The publisher, editor, and part-author, William Lazenby, announced as without exception, the grandest and best erotic work ever published in the English language," contains in truth a very vast amount of "voluptuous reading." He expresses the hope that when "the modest little 'Pearl' comes under the snouts of the moral and hypocritical swine of the world, they may not trample it under foot, and feel disposed to rend the publisher, but that a few will become subscribers on the quiet." Its contents consists of Poetry, Facetia, and Tales. The first two items could be dismissed with the remark that they are always coarse and bawdy, sometimes humorous, never really witty. The most important Tales are: 'Lady Pokingham, or They All Do it;' 'Miss Coolers Confession, or the Voluptuous Experiences of an Old Maid,' a series of flagellation scenes, the heroine being grand-daughter of "the celebrated Indian General, Sir Eyre Coote, almost as well-known for his eighteen-penny fiasco with the Bluecoat Boys as for his services to Hon. E. I. Company; 'Sub-Umbra, or Sport Among the She-Noodles,' a most insipid story, in which flagellation is again the leading feature; 'La Rose D'Amour, or the Adventures of a Gentleman in Search of Pleasure ; 'My Grandmothers Tale, or May's Account of Her Introduction to the Art of Love,' in which there are, a few fairly good scenes; 'Flunkeyania, or Belgravian Morals,' a chain of low, commonplace adventures. The object of the writers of the above tales for they are certainly not all by one hand--would seem to be to cluster together the greatest amount of filth possible, unrelieved by a sparkle of wit. Scenes follow fast upon each other as cruel and as crapulous as any to be found in 'Justine' or 'La Philosophie dans le Boudoir,' and, it must be owned, far more pernicious, for the enormities in those works are generally enacted in unfrequented forests, in imaginary chateaux, in unknown convents. or in impossible caverns, whereas in the tales before us they are brought close home to us, and occur in Belgravian drawing-rooms, the chambers of our Inns of Court, or in the back parlours of London shopkeepers. Moreover, the language is invariably of the coarsest description. I shall confine myself to a brief analysis of the first-mentioned tale, which is one of the longest, and I think the best of the six. In 'Lady Pokingham,' the heroine, Beatice, commences her narrative at school, where the usual onanistic and tribad propensities are indulged in. The story of her young friend, Alice Marchmont's seduction is introduced. With Alice she goes to Town, and resides in a Roman Catholic family. An episode in Lord Beaconsfield's 'Lothair' is parodied, the hero's name being used; and the convent flogging scene in 'Gamiani' is housekeeper, Miss Prude, two pages and two young girls. She begins with the boys, whom she first enjoys herself, and then superintends their defloration of the maidens. The irregularity of her conduct at last undermines Beatrice's health, and she is ordered to Madeira, but does not start until she has seduced her medical man and adviser. She takes with her Miss Prude, whose seduction she effects by means of a youth who accompanies her, disguised as a female servant. On the passage, she debauches two midshipmen, after having birched them. Her stay at Madeira is but short, and she returns to England with a "galloping consumption," which soon carries her to her grave.
--"Catena Librorum Tacendorum" by Henry Spencer Ashbee
