Only a Boy
Bath, England: Mentory Publishing Company, c.1895. 8vo. Near Fine. Item #16047
A later work by Field, this work of coming-of-age erotica was intended for male audiences only and attracted the attention of Anthony Comstock and his New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, which attempted to suppress a few of Field's more ribald works.
This is an early printing, a limited edition of just 250 copies, but not the first, which was published anonymously.
‘Only a Boy’ tells the story of "a12-year-old boy being seduced by a woman in her 30s. In the 1920s, American drama critic and magazine editor George Jean Nathan recalled it as a popular forbidden work among those coming of age at the turn of the century, along with Fanny Hill and "Green Girls of Paris".
Field wrote the book as the result of a wager he made "at a dinner at the Press Club in Chicago to settle the question whether or not a sensuous amatory story could be written without the use of any indecent or erotic words."
In exquisite condition with just a hint of edge wear. Text block unopened at bottom.
Price: $85.00