''Erotic Review'' is a monthly UK-based lifestyle publication. Covering eroticism and sex-related topics, it was first published in 1995 as a print magazine, migrating to an eZine format in June 2010. In addition to the monthly magazine, available to paying subscribers as a virtual flipbook (or a downloadable PDF), the magazine's website featured blogs and reviews available free of charge. Mid-2011 it was decided to change the format once again, dispense with the flipbook and subscriptions and make all current columns, articles and reviews free of charge and so accessible to all.
''Erotic Review'' comprises feature articles, fiction, photography portfolios and a review section, taking a literary approach to eroticism and sexuality. The magazine's stated purpose is ‘to appeal to the primary sexual organ – the brain’ which it achieves through ‘great writing, which is witty, funny, intelligent, knowledgeable’.
[Simon Tat]
''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'', 14 June 2009. Retrieved 5 October 2010. ''Erotic Review'' is edited by Jamie Maclean.
Over the years, ''Erotic Review'' has had many prominent contributors, among them
Sarah Waters
Sarah Ann Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as '' Tipping the Velvet'' and '' Fingersmith''.
Life and education
Early life
Sa ...
,
Michel Faber,
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries (born 17 February 1934) is an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film pr ...
,
Simon Raven
Simon Arthur Noël Raven (28 December 1927 – 12 May 2001) was an English author, playwright, essayist, television writer, and screenwriter. He is known for his louche lifestyle as much as for his literary output.
Expelled from Charterhouse Sc ...
,
Auberon Waugh
Auberon Alexander Waugh (17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was an English journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron".
After a traditional classical education at Downsid ...
,
Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton (; born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss-born British author and philosopher. His books discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. He published ''Essays in Love'' (1993) ...
,
India Knight
India Knight (née Gisèle Aertsens; born 14 December 1965) is a British journalist and author. She writes for British newspapers, and has written the books: ''My Life on a Plate'', ''Don't You Want Me?'', ''The Shops'', ''Neris and India's Id ...
,
Arnold Wesker
Sir Arnold Wesker (24 May 1932 – 12 April 2016) was an English dramatist. He was the author of 50 plays, four volumes of short stories, two volumes of essays, much journalism and a book on the subject, a children's book, some poetry, and oth ...
,
Mariella Frostrup,
Claus von Bulow Claus (sometimes Clas) is both a given name and a German, Danish, and Dutch surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
*Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907–1944), a German officer who, along with others, attempted to assassi ...
,
Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst (; né
Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
,
Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as ...
,
Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provo ...
,
Steven Appleby
Steven Appleby (born 27 January 1956) is an absurdist cartoonist, illustrator and artist living in Britain. She is a dual citizen of the UK and Canada. Her humour has been described as “observational or absurd, with a keen sense of the turmoil ...
,
David Bailey
David Royston Bailey (born 2 January 1938) is an English photographer and director, most widely known for his fashion photography and portraiture, and role in shaping the image of the Swinging Sixties.
Early life
David Bailey was born at Wh ...
,
George Saunders
George Saunders (born December 2, 1958) is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', '' Harper's'', ''McSweeney's'', and '' GQ''. He also contributed a w ...
and
Immodesty Blaize
Immodesty Blaize (born Kelly Fletcher in Hitchin, Hertfordshire) is an English burlesque dancer who performs internationally. She was crowned Reigning Queen of Burlesque in June 2007 at the Las Vegas Burlesque Hall of Fame formerly known as Exo ...
.
[Ciar Byrn]
"The Erotic Review falls into bed with Penthouse"
''The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'', 11 September 2004. Retrieved 6 September 2020.["About Rowan Pelling"]
Sotheby's
Sotheby's () is a British-founded American multinational corporation with headquarters in New York City. It is one of the world's largest brokers of fine and decorative art, jewellery, and collectibles. It has 80 locations in 40 countries, an ...
, 17 January 2017. Retrieved 6 September 2020.["The Erotic Review Bedside Companion"]
Good Reads
Goodreads is an American social cataloging website and a subsidiary of Amazon that allows individuals to search its database of books, annotations, quotes, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and readin ...
