The Romance of Lust

by William Lazenby (Editor)

Authorship of this salacious literary classic has been attributed to either of two men: William Simpson Potter, author of two books of letters on the Prince of Wales, or Edward Sellon, who produced other erotic novels. The protagonist of "The Romance of Lust", Charlie Roberts, exudes an insatiable sexual appetite, to which he was initiated by early sexual encounters with siblings, governesses, and later with various friends. It was originally published in four volumes during the years 1873-1876. Due to the explicit nature of the language and nature of the novel, which often describes in graphic detail quite unrealistic sexual positions and scenarios, it was banned in the United States for some time. Scenes of various sexual activities shock even today's readers in what has become known as the quintessential erotic Victorian novel, earning the virile young Charlie Roberts the designation of hero of the Victorian sexual underground.

Genres: Erotica, Classics, Romance, Fiction, Victorian, Historical Fiction, Smut

276 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 1873

Reviews

[Szplug · Rating 4 out of 5]

Top contender as the best smut book ever written. Outside of violence, bestiality, and watersports—sorry, aficionados, but you'll have to seek elsewhere—there is no perversion that is not committed by the cheerful congeries of libidinous Victorian Era libertines who populate the cast. Most impressive is the unflagging commitment of the anonymous author to maintaining the quality of his kink, even unto the five hundredth page. An eventual hasty and rote parsing of events, derived from a jaded imagination, pruned spirit, and aching wrist, would be entirely excusable in such a mammoth effort; but I'll be damned if good old Anonymous isn't still endeavoring to keep his pearls polished even unto the undiminished vigor of ejaculation and back-scratching orgasm in the waning chapters of this massive work. Multiple pairings, orgies, daisy chains, castle dungeons, boarding houses, schoolroom desks, cathedral pews, headmaster and judicial chambers, au naturel amidst sun-kissed leas ringed by sentinel tress, the Papal palace, a fisherman's hovel—it's a magical lascivious tour through a continent sternly straight-laced on the surface, with a brother and his two sisters forming the principal protagonists of this tawdry tale; they function as the magnets which attract an ever-increasing host of harlots and roués who bid a fond adieu to moral restraints and throw themselves wildly and willingly into the amorous adventures of this debauched crew. Even the homosexuality, while not my cup of tea, is handled with enough panache and adroitness to have led my youthful self to admit you know, that might actually prove to be fun. And while there is undoubtedly too much hebephilia, well, they had barely emancipated children from the workhouse then—that of the pseudo-literary bedroom would prove a more enduring struggle; and Anonymous was dedicated to covering the entirety of human life from a sexual point-of-view. The thing is, the author allowed for the discriminating taste of the reader, and such is the breadth of this exhaustive offering that offending sections may be readily skipped—with the minor inconvenience of becoming somewhat separated from the plot—in pursuit of the next section that titillates; and the bottom line is that Anonymous wields the words visually imparted by a gifted tongue with such exquisite and disciplined craftsmanship that The Romance of Lust would serve to rouse an anchorite. This naughty pleasure still finds itself in print today, over one hundred and forty years from the date of its original publication in serial form; allowing it to surreptitiously join its vaunted, much cleaner siblings from the Victorian Era in enjoying such an enviably enduring shelf-life.

[Anelia Dobreva · Rating 2 out of 5]

I picked this up led by curiosity when I was browsing the Gutenberg Project catalogue. It was my first erotic novel and I had no idea what to expect, moreover from a Victorian one. It never crossed my mind that it could be right out porn. And yet, it is just that. Not eroticism. Pornography. It covers PornHub's entire catalogue of topics in writing.

And it is not good writing. The language is extremely repetitive, there is no plot worth mentioning and the characters are absolutely flat. They have just one thing on their minds and the emotional complexity of an inflatable doll. The book has all the makings of a contemporary adult movie, although the incest between closely related minors would get it banned. This last topic was a major reason why I gave up one third through the book.

That said, I was truly impressed and humbled by the whole experience. We tend to think that kinky sexual practices and objectivization are something we, modern people, created or at least that we took it to extremes. What conceit! Maybe we made the adult genre more available and visual but I feel we have made no contribution to the content in the last couple of centuries.

[John Gilbert · Rating 2 out of 5]

Victorian era erotica. Young man discovers sex, has many experiences shared in great detail. Initially somewhat fun, but becomes tedious pretty quickly. 100 pages of 500 more than enough. Not for everyone for sure.
DNF

[Finn Maunder · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Victorians have a lot to answer for, but the Romance of Lust might be their worst crime of all. Up there with Atlas Shrugged as one of my least enjoyable reading experiences ever.

I downloaded this in an airport right before I joined Peace Corps thinking ‘great title, might be very bored while I’m there, and it’s in the top downloaded titles on Project Gutenberg’ - could be fun, what could go wrong? Lots.

