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''The Pearl: A Magazine of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading'' was a
pornographic Pornography (often shortened to porn or porno) is the portrayal of sexual subject matter for the exclusive purpose of sexual arousal. Primarily intended for adults,
monthly magazine issued in
London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a major s ...
during the mid-Victorian period by
William Lazenby William Lazenby (died c. 1888) was an English publisher of pornography active in the 1870s and 1880s. He used the aliases Duncan Cameron and Thomas Judd. His notable publications include magazines '' The Pearl'', which published poems thought to h ...
. It was closed down by the British authorities for violating contemporary standards of
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 us ...
.


Publication

''The Pearl'' ran for eighteen issues from July 1879 to December 1880, with two Christmas supplements. As an underground publication, it was limited to 150 copies and cost twenty-five pounds, which made it unusually expensive relative to comparable contemporaneous pornographic periodicals. The Christmas Annual, a crudely produced supplement that ran sixty pages, sold for three guineas. Only the special numbers contained illustrations. The publisher and editor, William Lazenby, also wrote some of the content. The magazine was distributed discreetly through mail order. Based on the cost and subject matter, the target audience appears to have been middle- and upper-class professionals. Two of the flagellant poems were composed by
Algernon Charles Swinburne Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
, though it is unclear whether he authorized their publication. The format of the magazine, in combining a mix of short stories, serial fiction, current events, and letters to the editor, parodied contemporary family magazines such as ''Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine,'' which itself contained depictions of corporal punishment. Parts of the magazine were later compiled and translated into German. After the magazine was shut down, Lazenby would go on to publish three subsequent pornographic magazines, '' The Cremorne'' (1882), ''
The Oyster ''The Oyster'' was an erotic magazine published in London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the Rive ...
'' (1883), and '' The Boudoir'' (1883). The popularity of pornographic magazines like ''The Pearl'' was part of a trend that began in the 1860s of capitalizing on the profitability of writing about sex, which served to proliferate discourses about sexuality by the time of the ''
fin de siècle () is a French term meaning "end of century,” a phrase which typically encompasses both the meaning of the similar English idiom "turn of the century" and also makes reference to the closing of one era and onset of another. Without context ...
'' in England.


Contents

The general format of the periodical was to publish three serial erotic tales simultaneously, devoted to sex in high society, incest, and flagellation, respectively. The novels, six in total, were interspersed with limericks, hymns, odes, songs, facetious nursery rhymes, acrostic poems, parodies, faux advertisements, and fabricated letters to the editor. The topics depicted in the novels and poems were wide-ranging, including women's suffrage, physical disability, sexual impairment, secret sex societies, bestiality, India-rubber dildos, slave rape, duels, mock crucifixions, Turkish harems, and prophylactic devices.Thomas J. Joudrey, "Against Communal Nostalgia: Reconstructing Sociality in the Pornographic Ballad," ''Victorian Poetry'' 54.4 (2017). ''The Pearl'' often contained extensive political commentary, including references to the Reform Bills and
Contagious Diseases Acts The Contagious Diseases Acts (CD Acts) were originally passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1864 (27 & 28 Vict. c. 85), with alterations and additions made in 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c. 35) and 1869 (32 & 33 Vict. c. 96). In 1862, a com ...
, and portrayed or alluded to many controversial public figures, including
Annie Besant Annie Besant ( Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights activist, educationist, writer, orator, political party member and philanthropist. Regarded as a champion of human f ...
,
Charles Spurgeon Charles Haddon Spurgeon (19 June 1834 – 31 January 1892) was an English Particular Baptist preacher. Spurgeon remains highly influential among Christians of various denominations, among whom he is known as the "Prince of Preachers". He wa ...
, Wilfrid Lawson, Newman Hall,
Edmund Burke Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
, William Gladstone, and
Robert Peel Sir Robert Peel, 2nd Baronet, (5 February 1788 – 2 July 1850) was a British Conservative statesman who served twice as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1834–1835 and 1841–1846) simultaneously serving as Chancellor of the Excheque ...
. ''The Pearl'' contains the first obscene tale about slavery in the Americas. The story, entitled ''My Grandmother's Tale'', depicts the brutal sexualized flogging of a black West Indian slave girl by an overseer of ambiguous racial background acting under the authority of a white plantation owner. ''The Pearls serial novel ''Lady Pokingham'', in which a consumptive invalid recounts her sexual adventures from a
wheelchair A wheelchair is a chair with wheels, used when walking is difficult or impossible due to illness, injury, problems related to old age, or disability. These can include spinal cord injuries (paraplegia, hemiplegia, and quadriplegia), cerebral p ...
, has been noted for its depiction of transience, bodily decay, and death, which thus provides counter-evidence to the idea advanced by
Steven Marcus Steven Paul Marcus (December 13, 1928 – April 25, 2018) was an American academic and literary critic who published influential psychoanalytic analyses of the novels of Charles Dickens and Victorian pornography. He was George Delacorte Professo ...
that Victorian pornography portrays a pornotopia.