, 2020. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
Subsequent
Booker Prize
The Booker Prize, formerly known as the Booker Prize for Fiction (1969–2001) and the Man Booker Prize (2002–2019), is a literary prize awarded each year for the best novel written in English and published in the United Kingdom or Ireland. ...
-winner
DBC Pierre
Peter Warren Finlay (born in 1961), also known as DBC Pierre, is an Australian author who wrote the novel '' Vernon God Little''.
Pierre was born in South Australia, and largely raised in Mexico. He has resided in the Republic of Ireland and ...
published his first short story in ''Erotic Review''.
Meanwhile,
Victoria Coren
Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell (' Coren; born ) is a British writer, TV presenter and professional poker player. Coren Mitchell writes weekly columns for '' The Telegraph'' and has hosted the BBC television quiz show ''Only Connect'' since ...
and
Charlie Skelton
Charlie Skelton is a comedy writer, journalist, artist and actor from Suffolk, England.
Early work
A University of Oxford graduate, he started out as a journalist, writing features for the ''Evening Standard'' and ''The Guardian''.
Career
Skel ...
wrote their book ''
Once More, with Feeling: How We Tried to Make the Greatest Porn Film Ever'' after their time reviewing porn films for ''Erotic Review'' inspired them to try to make their own.
History
''Erotic Review'' was founded in 1995 as a monthly newsletter for the publisher
Erotic Print Society
Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, scul ...
(subsequently Erotic Review Books). It was created by first editor Jamie Maclean, who ceded control to
Rowan Pelling
Rowan Dorothy Pelling (born 17 January 1968) is a British journalist, broadcaster, writer and stand-up comedian who first achieved note as the editor (or "editrice", to use her term) of a monthly literary/erotic magazine, the ''Erotic Review''. ...
in 1997. Pelling staged a management buyout from the Erotic Print Society in 2001, after a successful tenure that saw circulation figures rise to 30,000. As the magazine's parent company had been experiencing financial difficulties, Pelling was able to purchase ''Erotic Review'' for only £1 plus liabilities. In mid-2003 Pelling sold ''Erotic Review'' to media mogul
Felix Dennis
Felix Dennis (27 May 1947 – 22 June 2014) was an English publisher, poet, spoken-word performer and philanthropist. His company, Dennis Publishing, pioneered computer and hobbyist magazine publishing in the United Kingdom. In more recent times ...
, whose company Dennis Publishing controlled titles including ''Maxim''. In late 2004 ''Erotic Review'' was sold again, this time to a top-shelf magazine publisher. When the new management attempted to transfer the editorial team to the ''
Penthouse'' offices in Surrey, they resigned ''en masse'', and Pelling was replaced as editor by Penthouse UK's sub editor Catasha Kin.
Edward Timon, who had been hired as deputy editor under Kin, took over as Editor-in-Chief at the end of 2004 as part of a deal to revive another well-known British publication,
''Forum - The International Journal of Human Relations''; successfully negotiating a deal with publisher Q3 to take on monthly magazine ''Forum'' only if ''Erotic Review'' could also be revived as a quarterly publication. Timon revamped ''ER'' to be less elitist, aimed at the emerging neo-libertarian audiences who were feeding the Burlesque cabaret revival in the UK at the time. He reduced the size of the publication to A5 (a format he termed as 'hand bag sized') and significantly increased the page count. He laid out the blueprint for a fully online offering of freely available content, with some also available for purchase. Utilising the global nature of the internet, printing was moved from Spain to Hong Kong allowing for significant savings to be achieved, despite the need to have the magazine flown to Dubai and then shipped to Felixstowe.
The relaunch edition, Edition 69, featured burlesque performer Miss Lily White on the cover and a book review by famous comedian and raconteur
Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries (born 17 February 1934) is an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film pr ...
