy Tales” and “The First Time”.

I would describe this book as a little bit of naughty and a whole lot of nice, the tales therein being short, sweet flirtatious whimsies. They’re not all erotic (unless manic-depressive clowns are your thing) but perhaps material was a bit thin on the ground. Playboy are acknowledged for sourcing some of the stories.

There isn’t a table of contents and all the authors are anonymous, though Tabori states some of the writers can be identified by their style.

[dem]

another from Hungary's celebrated 'sexologist' and phantom-buster:

Paul Tabori - Dress and Undress: The Sexology of Fashion (NEL, 1969)

Sex and the Bed
Sex and the Corset
Shirt, Shift and Sex
Sex and Trousers
Stockings, Garters, Shoes and Sex
Cosmetics


Blurb
The never-before-told naked truth about fashion!

From the day man first put on the fig leaf to the era of the maxi-miniskirt, sex and fashion have become inextricably entwined.

Through the ages each item of dress - from corsets to stockings, boots to underwear - has its own history of abuse, romance, love - and lust.

In this unique study, the author examines clothes both on and off the human body and comes up with a wealth of material, funny, outrageous, appalling and appealing.

Pault Tabori is an expert on sexology and the author of two other top-selling 'bawdy histories' TAKEN IN ADULTERY and SECRET AND FORBIDDEN.

Tabori wrote stacks of these 'bawdy histories', a fact celebrated by Justin way back in Paperback Fanatic #3 (August, 2007). He also features heavily in Mr Fanatic's five page ogle at the Nel's 'Sex Manuals' in PF 10

[pulphack]

how many authors were there who managed to write sexologist specials and also get in the Dennis Wheatley Library Of The Occult? oh, and even write a Hammer movie? (although not a horror one, which seems somehow fitting)

a class act.

[valdemar]

The cover to 'Secret And Forbidden' is quite delicious - what a superb selection of Rubenesque ladies. Strangely, [or maybe it's because I'm a sick puppy] the illustration wouldn't look out of place in a 'Ladybird' book. Though what sort of book it would be at home in, I have no idea. The Ladybird Book Of Witchcraft Through The Ages? People At Work: The Hellfire Club?
How It Works: The Broomstick? Ladybird Children's Classics: 'Justine' by The Marquis de Sade?

[dem]

Peter Fryer [ed.] - The Man of Pleasure's Companion: An Anthology of Secret Victorian Vices (Nel, 1969)

Introduction

Advice on Kissing
Dress and Undress
Seduction
Places of Amusement
The Pornography Trade
Women of Pleasure
Brothels
Tricks of the Trade
Taking Precautions
Horrible Warnings
Sheer Phantasy

Bibliography

Blurb:
Here is the truth about Victorian morality. Here are the astonishing secret sex lives of our grandfathers.

The 19th Century is thought of as an epoch of almost unrelieved puritanism when even the waltz was regarded as sinful — this is the book which proves it just wasn't so.

Here are "bachelor guides" to London night life, erotic feasts, jokes and sundry ribaldry that would not have amused Queen Victoria — but will certainly appeal to modern readers.

"I'll never believe again any of those fables of shame-faced prudery... My own delicacy prevents me from repeating the more four-lettered of its stories." — News of the World

From the same series, a compilation of instructive/ salacious/ hilarious/ disgusting [delete as applicable] selections from such ribald publications as The Ticklish Minstrell (c. 1837), The Servant Girl of London (1840), The Swell's Night Guide (1840), Tempted London: Young Men (1888), The Memoirs of Dolly Morton (1899) and the enduringly outrageous Yokel's Preceptor (c. 1850) which offers advice on London's best value for money brothels, a warning against 'Margeries' ("The increase of these monsters in the shape of men, commonly designated Margeries, Pooffs, etc., of late years, in the great metropolis, renders it necessary for the safety of the public, that they should be made known"), and a "Roll call of the most celebrated mots" including 'the Swiss Giantess,' 'Finniken's Fan,' 'the Yarmouth Bloater,' 'Flabby Poll,' 'Elephant Bet' ("This mountain of iniquity, from her unwieldy bulk, had gained the appellation of the walking dunnyken, the elephant squash-arse. She hung out at Fleet-street, but has disappeared of late. It is said she has retired on her fat."), the late Mary 'the Black Mot' Mitchell, who "supported her aged parents by her button-hole stitching," and 'Fair Eliza' ("This shickster is a tidy sticking piece. She was remarkably fair, and has been very handsome. She was called "waxwork"; but the poor mot drowned herself in a fit of despair. Her tramp was the Haymarket and Strand.") Something called Harlequin Prince Cherrytop (1879) concludes in a chorus of Spermatorrhoea/ That which we fear/ We shall perish from Spermatorrhoea If you don't know, you really don't want to - most certainly not in the detail provided here by J. L. Milton. My first though was this was another of Paul Tabori's pseudonymous efforts — there is even a chapter named 'Dress and Undress' — but that doesn't seem to have been the case?

[helrunar]

Interesting. Teleny, or the Reverse of the Medal (sometimes attributed to Oscar Wilde, but reading only the first couple sentences will assure the reader that it could not possibly have been his work) provides lots of detail about gay brothels, drag balls etc in 1890s London. And then there's The Pearl, whence I learned that favorite Victorian word gamahuching.

Hel.

[dem]

Truth is, I was happy enough to find a 'seventies paperback for first time in months, so quite the bonus that it's actually an interesting, educational read. The Day's Doings (1871) offers sound advice on 'How to choose a wife by her legs,' Yokel's Preceptor; or, More Sprees in London! is your indispensable guide to where and where not to go in the capital, depending on the reader's particular fancy. 'Hugues Rebell's The Memoirs of Dolly Morton; the story of a woman's part in the struggle to free the slaves, etc. is an evidently interminable — and on this tiny evidence, very horrible — flagellation and rape fantasy, "scarcely one page in a hundred of which, in the eyes of anyone but a specialist, is worth reading, let alone reprinting." Turns out Harlequin Prince Cherrytop, and the Good Fairy Fairfuck ("Oxford: printed at the University Press," 1879), an uproarious pantomime satirizing the Spermatorrhoea hysteria, was the work of the Illustrated London News stalwart and sometime Penny Dreadful hack George Augustus Sala.