The erotic printed material of the Georgian period holds a special place in the hearts of

many, as does the time itself, with its freedom and sense of fun, before the restrictions of
the Victorian age.  Like the English fashions and manners of the day, Georgian erotica had
its roots planted firmly across the Channel.  In 1748 the Thérèse Philosophe, attributed to
the Marquis d’Argens was published for an eager audience, combining explicit accounts of
sex with philosophical argument.  Those living in the extraordinary last decades of the
Ancien Regime were surrounded by a heady combination of high art and voluptuous
pleasure, typified by the erotic masterpieces of Boucher and Fragonard.  It was towards
the end of this age of Enlightenment that erotic literature and art gained the form we
recognize today, with the clandestine publishing of the Marquis de Sade’s 120 Days of
Sodom and, in 1769, the French humanitarian Restif de la Bretonne introducing the word
‘pornographe’ to the world in his tract on prostitution.

At the same time, back in England, the novelist Samuel Richardson was capturing the
enduring erotic myth of the age in his novel, Clarissa.  The innocent heroine of the title is
seduced and ruined by Lovelace, the cynical and mocking rake, who is both obsessed with
and repulsed by her innocence.  In his hero and heroine, Richard created the two
character who would feature most often in the erotic cartoons, paintings and printed
material of the Regency.  These roles were not confined to either male or female, and it
was often the male character whose naivety was exploited by a cynical woman.

Despite the sexually permissive atmosphere, Georgian society feared for the purity of its
wives and daughters, demonstrated by the trial of William Ryan in February of 1791 for the
publication and distribution of ‘obscene prints’.  The men were terrified of being cuckolded,
and yet could not countenance monogamy for themselves.  The tussles between sexes
were hidden behind closed doors, and it is this hidden struggle for power that lent the
erotic printed material of the day such frisson.  

It was during the Regency, with the advent of the newspaper and other mass-printed
journals, that the cartoon had its heyday.  Men such as James Gillray, Isaac Cruickshank
and most prolifically, Thomas Rowlandson, documented the age with drawings that
ranging from grotesque caricatures of elderly men with young girls, to beautiful almost
photographic images such as The Syrens, depicting the Duchess of Devonshire and Lady
Duncarron gazing knowingly at the artist.

Rowlandson, known for his preoccupation with ‘the light ladies of Covent Garden’
documented the sexual dialogue of the Regency in his illustrations, some of which, like
The Syrens, are intriguing images of the quiet power woman held.  Some are reflectons of
society life in the spirit of Hogarth’s Gin Lane and Marriage à la Mode, and many were
frank exercises in ‘coarseness’.  The latter, despite being coarse maintained Rowlandson’s
commentary on the political, social and romantic concerns of the time.  His illustrations
dissected the sexual relationships that often controlled many political decisions, including
the romances of the Prince Regent and his various amours, and the debauchery of the
camp followers of the French campaign.  

Other erotic cartoons include The Cuckold, demonstrating at once the Regency fear and
relish of female sexuality.  This duality is not typically Georgian and has been a theme of
pornographic literature since its inception.  But the Regency was perhaps the swan-song
of male do,inqnce over female sexuality before the repression of the Victorian era and the
female emancipation of the 20th century.  The enjoyment of this feminine sexuality is most
apparent in the Romantic erotic cartoons such as The Harem: the women are young,
beautiful and undoubtedly eager, as is evident in the depiction of the Sultan.  It is perhaps
only in these ‘romantic’ drawings in which Rabelaisian reality is banished and
Rowlandson’s technical skill produces images of delicate, titillating eroticism.

These beautiful, brilliant prints and illustrations were of course, counterpointed with crude
and more explicit ‘scurrilous pamphlets’ and printings, which are less famous and often
only details of the trials for obscenity of those involved remain in the archives of The
Times.  Other printed materials included the memoirs of famous courtesans.  One of the
most famous courtesans of the day was Theresa Berkeley, the ‘governess’ of 28 Charlotte
Street, who invented a flagellation machine christened the Berkeley Horse in 1828.  Her
memoirs, parts of which exist in the Ashbee Collection, while not naming names were
explicit enough to cause a great stir, and her private papers were subsequently destoryed. 
Another noted whipper was Mrs Collett, whose establishment was in Tavistock Court in
Covent Garden.  The Prince Regent and his ‘unpleasant friends’ were open about having
visited there.  Unfortunately, Mrs Collett left no significant memoir.

Until this point, it has appeared the erotic material of the Regency focussed on the
satisfaction of the male libido.  While this may be largely true, the manufacture of such
material did not always llie within male control.  One famous publisher f erotic material in
Regency London was Mary Wilson.  Hailed by Theresa Berkeley as, ‘the reviver of erotic
literature’, she wrote not only for men but also for women, including a lengthy piece
promoting sexual activity for the older lady: Fornication on the Part of Old Maids and
Widows Defended by Mary Wilson, Spinster, with Plans for Promoting the Same,
Addressed to the Ladies of the Metropolis and its Environs.

Whatever Miss Wilson’s true views on the pornography she produced, she was producing
it for a healthy market.  The biographers of Regency figures such as the cartoonists are
firm in their belief that their subjects executed erotic material only in times of pecuniary
difficulty, when they were paid large sums by ‘high placed memebers of the aristocracy,
who, though men of extreme culture, had strange foibles and often perverted tastes.  Men
such as Lord Yarmouth, the third Marquis of Hertford, were noted collectors of erotica.  He
purchased all of Boucher’s more exotic works and also most of Rowlandson’s more ‘vile
comicalities’.  It was a thing of pride amongst many an aristocratic male to possess a
‘gallant’ library, purchased from the many shops and stalls of Holywell Street, behind the
Strand, or commissioned from an artist in a Soho coffee house.

It is this that perhaps endears Regency erotica to the modern reader: that in such a
mannered, cultivated time, a collection of weird, wonderful and often tecnically beautiful
pornography was a thing of pride, to be exhibited to one’s friends after a sumptuous
dinner.  To become embroiled in the moral issues surrounding the printed material of the
Regency is to be pedantic and confuse its sheer exuberance.  After all, as Trevelyan put it,
the Regency was an age when ‘men of standing, of strong mental powers and refined
cultivated...were conspicuous for impudent vice, for daily dissipation, for pranks which
could have been regarded as childish and unbecoming by the cornets of a crack cavalry
regiment in the worst days of military licence.’