The Nobel Prize-winning author Ernest Hemingway was a male icon in mid-20th century America, celebrated through numerous articles and images in pulp magazines which promoted what we would now regard as a highly sexist version of masculinity. Typically this included muscle-bound Tarzan types conquering a range of challenges from the impenetrable jungle to a yielding semi-naked heroine. The author of this book draws attention to the levels of post-traumatic stress in war veterans not only of World War II but also the Korean and Vietnam wars, and how American culture created a narrative of coping that arose out of the need to relive the war experience. Men's adventure magazines became a place where men could safely engage with sensationalised stories based on the traumas of battle, and these magazines also included pseudo-medical columns and ubiquitous female pinups. Wartime images of women embody the American ideal of womanhood, faithful, wholesome, often pictured with flags or saluting aircraft. But after the War the tone changed, becoming aggressively sexualised, using titillation and bondage to bolster a bruised masculine ego, and prompting one feminist to describe men's mags as an "undeclared war against American women". In 1959, a Man's Magazine article was entitled "Ernest Hemingway's Private War with Adolf Hitler", combining Hemingway's experiences on the Siegfried Line with his march to Paris. Such articles played down the fact that Hemingway was a war correspondent and never actually involved in fighting, although Rogue Magazine profiled him as suffering "ten concussions in combat". The "liberation of Paris" is one of the most persistent of Hemingway legends, and it is told here in a larger than life style, with "Papa" Hemingway, as he was known, depicted on the cover in his guise of he-man extraordinaire, together with an accompanying article on "How to prolong your sex life". A fascinating study of pulp magazines and Hemingway's role within them. 177pp, contrasting colour photos.
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Almost exact contemporaries, the French painters Boucher and Chardin represent contrasting trends in the way women are depicted. This discerning book takes as its starting point two paintings of the mid-18th century, Chardin's "Lady Taking Tea" and Boucher's "Woman on a Daybed". It has been suggested that both painters used their wives as models, and both provide an intimate portrait of a woman's personal domestic life. Chardin was devoted to his first wife Marguerite, a young woman in poor health who died young. Boucher married the lively 17-year-old Marie-Jeanne for her looks, and neither of them was faithful. In "Lady Taking Tea", Chardin captures a quiet, contemplative moment. The woman seen in profile has downcast eyes as she stirs the tea in a blue and white cup, lost in her own thoughts. Boucher's "Woman on a Daybed", by contrast, is looking out of the picture slightly to the viewer's left, her lips pursed in the mischievous smile for which Marie-Jeanne was celebrated. Her elaborate dress is frilled down the front, and she extends her pointed foot in a high-heeled slipper to the end of the bed. Whereas Marguerite is retiring, Marie-Jeanne is provocative, and her surroundings emphasize this, with a curtain half open and crumpled clothes on the footstool. Both paintings feature a teapot, Chardin's in brown earthenware and Boucher's in blue and white china. The author goes on to investigate tea-drinking in other paintings, including Nicolas Lancret's erotic "Morning", in which the woman's breast is exposed as she pours tea for a male visitor. Scenes of women's lives from this period often have erotic content, but there is also a tradition of formal tea parties emphasizing the respectability of the sitters, for instance Hogarth's "An Assembly at Wanstead House", Richard Collins's "Tea Party" of 1725 with a family gathered reverentially round an expensive pewter tea service, or Francis Hayman's "Jonathan Tyres and his Family", an elaborately posed ensemble that can be seen in London's National Portrait Gallery. 144pp, large softback, chronology, numerous colour reproductions.

Nell Gwyn would be aged about 10 when Charles II became king. At this time Nell lived in a slum with her mother and sister but soon she joined the theatre in Drury Lane, initially selling oranges. Women were now allowed to act on stage for the first time and Nell was spotted by two entrepreneurs who began training her as a comedienne. Following a spell in the country when the plague struck, Nell started to make a name for herself and was described by Pepys as "pretty, witty, Nell Gwyn". When her chance came, she directed a wink at the Royal box and was rewarded by an invitation to Charles's apartments. A famous liaison had begun, but Nell had rivals. One of them was the actress Moll Davis, and the jealous Nell contrived to give Moll a laxative before one of her evenings with the King, assisted by her friend Aphra Behn, a well-known female playwright and spy. Nell was much in demand as an actress, performing in plays by Dryden and Ben Jonson as well as more popular entertainments. She was becoming a star, and the King was impressed. He now spent more time with her than with his long-time mistress Barbara Villiers. In 1669 Nell became pregnant and gave birth to a son but was secure in the knowledge that she was now the main mistress, and was granted a house in Pall Mall soon afterwards. Nell was eventually supplanted by Louise de Kerouaille, whom Lady Worcester insulted by calling her a "tall French bitch" before kicking her repeatedly. Nell continued her friendship with the King and his associates such as Rochester until the end of her life, and this book details some fascinating examples of her involvement in political intrigue, including making sure that Charles was visited by a Catholic priest before his death. 184pp, black and white reproductions.

