Complete Set of the Oceanic Press Erotica from the Collection of Gershon Legman

Paris: Oceanic Press, 1958-60.
First Edition.

17.5cm x 11.5cm. 21 volumes. Lettered wrappers.

A complete run of Oceanic Press (twelve numbered and nine unnumbered volumes, two carrying a second work apiece for 23 in all) from the library of erotologist and folklorist Gershon Legman (1917-1999), four of the unnumbered volumes numbered to the spine in his had, and several with his brief bibliographic notes to the front flyleaf. Oceanic, produced by Pierre Delarue, was one of the Paris fly-by-night imprints thrown up in the late 1950s in the wake of Maurice Girodias’ Olympia Press, with Delarue shamelessly copying the size, format and pseudonymous manner of the Traveller’s Companion books; most of hte authors remain unidentified. Legman names Jack Olley, author ‘Love Together’, as a Black writer. The prize is No. 6, ‘A Diary of the Senses’: the first edition in English of an early work of trans erotica, its narrative of surgical sex-change apparently prompted by the Christine Jorgensen case. Issued here under the name Helen Tucker, it is generally attributed to the artist Isidore Isou (1925-2007), having first appeared in French as ‘La Confidence Sensuelle’ (Eric Losfeld, c. 1955) under the pseudonym Andre Suffren.

Minor soiling and foxing, a few with minor handling wear. Very Good Condition.

AU$2,500