Spanking Blog: Adult Erotic Spanking At Its Best

After posting the Gargoyle Press magazine advertisement the other day, I grew curious to see what information could be found about the “curious and absorbing volumes on strange amatory customs and practices” issued by that publisher. Available information seems far from complete, but I was able to turn up a few titles published, roughly speaking, in that pre-war decade:

• Saddler, Jean, A Fascinating Tyrant, Gargoyle Press, 1930. 10 illustrations by Terry Van Rees.
• Meusal, Walter J., Painful Pleasures, Gargoyle Press, 1931. 18 illustrations by Francis Heuber.
• Anonymous, The Strap Returns: new notes on flagellation, Gargoyle Press, 1933. Illustrations by Vladimir Alexandre Karenin.
• Meusal, Walter J., Invitation to the Dance: a miscellany of stories, experiences, letters, articles, on Corporal Punishment, critically assessed and indulgently considered, Gargoyle Press, 1935. Illustrations by E. Remsen. Alternative title: Dance of Pain.
• Paddock, Raymond, Smart education, or, The Miracle of Three Months, Gargoyle Press, 1940.

Gargoyle Press seems to have survived at least in name into the 1970s, judging by numerous stroke books published under that imprint. I don’t have any insight, though, into whether there was any continuity of business, or whether the stroke book publishers of the 1960s and 1970s merely “borrowed” a defunct but well-remembered erotic books brand name to sell more dirty paperbacks. Anyway, this post is about the titles that might have been advertised in the illustrated booklet advertised in 1935. Specifically, here’s what I could learn about The Strap Returns, from various online sources, even though I could not turn up any complete scan or digital copy of the text. (I hope to research the other titles in future posts.)

The Strap Returns appears to have consisted, in the words of its own editor/compiler as reported by one bibliographer, of “letters, excerpts, and articles selected by the editor from a huge quantity of clippings, translations, and the like.” The famous flagellation book The Whip And The Rod contains a passage describing The Strap Returns as “that amusing and interesting collection of anecdotes of material dealing with modern aspects of flagellation”, adding that it contains “many opinions in favor of corporal punishment”.

At least one bookseller offers the following table of contents as part of their bibliographic description:

• Editor’s Note.
• Miscellany and Authentic Episodes.
• A Governess Lectures On the Art of Spanking.
• A Group of Letters.
• Home Discipline.
• Five Provocative Contributions.
• A Woman’s Revenge.
• The Price of a Silk Handkerchief.

Evocative, but sadly far from descriptive!

Although I could learn little more than the above about the textual content of The Strap Returns, we are fortunate to have high-quality scans of the frontispiece and all of the artwork, from the careful collector at the Paris Olympia Press blog. I leave you with his generous scannings-and-sharings:

See Also:

• "Remarkable Stories Of Whippings"
• 1930s Lesbian Whipping
• Dressage au Fouet
• Whipped On Her Own Bed
• Nude Girls, Spanking