. Timon emphasised not only the need for a younger fresher audience without having to 'dumb down' but also vigorously supported sexual freedom campaigners such as
Tuppy Owens
Rosalind Mary Owens (born 12 November 1944), known as Tuppy Owens, is an English sex therapist, consultant, campaigner, writer and former adult model.
Education
Born in Cambridge, Owens gained a degree in zoology from Exeter University, and th ...
and the
Erotic Awards
The Sexual Freedom Awards is an annual British event that honours achievement in the sexuality and erotica industries worldwide.
Founded in 1994 by campaigner Tuppy Owens, the awards were first called the "Erotic Oscars", until the name had to be ...
arguing that with the privilege of titillation came the responsibility to educate and to defend all people's right to feel erotic and engage in their sexuality, regardless of class, income, or physical ability. Timon's campaign for new editorial assistance received attention from the ''Financial Times'' Clay Harris, in the Mudlark media column for seeking staff who "must embody pure sunshine" Over the next two years the ''ER'' readership steadily grew, while ''Forum''s stagnated, until the then publisher of ''Attitude'' magazine, Trojan, purchased the titles and took on the entire staff of Q3. He requested to be released from his obligations under ''Forum'' magazine to concentrate on ''Erotic Review''.
Timon was supplanted by the newly reinstated assistant editor of ''Forum'' Jan Birks, previously of Northern & Shell, in late 2006. Birks, in her own style, tried to make the magazine more mainstream, "not just for the toffee-nosed or the literary". The change of tack did not work, and after two issues ''Erotic Review'' was sold back to its original owners The
Erotic Print Society
Eroticism () is a quality that causes sexual feelings, as well as a philosophical contemplation concerning the aesthetics of sexual desire, sensuality, and romantic love. That quality may be found in any form of artwork, including painting, scul ...
in early 2007. The magazine was merged with The Erotic Print Society's new magazine ''SEx'', and re-launched, with Founder
Jamie Maclean as editor and Edward Timon as associate editor, in December 2007 in a larger format. A second relaunch took place in 2009, when ''Erotic Review'' was purchased by one of its longest serving contributors, writer and broadcaster
Kate Copstick
Kate Copstick (born 25 February 1956 in Glasgow) is a Scottish actress, television presenter, writer, critic, director and producer. She studied for a law degree at the University of Glasgow.
Career
As a comedy actor, Copstick appeared o ...
.
[ Literary Agent, Lisa Moylett of Coombs Moylett Literary Agency bought the Erotic Review in 2014 and during this period collaborated with Mariella Frostrup to publish ''Desire: 100 of Literature's Sexiest Stories''.][Natasha Onwuemez]
''HoZ to publish Frostrup 'desire' anthology'', ''The Bookseller'', 29 January 2016. The magazine is now free and exclusively available online. Lisa Moylett sold the magazine to Jamie Maclean, its original founder, in 2017.
Contributors
*Steven Appleby
Steven Appleby (born 27 January 1956) is an absurdist cartoonist, illustrator and artist living in Britain. She is a dual citizen of the UK and Canada. Her humour has been described as “observational or absurd, with a keen sense of the turmoil ...
* Michael Attree
*David Bailey
David Royston Bailey (born 2 January 1938) is an English photographer and director, most widely known for his fashion photography and portraiture, and role in shaping the image of the Swinging Sixties.
Early life
David Bailey was born at Wh ...
* Stephen Bayley
*Vanora Bennett
Vanora Bennett (born 1962) is a British author and journalist.
Biography
Bennett grew up in London, the eldest daughter of the flute player William Bennett and the cellist Rhuna Martin, and read Russian and French at the University of Oxford. ...
*Immodesty Blaize
Immodesty Blaize (born Kelly Fletcher in Hitchin, Hertfordshire) is an English burlesque dancer who performs internationally. She was crowned Reigning Queen of Burlesque in June 2007 at the Las Vegas Burlesque Hall of Fame formerly known as Exo ...
