The Housewife's Handbook on Selective Promiscuity

Stated "seventh printing." Inscribed on front endpaper: "for betty jo / with cordial regards," signed as "Rey Anthony," undated but apparently contemporary with publication. 12mo (16cm). Black cloth over boards; 240,(2)pp. Bit of rubbing to cover title, else a straight, clean copy, Very Good or better, lacking the presumed dustwrapper. Preceded by privately-printed editions in 1960 and 1961 (Tucson: Seymour Press; this was apparently Anthony's own publishing venture).

A pioneering erotic memoir, sufficiently ahead of its time to have put its publisher, the infamous Ralph Ginzburg, in prison on charges of pandering and distributing indecent materials through the mails. Told from the point of view of an Arizona housewife – a thinly disguised avatar for the author herself – the book recounts, in quite graphic detail, the main character's sexual awakening as a child and her continued experimentation with different partners and techniques through motherhood and early middle age.

In his brief introduction, psychologist Albert Ellis describes The Housewife's Guide as "...one of the most honest, courageous, valuable books on sex that I have ever read...in relatively few words Mrs. Anthony, on the basis of her own extensive and intensive sex experiences, manages to be duly skeptical of the allegedly superlative value of simultaneous climax; to deflate the myth of 'vaginal' orgasm; to emphasize the importance of focusing on sexual imagery; to be highly dubious of the necessity of totally unplanned, 'spontaneous' coital activity; and unprudishly to indicate the advantages of anal stimulation and sexual varietism." However, these accolades from a distinguished psychotherapist did nothing to dissuade the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia from ruling that The Housewife's Handbook had descriptions that "... in detail, in a clearly prurient manner, offend, degrade and sicken anyone however healthy his [sic] mind was before exposure to this material. It is a gross shock to the mind and a chore to read" (quoted in Leon Friedman, "The Ginzburg Decision and the Law," American Scholar v.36 no. 1 Winter 2966).

The Housewife's Handbook was distributed ad-hoc, through the mails and possibly under the counter by a few risk-taking booksellers. Just how many copies were seized and destroyed by U.S. postal authorities is unclear; claims we've encountered in print and on-line range from "some" to "the entire print run." There is also a legitimate question regarding how many printings were actually issued by Ginzburg under his "Documentary Books" imprint; fewer than twenty copies survive in institutional collections (plus about a dozen of the earlier Seymour Press edition); given the book's troubled history we wonder whether the stated "seventh printing" is actually just a marketing gimmick by Ginzburg, who was certainly not above such shenanigans. The book in all its editions has always been scarce in commerce. We have not previously handled an inscribed copy: needless to say, the publisher did not sponsor a nationwide book-signing tour.
www.lornebair.com

Taken in: United States / Virginia / College Park (show map)

Taken on: February 23, 2024

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