BOOKS
Anonymous.
A Town-Bull; or, The Elysian Fields.
Carnopolis [pseudo-imprint for Paris], Société des Bibliophiles, no date . Clandestine reprint of the original from ca 1899).
€ 95.00
Papercovers, 125pp., 12.5x19cm., in very good condition. This work is tritly limited to three hundred numebred copies, according the colophon. This copy has no number. However, this edition looks like a clandestine reprint (ca. 1930?) of the original edition from ca. 1899.
Rare clandestine erotic publication issued in a limited edition of 300 copies by the Paris-based publisher Charles Carrington under the fictitious imprint ?Carnopolis?. Earlier versions are documented from 1893. The text belongs to the tradition of late nineteenth-century underground English-language erotica. The novel presents an explicit erotic fantasy centred on sexual liberation and utopian free-love ideology. Framed around the adventures of a ?town-bull? blessed by Priapus, the narrative develops into the creation of an imagined libertine society called the ?Elysian Fields?, where conventional social and sexual restrictions disappear. The work combines satire, pornography, and pseudo-utopian fiction typical of clandestine fin-de-siècle erotic literature. The book belongs to the tradition of privately printed Victorian and Edwardian underground erotica distributed through clandestine bibliophile networks. Structured in episodic chapters, the narrative combines explicit sexual scenes with social parody and anti-bourgeois libertine themes. The publication reflects the broader publishing activities of Charles Carrington, who specialised in English-language erotic and controversial literature printed in Paris for discreet circulation. The pseudo-imprint ?Carnopolis? and references to limited bibliophile distribution are characteristic of clandestine erotic editions from the period. Charles Carrington was a British expatriate publisher active in Paris during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He became one of the best-known publishers of clandestine English-language erotica, issuing limited private editions of erotic fiction, translations, and controversial literary works banned or restricted in Britain. His catalogue included both original works and reprints of earlier underground publications.









