Tijuana Bibles were the ribald, wry, scandalous dirty jokes of their day. Printed very cheaply on very cheap pulp paper, they were sized to discreetly fit into a pocket. Sold from speakeasies or the back rooms of pool halls and from behind the counters of private shops, they were another type of contraband that was distributed around America during the Prohibition years.
Artists and illustrators of erotic art would usually make very limited editions of portfolios of erotic work. They were strictly for the connoisseurs of “certain pleasures”. Frequently a portfolio of prints would be well under 100 copies. They were treasured and kept with one’s private papers.
Censored, banned and sometimes burned. These are the erotic novels that were written, published and read surreptitiously. Those in the know, knew. Those who didn’t, well… But many were those who were utterly scandalized by them. And so, of course, most erotic novels were written by those using pseudonyms. The most prolific author of all was… “Anonymous.”
