Bureau of Lost Culture – Soho Bibles: The Lost Porn of Post-War London (16/09/2023)

Under the counter-culture..

They were handmade illegal obscene books, a little like early punk zines, typewritten mimeographed manuscripts with two or three pornographic stories or a novella. Many contained drawings or photographs and were sold in post-war London and provincial second hand bookshops . Thousands were produced, but only a proportion survive today. Titles like Orgy Twins, Lust and Agony in Double Domination Nunnery Versus Fuckery or Discipline in the Home gave sense of the contents for eager suburban punters wanting their share of the sexual revolution

Archaeologist and curator of forgotten, neglected, stigmatised or hidden phenomena, Helen Wickstead, who has written first major study of The Soho Typescripts (or The Soho Bible as they have become known), takes us through the door and under the counter to take a peep.