In her private quest to "simplify, isolate, and give emphasis to form with greatest clarity," acclaimed photographer Ruth Bernhard (1905-2006) passionately created a collection of images that rank among the most profound and significant photographs of the female nude. She worked with Ansel Adams (who dubbed her "the greatest photographer of the nude"), Edward Weston and Imogen Cunningham and it shows. She re envisioned the female nude in the abstract language of the black and white print which are focussed meditations on the beauty and strength of the life force itself. See Dark Torso with Hands, 1971, a cross legged seated figure Within 1969 and the chignon bun in an image Draped Torso from behind 1962. The 1945 In The Wave is especially mesmerising. Originally published in 1986, it is the first collection of Bernhard's finest nudes to be presented in a single, elegant monograph. The photographs selected, some of which have never been exhibited, unveil the full range of her genius. This collection expresses her lifelong passion to understand the effects of light on the body and to revel in its purest form. Each radiant photograph contains a classic perfection, giving it a sense of the eternal and making it a timeless masterpiece of the human figure. Featuring an insightful new foreword by Karen Sinsheimer, curator of photography at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, and an illuminating biography by photographer Margaretta Mitchell, this reissue of a landmark photography book honours one of the most significant artists of the last century. B/w photos. 25.4 x 25.4cm. 132 pages.
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Peek beneath the bedsheets of 19th century Britain in this affectionate, informative and fascinating look at sex and sexuality during the reign of Queen Victoria. Artists were pushing the boundaries of sexual depictions in polite society. Upstanding gentlemen were writing secret Diaries about their innermost desires. The lowliest of the population gave thought to illicit desires and sexual pleasure. The book looks at unwritten rules of fashion and courtship, beddings, weddings and bastards, lifts the lid on lust, the rise of commercial pornography, prostitution, philanthropy, and murder, homosexuality in Victorian Britain and more. It also explores bizarre and often entertaining solutions to the challenges associated with maintaining a healthy sex life. Did the people in Victorian times live up to their stereotypes when it came to sexual behaviour? This book will answer this question, as well as looking at fashion, food, science, art, medicine, magic, literature, love, politics, faith and superstition through a new lens. 16 pages of illus. 120 pages.

Love's labours in the fair game of making matches, marriage contracts, courting and getting caught, the wedding day, the paradise of married women, slender maintenance, careless domineering, curious wits and courtly nymphs, Sweet Bessie and Robert the Other Robert, and Essex is not the way. This entertaining and informative book explores the surprisingly varied and energetic sex and love lives of the women and men of Queen Elizabeth's England. A range of writers, from the famous, such as Shakespeare, John Donne and Ben Jonson, and lesser-known figures popular in their time, provide, in their witty stories, poems and plays, vivid pictures of Elizabethan sexual attitudes and experiences, while sober reports from the church courts tell of seductions, adulteries and rapes. Here we also encounter private journals and scenes from ordinary marriages, with complaints of women's fashions, bossy wives and domineering husbands. Besides this, there are accounts of the busy whores of London brothels, homosexual activity and the Court's amorous carousel of predatory aristocrats, promiscuous ladies and hopeful maids of honour. We conclude with the frustrations of The Virgin Queen herself. Peek beneath the bedsheets of 16th century England in this affectionate, informative and fascinating look at "ramping" and sex and sexuality on a range of topics, from religious and moral beliefs to homosexuality and prostitution. Sir Francis Bacon wrote "Nuptial love maketh mankind: friendly love perfecteth it; but wanton love embaseth it." Quotes directly from poems, journals, plays, letters, sermons (mostly in modern spelling). B/w illus. 176 pages.

