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Girodias
Maurice Girodias (12 April 1919 – 3 July 1990) was a French publisher who founded the Olympia Press, specialising in risqué books, censored in Britain and America, that were permitted in France in English-language versions only. It evolved from his father’s Obelisk Press, famous for publishing Henry Miller’s ''Tropic of Cancer''. Girodias published Vladimir Nabokov's '' Lolita'', J. P. Donleavy’s ''The Ginger Man'' (involving a 20-year lawsuit), and works by Samuel Beckett, William S. Burroughs, John Glassco and Christopher Logue. Early life Girodias was born Maurice Kahane in Paris, France, the son of Manchester-born Jack Kahane and a French heiress, Marcelle (''née'' Girodias). His father was Jewish and his mother was Catholic. Girodias lived a relatively idyllic childhood until the Depression forced his father to take up a new profession in Paris, publishing risqué books in English for the consumption of foreign tourists, who because of censorship could no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Olympia Press
Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary fiction, and is best known for issuing the first printed edition of Vladimir Nabokov's ''Lolita.'' In its heyday during the mid-fifties Olympia Press specialized in books which could not be published (without legal action) in the English-speaking world. Early on, Girodias relied on the permissive attitudes of the French to publish sexually explicit books in both French and English. The French began to ban and seize the press's book in the late fifties. Precisely 94 Olympia Press publications were promoted and packaged as "Traveller's Companion" books, usually with simple text-only covers, and each book in the series was numbered. The "Ophelia Press" line of erotica was far larger, using the same design, but pink covers instead of green. Olympia Press was t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Austryn Wainhouse
Austryn Wainhouse (6 February 1927 – 29 September 2014) was an American author, publisher and translator, primarily of French works and most notably of the Marquis de Sade. He sometimes used the pseudonym Pieralessandro Casavini. Life Following his graduation from Harvard University, Wainhouse traveled around Europe before settling in Paris where he worked for Maurice Girodias at Olympia Press. His wife Mary, known as ''Muffy'' or ''Muffie'', also worked for Girodias. They divorced in 1959. In 1960, some time after Wainhouse had returned to the United States, Gay Talese described him as Wainhouse and his wife, Deborah Clayton Wainhouse, returned to the south of France in 2001, where he lived until his death in September 2014.Austryn Wainhouse Papers Syracuse University Special Collections Research Center ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obelisk Press
Obelisk Press was an English-language press based in Paris, founded by British publisher Jack Kahane in 1929. Manchester-born novelist Kahane began the Obelisk Press after his publisher, Grant Richards, went bankrupt. Going into partnership with a printer — Herbert Clarke, owner of Imprimerie Vendôme — Kahane, as "Cecil Barr", published his next novel ''Daffodil'' under his own imprint in 1931. A writer and publisher of "db's" ("dirty books"), Kahane mixed serious work with smut in his list; he has been described as "a quite bizarre blend of ultra-sophisticated, avant-garde literary entrepreneur and, by the standards of his time, pornographer." He was able to take advantage of the fact that books published in France in English were not subject to the kind of censorship practised in Britain at the time. However, they were still subject to confiscation by British and US customs officers. Kahane published Henry Miller's 1934 novel, ''Tropic of Cancer'', which had explicit sexua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Ginger Man
''The Ginger Man'' is a novel, first published in Paris in 1955, by J. P. Donleavy. The story is set in Dublin, Ireland, in post-war 1947. Upon its publication, it was banned both in Ireland and the United States of America by reason of obscenity. Background Donleavy's friend and fellow writer Brendan Behan was the first person to read the completed manuscript. The book was rejected by numerous publishers, but ''The Manchester Guardian'' published some extracts from it, calling the book a "comic triumph". Subsequently, Behan told Donleavy about Olympia Press, a Paris-based English-language publisher that had produced works by Samuel Beckett, and Donleavy succeeded in getting the book published by them, but was angered when he discovered that it had done so under its pornography imprint. In his 1994 autobiography ''The History of The Ginger Man'', Donleavy wrote, "I smashed my fist upon its green cover format, published as it was in the pseudonymous and pornographic Traveller's ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lolita
''Lolita'' is a 1955 novel written by Russian-American novelist Vladimir Nabokov. The novel is notable for its controversial subject: the protagonist and unreliable narrator, a middle-aged literature professor under the pseudonym Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with a 12-year-old girl, Dolores Haze, whom he kidnaps and sexually abuses after becoming her stepfather. "Lolita", the Spanish nickname for Dolores, is what he calls her privately. The novel was originally written in English and first published in Paris in 1955 by Olympia Press. The novel has been twice adapted into film: first by Stanley Kubrick in 1962, and later by Adrian Lyne in 1997. It has also been adapted several times for the stage and has been the subject of two operas, two ballets, and an acclaimed, but commercially unsuccessful, Broadway musical. It has been included in many lists of best books, such as '' Time'' List of the 100 Best Novels, '' Le Monde'' 100 Books of the Century, Bokklubben World Library, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jack Kahane