We follow the ‘story’ of Charlie Roberts, a posh twat with a massive schlong who presumably, along with everybody else in this 1876 disaster of a novel, has received a botched lobotomy right before things begin and thus is incapable of thinking about anything except sex. Within 20 or so pages, Charlie is shagging everything in sight and doesn’t let up for the rest of the book. In fact, the only person who never seems to get laid is Charlie’s Mum, who surely must take the award for least attentive/most oblivious parent in literary history.

Obviously, this book is utterly ghastly. It’s almost comically misogynistic, all subtlety is thrown to the winds, and there is barely any plot to speak of. Sex is happening on practically every page, and at times practically every paragraph. Net result? The author, who wisely remained anonymous, manages to achieve something incredible about a 10th of the way into the book. He (and it couldn’t be more apparent that it’s a he) manages to make sex about as exciting as filing expense reports. By this early stage, to quote Tobias Fünke from Arrested Development, the author has, narratively speaking, ‘prematurely shot his wad on what was supposed to be a dry run if you will’.

The car has reached maximum speed, and the thing about driving very fast for such a long time is that everything feels the same. The whole experience is like watching a movie you’ve already seen, but it’s been sped up 20 times faster so all the actors have chipmunk voices and it’s also being played on 400 screens simultaneously. It’s genuinely impossible to get invested in any of it. The only thing I found myself thinking while skim reading through reams (sorry) of endless shagging was that it’s a real shame that Charlie Roberts couldn’t apply his legendary powers of endurance to long distance running. I would have loved a chapter in which he gets his VO2 max tested, does an altitude stint, gets crazy into double threshold and bicarb and then rips a 2:05 marathon in his debut. The world of athletics was truly robbed of a great fictional talent.

The Romance of Lust is equal parts deranged, repressed, funny (it’s amazing how little most of the words in the English sexual lexicon haven’t changed, with a few truly dreadful exceptions), dull, and fascinating. It is astoundingly bad. It felt like my brain was melting and leaking out of my ears at times. But while reading this book and considering the cultural context it was written, when a flash of an ankle supposedly had men sobbing with repressed horniness, it is strangely reassuring to know that the so-called moral decline and dereliction of family values that people bang on about on talk shows and newspaper columns is nothing new. The Victorians, supposed paragons of respectability, enlightenment and hard work, were messed up, nasty twisted little guys, and so are we. Before them, so were the Greeks and the Romans. Everybody is a freak, let’s all just chill out maybe.

As a social document, it is kind of interesting. But as a book, it is complete and utter pants. 1 hairy arsehole out of 5.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, I liked Charlie...for a while. His adventures were interesting and humorous and sometimes a bit over the top, but he was fun. It's just that the book kept going on and on and it got confusing when the groups would get together and he was describing the jigsaw puzzle of bodies. When it changed to the history of the Count, I wasn't amused anymore.
In any case, this definitely expands your vocabulary.

[Kenya Wright · Rating 1 out of 5]

Too much sex and all of it pretty much incest or pedophilia. Yikes.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read this one a LONG time ago and was shocked. Amazing what a few years and some perspective does to the shock. ;)

[Stela]

I don't know why this book was on my to-read shelf, who recommended it to me. I think I read about it in a David Lodge's study (or was it about Fanny Hill?). Anyway after 25 pages or so I can tell there is no much difference between Victorian and modern porn. I probably read (or to be more precise browsed) one truly modern porn but the comparison is easy - very explicit scenes, no action, boring.
I'll pass, thx :D

[Violet Vernet · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having waded through much of My Secret Life, I thought it couldn't get much more dense than that, as far as sex scenes go. Then I bought a copy of The Romance of Lust, the complete volumes, and it does not stint the reader, as far as frequency and intensity of the sex scenes. And complexity. Just when you start to keep track of which limbs belong to whom, they're at it again.

If you're thinking quaint, light, frothy Victorian erotica with a few petticoats and breeches to spice things up, no, this is not it. Consider its era: 1873. It's similar to My Secret Life in the cornucopia approach to pornography, describing in explicit detail every possible form of Victorian kinkiness and taboo sex, with which fans of the genre area already familiar. Homosexual and bisexual acts make a star appearance in several chapters, though by today's standards, hardly as eyebrow-raising as all the other antics Charlie and his many bedfellows get up to in several hundred pages of precisely-detailed and limitless fornication.

This is pure Victorian smut of the nonstop variety, but more fantastical than the pseudo-autobiographical My Secret Life. It's often well-written and entertaining. Many scenes feature the light-hearted hilarity and witty banter that characterizes much of the porn of the era. As with even the most famous Victorian porn, it was written by an educated, but anonymous, author. Or authors. Though a classic of the genre, one wishes for a bit more steak and less sizzle.