Meet the artist whose majestic breaking wave sent ripples across the world. Hokusai (1760-1849) is not only one of the giants of Japanese art and a legend of the Edo period, but also a founding father of Western modernism, whose prolific gamut of prints, illustrations, paintings and beyond forms one of the most comprehensive oeuvres of ukiyo-e art and a benchmark of japonisme. His influence spread through Impressionism, Art Nouveau and beyond, enrapturing the likes of Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt and Vincent van Gogh. Hokusai was always a man on the move. He changed domicile more than 90 times during his lifetime and changed his own name through over 30 pseudonyms. In his art, he adopted the same restlessness, covering the complete spectrum of Japanese ukiyo-e, "pictures of the floating world", from single-sheet prints of landscapes and actors to erotic books. In addition, he created album prints, illustrations for verse anthologies and historical novels, and surimono, which were privately issued prints for special occasions. Hokusai's print series 'Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji', published between c.1830 and 1834 is the artist's most renowned work and, with its soaring peak through different seasons and from different vantage points, marked the towering summit of the Japanese landscape print. The series 'Under the Wave off Kanagawa', also known simply as The Great Wave, is one of the most recognized images of Japanese art in the world. This introduction spans the length and breadth of Hokusai's career with key pieces from his far-reaching portfolio. New from Taschen, 21 x 26 cm, 96 pages.

The Edwardian heroine Eveline with her unstoppable sexuality opens this collection of stories where desire is the driving narrative force. Eveline's highly explicit encounter with the anonymous priapic gentleman in a railway carriage epitomises a common fantasy of having sex with a complete stranger. The first section, headlined "Awakening Desire", also includes Kate Chopin's "A Respectable Woman" who fights an intense desire for her husband's friend and overcomes it - or does she? "A Night in a Moorish Harem" incorporates several stories of enthusiastically lost virginity, while extracts from Dracula and Lady Chatterley's Lover need no introduction. D. H. Lawrence describes not just a sexual encounter but also the awkwardness of class-consciousness and the fear that the lovers may be using each other, shot through with the awareness that not every sex act is satisfying for both parties. Angela Carter's nightmarish "The Bloody Chamber" is a feminist rewriting of the Bluebeard fairy tale, powerfully atmospheric in its Gothic detail. The second section, "Burning Desire", opens with an extract from Cleland's celebrated 18th century novel Fanny Hill, for which Cleland was first prosecuted, then given a government pension. Fanny, like many of this book's heroines, offers a half-hearted refusal but is soon carried away by "effusions of pleasure". "The life and amours of Kate Percival" may be genuine Victorian erotica or a later pastiche, but either way Kate is up for lesbian and well as straight sex. Molly Bloom's monologue from the conclusion of Joyce's Ulysses is a justly celebrated stream of consciousness. In Roald Dahl's "The great switcheroo" the narrator lusts after the unattainable Samantha Rainbow and plots with her husband to swap beds for the night, using the same aftershave and approaching sex the same way in the dark. But he gets rather more than he bargained for. The final section "Darkest Desire" looks at the more unvarnished aspects of sex, sometimes brutal and often involving revenge, starting with the Marquis de Sade's Justine. Heavyweight 720pp.

Over one million copies have sold and now we have at last acquired the new 20th anniversary edition to sell at a bargain price of this classic sex education book for school children ages ten and up. Very well illustrated with colour drawings, completely up-to-date, it answers lots and lots of questions which young children will be asking about their changing bodies, growing up, and sex. Straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual transgender, all kinds of bodies are explained with sex organs, body, puberty and hormones, taking care of your body, new and changing feelings and masturbation. It moves on to families, babies and children, genes and chromosomes, kissing, cuddling, touching and sexual intercourse, pregnancy, birth, other ways to have a baby and a family, abstinence and contraception, abortion, and the law, texting, messaging, emailing and being online (helpful, fun, creepy, dangerous), talking about sexual abuse, sexually transmitted diseases, HIV and AIDS and staying healthy, and making responsible choices. The birds and the bees have never looked quite like this, and after watching those scary birthing films of 40 and 50 and 60 years ago at school, nowadays millions of young people (ages 10 - 14) have turned to this honest, reliable, accurate and up-to-date and accessible colour handbook. 21x26cm softback, 96pp, colour illus.

The very personal guessing game with a warning that it is for Adults Only. You might think you know everything about your friend, partner or family member, but this game is here to put your theory to the test. Sit in pairs and put each player's name on a piece of paper. Each pair gets posed five questions. For example, who is the most argumentative of the two of you? What is their favourite colour? Who is their best friend? What is their Mum's-Dad's-first boyfriend/girlfriend's name? Jobs, dogs, who was naughtier at school, musical instruments they played, eye colour, aches and pains, who spends more time in the shower, who wakes up first, would they be calm if they met their favourite celebrity, if they could be any superhero who would they be? You get the gist. Then it gets hotter. Have they lost their virginity and how old were they? Do they still know the person they lost their virginity to? Have they ever sent a picture of themselves in underwear to a partner? Have they ever had a rebound relationship? Big cartoon style illustrations throughout and colourful page edges. Big board book.