First Training (edition 1999)

Prospective readers should be aware that the text of this book, apart from its title, was published by Grove Press in 1984 under the title ‘Clara Birch’, also with an anonymous attribution. Even the printing plates appear to be the same! That said, it is a superb example of Victorian/Edwardian erotic with a bias towards erotic flagellation, largely F/F with some M/F. The attribution to James Jennings is probably reasonable, given the subterfuges of the time. It’s a highly atmospheric work which maintains a powerfully charged momentum of eroticism and it richly deserves its place in the canon of erotic literature. ( )