Jack Kahane (20 July 1887, in Manchester – 2 September 1939, in Paris) was a writer and publisher who founded the Obelisk Press in Paris in 1929. He was the son of Selig and Susy Kahane, both immigrants from Romania. Kahane, a novelist, began the Obelisk Press after his publisher, Grant Richards, went bankrupt. Going into partnership with a printer — Herbert Clarke, owner of Imprimerie Vendôme — Kahane published his next novel ''Daffodil'' under his own imprint, and under one of several pseudonyms he used, Cecil Barr. A publisher of "dbs" ("dirty books"), Kahane mixed serious work with smut in his list; he was able to take advantage of a legal hiatus whereby English-language books published in France were not subject there to the censorship otherwise effectively practised in the UK and elsewhere, though they remained potentially subject to confiscation when they were imported into English-speaking countries. The Obelisk Press published Henry Miller's ''Tropic of Cancer'' and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tropic Of Cancer (novel)
''Tropic of Cancer'' is a novel by Henry Miller that has been described as "notorious for its candid sexuality" and as responsible for the "free speech that we now take for granted in literature." It was first published in 1934 by the Obelisk Press in Paris, France, but this edition was banned in the United States. Its publication in 1961 in the United States by Grove Press led to obscenity trials that tested American laws on pornography in the early 1960s. In 1964, the U.S. Supreme Court declared the book non-obscene. It is regarded as an important work of 20th-century literature. Writing and publication Miller wrote the book between 1930 and 1934 during his "nomadic life" in Paris. The fictional Villa Borghese was actually 18 Villa Seurat in Paris' 14th arrondissement. As Miller discloses in the text of the book, he first intended to title it "Crazy Cock". Miller gave the following explanation of why the book's title was ''Tropic of Cancer'': "It was because to me cancer s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Obscenity
An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin ''obscēnus'', ''obscaenus'', "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Such loaded language can be used to indicate strong moral repugnance and outrage, in expressions such as "obscene profits" and "the obscenity of war". As a legal term, it usually refers to graphic depictions of people engaged in sexual and excretory activity, and related utterances of profane speech. United States obscenity law In the United States, issues of obscenity raise issues of limitations on the freedom of speech and of the press, which are otherwise protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Federal obscenity law in the U.S. is unusual in that there is no uniform national standard. Former Justice Potter Stewart of the Supreme Court of the United States, in attempting to classify what material constituted exactly "what is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sexus (The Rosy Crucifixion)
''The Rosy Crucifixion'', a trilogy consisting of ''Sexus'', ''Plexus'', and ''Nexus'', is a fictionalized account documenting the six-year period of Henry Miller's life in Brooklyn as he falls for his second wife June Miller, June and struggles to become a writer, leading up to his initial departure for Paris in 1928. The title comes from a sentence near the end of Miller's ''Tropic of Capricorn (novel), Tropic of Capricorn'': "All my Calvaries were rosy crucifixions, pseudo-tragedies to keep the fires of hell burning brightly for the real sinners who are in danger of being forgotten." ''Sexus'' ''Sexus'' (1949), the first volume, describes the break-up of Miller's first marriage to Maude as he meets, falls in love with and marries his second wife, the captivating and mysterious dancer Mona (June). All the while, he feels guilty for leaving Maude, and becomes more attracted to her following their divorce. At the beginning of ''Sexus'', Miller is 33 years old. June is at first call ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Nazi Germany. During Hitler's rise to power in 1930s Europe, it was frequently referred to as Hitlerism (german: Hitlerfaschismus). The later related term "neo-Nazism" is applied to other far-right groups with similar ideas which formed after the Second World War. Nazism is a form of fascism, with disdain for liberal democracy and the parliamentary system. It incorporates a dictatorship, fervent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the use of eugenics into its creed. Its extreme nationalism originated in pan-Germanism and the ethno-nationalist '' Völkisch'' movement which had been a prominent aspect of German nationalism since the late 19th century, and it was strongly influenced by the paramilitary groups that emerged af ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zorba The Greek
''Zorba the Greek'' ( el, Βίος και Πολιτεία του Αλέξη Ζορμπά, , Life and Times of Alexis Zorbas) is a novel written by the Cretan author Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in 1946. It is the tale of a young Greek intellectual who ventures to escape his bookish life with the aid of the boisterous and mysterious Alexis Zorba. The novel was adapted into the successful 1964 film of the same name directed by Michael Cacoyannis, as well as a stage musical and a BBC radio play. Plot The book opens in a café in Piraeus, just before dawn on a gusty autumn morning sometime after the end of World War I. The narrator, a young Greek intellectual, resolves to set aside his books for a few months after being stung by the parting words of a friend, Stavridakis, who has left for the Russian Caucasus to help the local Greek communities who are facing persecution. He sets off for Crete to re-open a disused lignite mine, and immerse himself in the world of peasants an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eric Kahane
The given name Eric, Erich, Erikk, Erik, Erick, or Eirik is derived from the Old Norse name ''Eiríkr'' (or ''Eríkr'' in Old East Norse due to monophthongization). The first element, ''ei-'' may be derived from the older Proto-Norse ''* aina(z)'', meaning "one, alone, unique", ''as in the form'' ''Æ∆inrikr'' explicitly, but it could also be from ''* aiwa(z)'' "everlasting, eternity", as in the Gothic form ''Euric''. The second element ''- ríkr'' stems either from Proto-Germanic ''* ríks'' "king, ruler" (cf. Gothic ''reiks'') or the therefrom derived ''* ríkijaz'' "kingly, powerful, rich, prince"; from the common Proto-Indo-European root * h₃rḗǵs. The name is thus usually taken to mean "sole ruler, autocrat" or "eternal ruler, ever powerful". ''Eric'' used in the sense of a proper noun meaning "one ruler" may be the origin of ''Eriksgata'', and if so it would have meant "one ruler's journey". The tour was the medieval Swedish king's journey, when newly elected, to s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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