*Adam Buxton
Adam Offord Buxton (born 7 June 1969) is an English actor, comedian, podcaster and writer. With the filmmaker Joe Cornish, he is part of the comedy duo Adam and Joe. They presented the Channel 4 television series '' The Adam and Joe Show'' (19 ...
*Michael Bywater
Michael Bywater (born 11 May 1953) is an English non-fiction writer and broadcaster. He has worked for many London newspapers and periodicals and contributed to the design of computer games.
Biography
Bywater was educated at the independent Nottin ...
*Anna Chancellor
Anna Theodora Chancellor (born 27 April 1965) is a British actress who has received nominations for BAFTA and Olivier Awards.
Background and early life
Chancellor was born in Richmond, England to barrister John Paget Chancellor, eldest son of ...
*Kate Copstick
Kate Copstick (born 25 February 1956 in Glasgow) is a Scottish actress, television presenter, writer, critic, director and producer. She studied for a law degree at the University of Glasgow.
Career
As a comedy actor, Copstick appeared o ...
*Victoria Coren
Victoria Elizabeth Coren Mitchell (' Coren; born ) is a British writer, TV presenter and professional poker player. Coren Mitchell writes weekly columns for '' The Telegraph'' and has hosted the BBC television quiz show ''Only Connect'' since ...
* Helen Cross
*Alain de Botton
Alain de Botton (; born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss-born British author and philosopher. His books discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. He published ''Essays in Love'' (1993) ...
* Ian Dunt
* Michel Faber
* Elizabeth Fremantle
* Mariella Frostrup
*Anouchka Grose
Anouchka Grose (born 1970 in Sydney, Australia) is a British-Australian Lacanian psychoanalyst and writer.Liz Hoggard, Evening Standard, 11 February 2010.
Careers
Before training as a psychoanalyst, she studied Fine Art at Goldsmiths' Colleg ...
* Michael Heath
* Philip Hensher
*Damien Hirst
Damien Steven Hirst (; né
Brennan; born 7 June 1965) is an English artist, entrepreneur, and art collector. He is one of the Young British Artists (YBAs) who dominated the art scene in the UK during the 1990s. He is reportedly the United Kingd ...
*Nichi Hodgson
Nichi Hodgson (born 9 September 1983) is a British journalist, broadcaster, and author. She was one of the first British journalists to court-report via Twitter, covering the 2012 obscenity trial, ''R v Peacock''.
Early life and education
Ho ...
*Sebastian Horsley
Sebastian Horsley (born Marcus A. Horsley; 8 August 1962 – 17 June 2010) was an English artist and writer. Horsley's writing often revolved around his dysfunctional family, his flamboyant and eccentric behavior, his drug addictions, sex, and ...
*Barry Humphries
John Barry Humphries (born 17 February 1934) is an Australian comedian, actor, author and satirist. He is best known for writing and playing his on-stage and television alter egos Dame Edna Everage and Sir Les Patterson. He is also a film pr ...
*Boris Johnson
Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (; born 19 June 1964) is a British politician, writer and journalist who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2019 to 2022. He previously served as ...
*India Knight
India Knight (née Gisèle Aertsens; born 14 December 1965) is a British journalist and author. She writes for British newspapers, and has written the books: ''My Life on a Plate'', ''Don't You Want Me?'', ''The Shops'', ''Neris and India's Id ...
*Kathy Lette
Kathryn Marie Lette (born 11 November 1958) is an Australian-British author whose works have been best-sellers.
Early life
Lette was born on 11 November 1958 in Sydney's southern suburbs.
She appeared in ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' of 20 Au ...
*Malcolm McLaren
Malcolm Robert Andrew McLaren (22 January 1946 – 8 April 2010) was an English impresario, visual artist, singer, songwriter, musician, clothes designer and boutique owner, notable for combining these activities in an inventive and provo ...
*Bel Mooney
Beryl Ann "Bel" Mooney (born 8 October 1946) is an English journalist and broadcaster. She currently writes a column for the ''Daily Mail'', having previously written – mainly as a columnist – for other publications including the ''Daily Mirro ...
