The Sins of the Cities of the Plain

The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism, a memoir by the pseudonymous "Jack Saul", is one of the first exclusively homosexual pieces of English-language pornographic literature ever published. It has been suggested that tbe book was largely written by James Campbell Reddie and the painter Simeon Solomon,^[1][2] who had been convicted of public indecency in 1873 and disgraced.^[3] It was first published in 1881 by William Lazenby, who printed 250 copies. A second edition was published by Leonard Smithers in 1902.

Set in the form of a series of confessional essays, The Sins of the Cities of the Plain tells the tales of Jack Saul, a young rentboy or "Mary-Ann", stated to have been sold to one of his clients, Mr. Cambon, for approximately ₤20 per assignation. Jack Saul was the actual name of a male prostitute who later featured in the Cleveland Street scandal, and other participants in that affair appear as characters. Although the book appears to be mainly fiction, Henry Spencer Ashbee, who included the title in his classic bibliography of erotic literature, suggested that the characters Boulton and Park may have been known to the author(s) in real life.^[4] Boulton and Park were an actual duo of Victorian transvestites who appeared as defendants in a celebrated court case of 1871.^[5] In The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, Jack Saul in the guise of "Miss Eveline" recounts how he meets Boulton ("Miss Laura") and Park dressed up as women at Haxell's Hotel in the Strand with Boulton's lover and "husband" Lord Arthur Clinton trailing along behind. Jack Saul later spends the night at Boulton and Park's rooms in Eaton Square and the next day has breakfast with them "all dressed as ladies".^[6]

Pornographic bookseller Charles Hirsch claimed that this was one of the "Socratic" books that he purveyed to Oscar Wilde in 1890.^{[7][8][9][10][11]}

James Jenkins of Valancourt Books noted in 2014 that the only known copy of the original edition of The Sins of the Cities of the Plain is held at the British Library.^[12] He also stated that Valancourt's 2013 reprint was the company's best-selling title.^[12] In 2013 Valancourt also reprinted Letters from Laura and Eveline (1883), originally marketed as the "appendix" or sequel to The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.^[13]

List of chapters

• Volume 1
  • Recollections of a Mary-Ann: Introduction
  • Jack Saul's Recollections: Early Development of the Pederastic Ideas in His Youthful Mind
• Volume 2
  • Jack Saul's Recollections (continued): Some Frolics with Boulton and Park
  • Further Recollections and Incidents
  • The Same Old Story: Arses Preferred to Cunts
  • A Short Essay on Sodomy, etc.
  • Tribadism

Editions

• The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism. 2 vols. London: privately printed, 1881.
• The Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism. London and New York: Erotica Biblion Society, [1902].
• Sins of the Cities of the Plain, ed. James Jennings. Badboy Books. New York: Masquerade Books, 1992. ISBN 1-56333-322-8
  • The 1992 edition not only switches the sex of almost all characters but also adds and omits entire scenes, as noted by Morris B. Kaplan.^[14]
• Die Sünde von Sodom. Erinnerungen eines viktorianischen Strichers, ed. and translated by Wolfram Setz. Bibliothek rosa Winkel, 12. Berlin: Verlag rosa Winkel, 1995; Hamburg: MännerschwarmSkript, 2005. ISBN 3861490420
• Jack Saul, Sins of the Cities of the Plain. New Traveller's Companion Series, 91. [no place]: Olympia Press, 2006. ISBN 1-59654-286-1
• The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, ed. Wolfram Setz. Kansas City: Valancourt Books, 2013. ISBN 978-1-934555-31-6

References

Citations

Bibliography

• Cook, Matt. London and the Culture of Homosexuality, 1885-1914. Cambridge Studies in Nineteenth-Century Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-82207-6
• Ditmore, Melissa Hope, ed. Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. 2 vols. Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 2006. ISBN 0-313-32968-0
• Fone, Byrne R. S. A Road to Stonewall: Male Homosexuality and Homophobia in English and American Literature, 1750-1969. New York: Twayne, 1995. ISBN 0-8057-8856-5
• Gilbert, Pamela K. Imagined Londons. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0791455029
• Hyde, H. Montgomery. A History of Pornography. London: Heinemann, 1964.
• Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Love That Dared Not Speak Its Name: A Candid History of Homosexuality in Britain. New York: Little, Brown, 1970.
• Hyde, H. Montgomery. The Trials of Oscar Wilde. New York: Dover, 1962. ISBN 0-486-20216-X
• Kaplan, Morris B. Sodom on the Thames: Sex, Love, and Scandal in Wilde Times. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005. ISBN 0-8014-3678-8
• Pearsall, Ronald. The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality. London: Penguin, 1971. ISBN 978-0140063431
• Peniston, William A. Pederasts and Others: Urban Culture and Sexual Identity in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Haworth Gay & Lesbian Studies. New York: Routledge, 2004. ISBN 1-56023-486-5
• Setz, Wolfram. "Introduction", in The Sins of the Cities of the Plain, pp. vii-xxv. Kansas City: Valancourt Books, 2013. ISBN 978-1-934555-31-6