Legal and cultural legacy

Swinburne’s flagellant writings from ''The Pearl'' have been cited in British legal arguments as evidence against the safety and utility of corporal punishment in schools. In 2011, a
local councillor A councillor is an elected representative for a local government council in some countries. Canada Due to the control that the provinces have over their municipal governments, terms that councillors serve vary from province to province. Unl ...
in Australia was convicted for possession of "child exploitation material" because a digital copy of ''The Pearl'' was found on his laptop. Greg Barns, the director of Australian Lawyers Alliance, noted that the conviction would imply criminality for possession of any number of works of art and literature, and media reports pointed out that
HarperCollins HarperCollins Publishers LLC is one of the Big Five English-language publishing companies, alongside Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, Hachette, and Macmillan. The company is headquartered in New York City and is a subsidiary of News Cor ...
had republished the magazine in 2009, and was currently available on Amazon. When the Victorian origins of the materials were identified on appeal, the conviction was set aside. A selection from the story ''Lady Pokingham'' is read during a scene in the 2012 film '' The Master''. ''The Pearl''s characters and locations, being
Victoriana Victoriana is a term used to refer to material culture related to the Victorian period (1837–1901). It often refers to decorative objects, but can also describe a variety of artifacts from the era including graphic design, publications, pho ...
, are featured in ''
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen ''The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen'' (''LoEG'') is a comic book series (inspired by the 1960 British film ''The League of Gentlemen'') co-created by writer Alan Moore and artist Kevin O'Neill which began in 1999. The series spans four volum ...
'' by
Alan Moore Alan Moore (born 18 November 1953) is an English author known primarily for his work in comic books including ''Watchmen'', ''V for Vendetta'', ''The Ballad of Halo Jones'', ''Swamp Thing'', ''Batman:'' ''The Killing Joke'', and ''From Hell' ...
. A girls' school seems to be haunted by a ghost (The "Holy Spirit") that is raping and impregnating the students. The headmistress is Rosa Coote, a character from one of ''The Pearl's'' serials. The "Holy Spirit" turns out to be Hawley Griffin, the Invisible Man.


See also

* Rosa Coote *
Victorian morality Victorian morality is a distillation of the morality, moral views of the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era. Victorian values emerged in all classes and reached all facets of Victorian living. The values of the period—wh ...
* Pornotopia


References


Bibliography

*''The Pearl: A Journal of Voluptuous Reading, the Underground Magazine of Victorian England'',
Grove Press Grove Press is an American publishing imprint that was founded in 1947. Imprints include: Black Cat, Evergreen, Venus Library, and Zebra. Barney Rosset purchased the company in 1951 and turned it into an alternative book press in the United Sta ...
, 1968,


External links


Website with all 18 magazines
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pearl Erotica magazines published in the United Kingdom Defunct magazines published in the United Kingdom Magazines published in London Magazines established in 1879 Magazines disestablished in 1880 Monthly magazines published in the United Kingdom