R.A. Caton and the Fortune Press, by d'Arch Smith, Timothy

Elysium Press announces the publication of a revised edition of Timothy d'Arch Smith's bibliography of the Fortune Press, one of the most unusual of modern publishing houses. Begun in the 1920s, the press published more than 600 titles before the indefatigable publisher's death in 1971. R.A. Caton, the publisher and sole proprietor of the press, was a mystery to many of his own authors, most of whom never met him, and some of whom came to despise him. The list of authors is impressive, however, and included Philip Larkin, Kingsley Amis, Montague Summers, Dylan Thomas and Wallace Stevens, among others. His list also included dozens of titles of "amatory unorthodoxy" and novels dealing the the more arcane side of public school life, a number of which led to his prosecution for obscenity.

The author's original edition of the bibliography appeared in 1983 and has long been out of print and difficult to obtain. This edition includes a wealth of new material, including the identity of some of the pseudononymous authors, as well as indexes missing from the original edition. Also included is d'Arch Smith's memoir of Caton, an insightful and moving portrait of a truly odd man.

The edition is priced at $35. Please inquire for bookseller discounts. ISBN: 1-893450-23-6

Stories of Youth by James Lord

From the Introduction: "These two stories about youths and youth were written more than half a century ago, when I was twenty-six years old, almost at the end of an overly prolonged and troubled adolescence. The undue length of this adolescence may have been caused in part by traumatic experiences encountered as a soldier during World War II, in which my role, though largely peripheral, was nonetheless personal enough to inflict psychic shocks that distress me still today. The grim, sadistic subject matter of both stories may, perhaps, be construed as a delayed reaction to those shocks. All the other writing that I did throughout this early period, none of which I wish to preserve, is more or less similar in content and feeling.

"George Sickes, The Boy Who Wrote NO, makes his aggressive and irreverent declarations of dissent specifically against business, banking, conventional social manners, the law, the family, and, most offensive of all, against religion. His punishment is the worst society in its self-righteous outrage can impose: death in life. The young boy, Dan, introduced in The Lizard, takes a decisive step toward manhood and independence through his experience of the symbolic unity between death and sexuality, cruelty and purity, blindness and discernment.

"Although I began to write in childhood and have spent my life at it since leaving the army, these stories were my first writings to be published. The Lizard appeared in Points, a literary review edited in Paris by Sindbad Vail (summer issue, 1949); The Boy Who Wrote NO in Horizon, a literary review edited in London by Cyril Connolly (Nos. 120-121, December 1949-January 1950, a double issue and the final one), reprinted in The Golden Horizon, a volume published in London in 1953 by Weidenfeld and Nicholson, containing Connolly's selection of works that had appeared in his review which he deemed worth preserving in book form."

James Lord is widely known for his several volumes of memoirs, as well as his definitive biography of the artist Albert Giacometti. Stories of Youth is limited to 200 signed and numbered copies bound in handmade paper boards with a linen spine (ISBN # 1-893450-11-2). $50.

The Book Catalogues of Michael deHartington

The bookselling firm of Michael deHartington issued ten catalogues of homosexual literature during its brief existence from 1972-1974. These catalogues included some of the rarest books on the subject and remain a significant resource for students, collectors and bibliophiles. Included in the catalogues were the majestical lithographed books by the prophet-poet Ralph Chubb; a rare seventeenth century fire-and-brimstone sermon, The Destruction of Sodome; rare books by Count d'Adelswärd Fersen and Count Stenbock; the greatest collection of Uranian texts ever assembled; rare German texts that survived the Nazi holocaust; as well as awide range of more contemporary literature, manuscripts and original artworks. Many of these titles, the oddities as well as the high spots, are still unknown to literary students, however deeply read.

These catalogues, rareties themselves, have been reissued here in a facsimile edition along with an Introduction by Timothy d'Arch Smith, one of the firm's principals and a widely respected scholar in the field. These annotated lists contain important bibliographical information which should advance areas of scholarship for which Michael deHartington, in its two years of existence, was a rich source of supply.

The first imprint of Asphodel Editions, The Book Catalogues of Michael deHartington is issued in an edition of 300 numbered copies. One hundred forty pages, the format of the book is 8 1/2 x 11". The binding is handsewn, brown paper boards, with a one-1 quarter linen spine. $95.

The Girls of Radcliff Hall by Lord Berners

The Girls of Radcliff Hall. One of the rarest of all modern books, The Girls of Radcliff Hall was written by Lord Berners under the pseudonym Adela Quebec in 1934. Berners' girls are in fact boys, all of whom were in his circle of friends: Cecil Beaton, Oliver Messel, Pavel Tchelitchew, Peter Watson, and the author himself, among assorted others. The distinct swipe at the author of The Well of Loneliness and the slightly more subtle pat at the author of countless girls' school stories are sustained in a jolly tale of Sapphic passions and vendettas. The rarity of the book is attributed to the fact that one or more of the characters portrayed objected to the book and destroyed a great number of them.

The edition is limited to 250 copies, with a colored frontispiece by Emilio Coia of the author and an Introduction by John Byrne. The book is 112 pages in length, quarter bound in buckram and a printed-paper jacket, printed and bound in England. The edition is priced at $50.

The Homoerotic Art of
Pavel Tchelitchev
1929-1939
by David Leddick

PAVEL TCHELITCHEV (1898-1957) was one of the most accomplished figurative artists of his generation. Considered a member of the Neo-Romantic school of painting, his works reflect a sophisticated attention to the mystical forces of nature, especially that of the human body. Although his work is largely out of fashion now, his works were widely acclaimed during the height of his career in the 1940’s. His dreamscapes were an evocation of complex metaphysical perspectives and were powerful statements about sexuality.

The Homoerotic Art of Pavel Tchelitchev assembles for the first time the painter’s erotic oeuvre that has been ignored for too long. These images, completed during a ten year span from 1929-1939, reflect the artist’s passion for the male form and his vision of uninhibited sexuality. Tchelitchev’s male nudes live in a dream world, a dream of fufillment, a dream free of guilt, where the body exists for beauty and has its purpose. These are dreams that were an important part of the artist’s development–visions that deserve to be seen. The edition is limited to one thousand numbered casebound copies and one hundred specially numbered and slipcased copies. Fifty eight duotone images and five full-color illustrations are reproduced, the format is 6 1/2” x 8 3/4”, 144 pages. $75. One hundred specially numbered and slipcased copies, $150.

The Quorum- A Magazine of Friendship. Introduction by Timothy d'Arch Smith

Asphodel Editions announces the publication of a facsimile edition of The Quorum, the shortlived "magazine of friendship" published in London in 1920. This ill-fated journal was the first endeavour at floating a homosexual magazine since the publication of The Chameleon in 1894, which was quickly suppressed in the aftermath of Oscar Wilde's conviction. The stated purpose of The Quorum was to do away with dilapidated social conventions and establish a less puritanical social system that "friends" could join. Among the contributors were Kenneth Ingram, Rev. E.E. Bradford, Leonard Green, John Gambril Nicholson, Rev. Arthur Gardner, Dorothy Sayers, Charles Kains Jackson and George Ives. Many of these activists shared more than their views on social reform, and were also involved in the British Society for the Study of Sex Psychology, a group devoted to the radcial agenda of sexual reform articulated by Edward Carpenter and Havelock Ellis.

Timothy d'Arch Smith, author of Love in Earnest, the definitive study of the Uranian poets, contributes an Introduction in which he relates a wealth of new information on the participants. Limited to 150 copies, bound in handmade paper boards, linen spine. ISBN 1-893450-13-9. $100.