The Mysteries of Verbena House
Encyclopedia
The Mysteries of Verbena House, or, Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving is a pornographic novel
, set in a girls' school, written under the pseudonym Etonensis by George Augustus Sala and completed by James Campbell Reddie
(co-author of The Sins of the Cities of the Plain
). It was published in 1882 in a limited edition of only 150 copies at the price of 4 guineas.
, and concerns the flogging of a schoolgirl called Miss Bellasis, who has stolen two gold coins from another pupil. Whilst searching for the missing coins through the pupils' desks, two other schoolgirls are found in possession of incriminating material: Miss Hazletine has hidden away a bottle of gin and Miss Hatherton has in her possession a pornographic book. The headmistress, Miss Sinclair, is at first reluctant to flog the girls for their misdemeanours but defers to the wisdom in these matters of the German and French teachers and of her spiritual advisor the Rev. Arthur Calvedon. The latter relates his experiences of flogging at Eton and wishes to witness the birching of Miss Bellasis. According to the Victorian pornographer Henry Spencer Ashbee
, it is this point that the hand of another author is detectable and the action becomes more explicit: "the castigation of Miss Bellasis is described at great, perhaps too great length" and the erstwhile maidenly headmistress who "was not by any means a flogging school-mistress" is transformed into "the lascivious lady of Verbena House". After the flogging the headmistress discovers she is greatly excited and makes love to the clergyman. The next day Miss Hazletine and Miss Hatherton are punished, first with a riding whip and then with a hair brush as the clergyman watches the proceedings though a spy-hole.
It is notable that much attention is lavished, in the book, on women's underwear, in which the author expresses great interest and which Ashbee hopes will have historical interest to future readers. In Ashbee's judgement the book (or the first part of it at least) is "acceptable, nay even entertaining" and "one of the best books of its kind".
Erotic literature
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, poetry, true-life memoirs, and sex manuals...
, set in a girls' school, written under the pseudonym Etonensis by George Augustus Sala and completed by James Campbell Reddie
James Campbell Reddie
James Campbell Reddie was an 19th-century collector and author of pornography who worked for the publisher William Dugdale, also writing as "James Campbell"...
(co-author of The Sins of the Cities of the Plain
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 is a pornographic book written anonymously under the pseudonym "Jack Saul", one of the first exclusively homosexual pieces of pornographic literature ever written in English...
). It was published in 1882 in a limited edition of only 150 copies at the price of 4 guineas.
Content
The book is set at Verbena House, an exclusive girls' school in BrightonBrighton
Brighton is the major part of the city of Brighton and Hove in East Sussex, England on the south coast of Great Britain...
, and concerns the flogging of a schoolgirl called Miss Bellasis, who has stolen two gold coins from another pupil. Whilst searching for the missing coins through the pupils' desks, two other schoolgirls are found in possession of incriminating material: Miss Hazletine has hidden away a bottle of gin and Miss Hatherton has in her possession a pornographic book. The headmistress, Miss Sinclair, is at first reluctant to flog the girls for their misdemeanours but defers to the wisdom in these matters of the German and French teachers and of her spiritual advisor the Rev. Arthur Calvedon. The latter relates his experiences of flogging at Eton and wishes to witness the birching of Miss Bellasis. According to the Victorian pornographer Henry Spencer Ashbee
Henry Spencer Ashbee
Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer, and bibliographer, notorious for his massive, clandestine three volume bibliography of erotic literature written under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.-Life:...
, it is this point that the hand of another author is detectable and the action becomes more explicit: "the castigation of Miss Bellasis is described at great, perhaps too great length" and the erstwhile maidenly headmistress who "was not by any means a flogging school-mistress" is transformed into "the lascivious lady of Verbena House". After the flogging the headmistress discovers she is greatly excited and makes love to the clergyman. The next day Miss Hazletine and Miss Hatherton are punished, first with a riding whip and then with a hair brush as the clergyman watches the proceedings though a spy-hole.
It is notable that much attention is lavished, in the book, on women's underwear, in which the author expresses great interest and which Ashbee hopes will have historical interest to future readers. In Ashbee's judgement the book (or the first part of it at least) is "acceptable, nay even entertaining" and "one of the best books of its kind".