The books below are highly recommended for all students studying our erotic writing course. The titles selected include erotic fiction and some non-fiction, by both male and female authors. All titles are available to buy online through Amazon.

Suggested reading list

Story of O (1994), Pauline Reage, Corgi.
One of the most famous erotic novels of all time.
'A rare thing, a pornographic book well written and without a trace of obscenity' Graham Greene.

Lolita (2000 edn.), Vladimir Nabokov, Penguin Classics.
Humbert Humbert is a middle-aged, fastidious college professor. He also likes little girls. And none more so than Lolita, who he'll do anything to possess. Is he in love or insane? A silver-tongued poet or a pervert? A tortured soul or a monster? Or is he all of these?

The Complete Marquis De Sade: 1  (2005 edn.), Marquis de Sade (Author), Paul J. Gillette (Translator), Holloway House Publishing.
A rare two-volume translation of de Sade's titillating, shocking and classic writings.

Delta of Venus (2000 edn.), Anais Nin, Penguin Modern Classics.
This is a collection of short stories which explore the ultimate in sexual possibility, from a female angle.

Venus in Furs (2000 edn.), Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch (Author), Penguin Classics.
This 19th Century classic seems to be considered the beginning of sexual exploration within the mainstream, indeed it is considered that its author Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch gave his name to masochism (although not consciously).

"Justine", "Philosophy in the Bedroom" and Other Writings  1st Evergreen Ed edition (1994), D.A.F., Marquis De Sade, Grove Press/Atlantic Monthly Press.
"The supreme value of his testimony lies in its ability to disturb us. It forces us to reexamine thoroughly the basic problem which haunts our age in different forms:the true relation between man and man." - Simone de Beauvoir

Little Birds New Ed edition (2002), Anais Nin, Penguin Modern Classics.
Anais Nin's second volume of erotic short stories is broader in scope, encompassing the entire breadth of human sensuality. Each of the 13 stories captures a moment of pure desire, in all its complexity and paradoxical simplicity.

Fanny Hill: Or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure New Ed edition (1994), John Cleland, Penguin Popular Classics.
Published in 1748-9, this novel is a mocking parody of the warning moralism as seen in Defoe's novels. Rather than ending in misery, Fanny Hill rises from poverty to a middle-class existence as wife and mother via several stages of prostitution.

Writing guides

Aspects of the Novel (1927), E M Forster, Penguin.
The text of his famous Cambridge lectures. Accessible and valuable to all writers of fiction.

The Craft of Novel Writing (1998), Dianne Doubtfire, Allison & Busby.
Good practical advice. See also her Teach Yourself Creative Writing (1983), Hodder & Stoughton.

Writing the Novel: From Plot to Print (1986), Lawrence Block, Writer’s Digest Books.
Words of wisdom from a voice of experience.

Write Tight (1993), William Brohaugh, Writer’s Digest Books.
Subtitled ‘How to keep your prose sharp, focused and concise’. Guaranteed to have you looking at your work with a fresh - and critical - eye.

Elements of Arousal (1995), Lars Eighner, Richard Kasak Books.
Subtitled ‘How to write and sell gay men’s erotica’, this is far more than that and is recommended to anyone who wants to write fiction of any kind.

A Manual of Writer’s Tricks (1995), David L. Carroll, Marlowe & Company.
Tips on style, neatly expressed.

Bestseller (1996), Celia Brayfield, Fourth Estate.
Brilliant insights into the creation of popular fiction by a bestselling writer with the perception to analyse her own gift.

A Writer’s Tale (1998), Richard Laymon, Deadline Press.
Horror writer’s experience of being published (and rejected) – full of insight and hard truths

Reference

Lascivious Bodies: A Sexual History of the Eighteenth Century New Ed edition (2005), Julie Peakman, Atlantic Books.
Lascivious Bodies is the definitive account of a period of diverse sexual pleasures, and how they have shaped the way we think about sex today.

Sex, Literature and Censorship (2001), Jonathan Dollimore, Polity Press.

When Flesh Becomes Word: An Anthology of Early Eighteenth-century Libertine Literature (2004), Bradford Keyes Mudge (Editor), Oxford University Press Inc, USA.
When Flesh Becomes Word collects nine different examples of British libertine literature that appeared before 1750. Three of these--The School of Venus (1680), Venus in the Cloister (1725), and A Dialogue Between a Married Lady and a Maid (1740)--are famous "whore dialogues," dramatic conversations between an older,experienced woman and a younger, inexperienced maid.

Writers’ and Artists’ Yearbook, A & C Black
Annual UK publication stuffed with contact addresses - the book all publishers refer you to when they request you send your unsolicited novel elsewhere.