*Malachi O'Doherty
Malachi John O'Doherty (born 1951, Muff, County Donegal, Ireland)
is a journalist, author and broadcaster in Northern Ireland. He is the producer and presenter of the audio blog ''Arts Talk''.
Career
O'Doherty was one of the longest runni ...
*Tuppy Owens
Rosalind Mary Owens (born 12 November 1944), known as Tuppy Owens, is an English sex therapist, consultant, campaigner, writer and former adult model.
Education
Born in Cambridge, Owens gained a degree in zoology from Exeter University, and th ...
*Rowan Pelling
Rowan Dorothy Pelling (born 17 January 1968) is a British journalist, broadcaster, writer and stand-up comedian who first achieved note as the editor (or "editrice", to use her term) of a monthly literary/erotic magazine, the ''Erotic Review''. ...
*DBC Pierre
Peter Warren Finlay (born in 1961), also known as DBC Pierre, is an Australian author who wrote the novel '' Vernon God Little''.
Pierre was born in South Australia, and largely raised in Mexico. He has resided in the Republic of Ireland and ...
*Ken Pyne
Ken Pyne (born 30 April 1951) is a British cartoonist.
Aged 16, he had his first cartoon published in ''Punch'', and has since had regular work in ''Private Eye'', many British national newspapers and other publications.
He illustrated cartoons ...
* Mark Ramsden
*Simon Raven
Simon Arthur Noël Raven (28 December 1927 – 12 May 2001) was an English author, playwright, essayist, television writer, and screenwriter. He is known for his louche lifestyle as much as for his literary output.
Expelled from Charterhouse Sc ...
*George Saunders
George Saunders (born December 2, 1958) is an American writer of short stories, essays, novellas, children's books, and novels. His writing has appeared in ''The New Yorker'', '' Harper's'', ''McSweeney's'', and '' GQ''. He also contributed a w ...
*Miranda Seymour
Miranda Jane Seymour (born 8 August 1948) is an English literary critic, novelist and biographer. The lives she has described have included those of Robert Graves and Mary Shelley. Seymour, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, has in re ...
*Charlie Skelton
Charlie Skelton is a comedy writer, journalist, artist and actor from Suffolk, England.
Early work
A University of Oxford graduate, he started out as a journalist, writing features for the ''Evening Standard'' and ''The Guardian''.
Career
Skel ...
*Claus von Bulow Claus (sometimes Clas) is both a given name and a German, Danish, and Dutch surname. Notable people with the name include:
Given name
*Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg (1907–1944), a German officer who, along with others, attempted to assassi ...
*Helen Walsh
Helen Walsh (born 1976) is an English novelist and film director. Her novels include ''Brass'', which won a Betty Trask Award, and ''Once Upon a Time in England'', which won a Somerset Maugham Award.
Personal life
Walsh was born in Warrington, C ...
*Sarah Waters
Sarah Ann Waters (born 21 July 1966) is a Welsh novelist. She is best known for her novels set in Victorian society and featuring lesbian protagonists, such as '' Tipping the Velvet'' and '' Fingersmith''.
Life and education
Early life
Sa ...
*Auberon Waugh
Auberon Alexander Waugh (17 November 1939 – 16 January 2001) was an English journalist and novelist, and eldest son of the novelist Evelyn Waugh. He was widely known by his nickname "Bron".
After a traditional classical education at Downsid ...
*Arnold Wesker
Sir Arnold Wesker (24 May 1932 – 12 April 2016) was an English dramatist. He was the author of 50 plays, four volumes of short stories, two volumes of essays, much journalism and a book on the subject, a children's book, some poetry, and oth ...
*Grace Woodward
Grace Woodward (born 1976) is an English creative, fashion stylist and television presenter
She is known for various TV and radio roles, such as judging for Sky Living's ''Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model'', hosting ''Chick Fix'' on the sam ...
References
{{Reflist
External links
''Erotic Review'' website
Erotica magazines published in the United Kingdom
Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom
Magazines established in 1995