The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser

by Aubrey Beardsley

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Left unfinished at Beardsley's death, this re-telling of the old legend is a witty account of Tannhasuer's visit to the glamorous pleasure palace of Venus. It combines Beardsley's fascination for abandoning oneself to sexual pleasure and his love of the artificial and exotic. This edition contains illustrations by the author and was completed in 1959 by the poet John Glassco.

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4 reviews
An effervescent amuse-bouche (recipe within!) for anyone with a palate for Firbank, Pasti, Wilmot, Wittkop, Petronius, Aretino, Suetonius. Not for the burger and fries crowd. Clearly.
Just didn't do much for me. High-brow erotica? What's the point? To me, it was too formalized to be erotic and just came across as slightly silly.
Beardsley is more of an artist than a writer apparently, the drawings in this are quite odd looking. Its about a man who goes to a party under the hill much like the opera above, except Venus is referred to as Helen in this instance.
After the party the protagonist does a sort of list of his favorite erotic pictures and novels and then its pretty much over.
I don't really get it, its supposed to be filth and i got the occasional hint of that with women wearing false-mustaches and certain suggestive elements at the end between Helen and her pet unicorn Adolphe... but it felt pointless.

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Author Information

Picture of author.
Author
83+ Works 1,762 Members

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Glassco, John (Author)

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Common Knowledge

Canonical title
The Story of Venus and Tannhäuser
Original title
Under the Hill
Alternate titles
Under the Hill
Original publication date
1907
People/Characters
Tannhäuser; Venus
Disambiguation notice
The Story of Venus and Tannhauser was also published under the title Under the Hill.

Classifications

Genres
General Fiction, Fiction and Literature, Fantasy
DDC/MDS
823.8Literature & rhetoricEnglish & Old English literaturesEnglish fiction1837-1899
LCC
PR4089 .B45 .S8Language and LiteratureEnglishEnglish Literature19th century , 1770/1800-1890/1900
BISAC

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331
Popularity
95,628
Reviews
3
Rating
(2.98)
Languages
9 — Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish
Media
Paper, Ebook
ISBNs
29
ASINs
27