[Prakash Yadav · Rating 1 out of 5]

The title is only half correct, the latter half to be more precise. Romance has been abandoned at the expense of injecting this book with only one single emotion : Lust.
Lust among the 19th century affluent either had a very high bar of eroticism or we have really mellowed down and watered our libidiousness in the 20th. This book indulges in every imaginable taboo of pornography .. incest, pedophilia .. you imagine it (or don't) and this has it, often the family tree is coerced in elliptical obscene trajectories to make the already vulgur unappetizing. I was honestly surprised why such a dense literature on biomechanics bothered about a coherent timeline interweaving a confusing web of generations, which then again indulged in the same mechanical excesses as their parents, and often with the parents !
If you think yourself open minded and liberal regarding such content, this blast from the past might do some harm to your opinion.
A bit too adventurous for me, at least i discovered some french and Italian words for otherwise delightfully disgusting things.
If these kind of fantasies gets you on, that's cool, Please keep it to yourself.

[Mia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bizarre. The Romance of Lust has the same body-horror quality of much Victorian erotica I've read, but the narrator's tone and the general smutty glee of all the characters make it a more enjoyable read than, say, Teleny.

I'm too wiped out to write a coherent review so here are the notes I took instead:

- lots of female ejaculation
- preoccupation with/adoration of female pubic hair
- huge clits (three inches???)
- lost vocab: gamahuche, pego, quim
- virginity myths about breaking the maidenhead
- very repetitively written sex scenes
- taboos upon taboos: incest, pedophilia, rape, scat, fisting

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll keep this short and sweet: SEX, SEX, SEX. Now that I have your attention; I found this book to be hilariously erotic. I utilized this piece as part of my BA research thesis regarding human sexuality during the Victorian period. Non-stop...uh, “promiscuity,” from the very first few pages until the very end. Some may be turned off by this—understandably—so, be prepared; there is essentially no plot outside of the characters finding every way possible to satisfy their superhuman sex-drives.

[Christina Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic. Victorian erotica. Who knew what they got up to back then. Even though this era was rumored to be straight laced and prim, it almost seems the farther back one goes in history, sexual acceptance seems more lenient. Go figure.

[Leendert · Rating 3 out of 5]

the right age for this is when you're 21

[Kasia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Filthy stuff!

[Sunny Lu · Rating 1 out of 5]

Basically skimmed through the last fourth of this book... who knew Victorian erotica was so bland and repetitive and everyone dies of like, cholera at the end

[Lisa Marie Gabriel · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Romance of Lust
I discovered this e-tome on Project Gutenberg while browsing for old novels and mistook it for a Gothic novel. Imagine my surprise on reading the first few pages! Those of us born in the latter half of the 20th century tend to think we discovered sex and permissiveness but there is nothing we can think of that has not been done before so it seems. Perhaps we think the Victorians straitlaced because that is the image we were presented with, but the streets of Victorian cities offered just the same exploitative possibilities as sex tourism offers today. First let me say I am quite difficult to shock, but there are elements of this book that I do find obscene, so much so as to say if this were to be made into a film its director (and those who viewed the film) would undoubtedly go to prison. So, to review:
The Romance of Lust is undoubtedly the filthiest book I have ever read and the voice of the author, to me, reads like the voice of a dirty old man trying to recall the lewd fantasies of an eleven year old boy. Lolita it is not, nor is it even Portnoy’s Complaint. Its protagonist, Charlie, is a wan and undersized youth possessed of an enormous penis (weep your heart out John Holmes) and an obvious case of priapism. He is seduced by a nymphomaniac staying in his house on honeymoon. She catches him spying on her nuptials and proceeds to initiate him into the joys of sex. This is how it all begins, and to cut a long (a very long) story short, it is an account of the boy’s progress through various sexual partners up to old age. We might say it’s a bit like Justine, except that de Sade is infinitely better as a writer than “Anonymous” and that Charlie is serial abuser rather than abused.
The conquests, seductions and deflowerings – many of them under-age and incestuous - get predictable after a while and gradually turn into a series of orgies with Charlie’s affliction centre stage. We have M/F, M/M, F/F, M/M/F, F/F/M, M/M/F/F, M/F/M/F and so on and so forth with ever increasing complexity; poorly executed and attempted descriptions of positions thereof including daisy chains, DP, double jouissance, you name it. The most entertaining thing is the Victorian vocabulary such as postillion and gamahuch. We mustn’t forget the birchings or use of the rod to reanimate flagging cockstands either.
By part three the author becomes tired of paedophilia, non-consensual sex and incest and introduces coprophilia. Part four is quite dull but at the same time incredibly confusing. The orgies become more and more mind boggling as the reader tries to visualise what is actually going on and keep track of who is doing what to whom. More and more conquests and initiates are produced. Imagine a three hour porn film in writing? You get the idea? From then on it is downhill all the way with more of the old same old, same old until Part Four ends. At this point we are treated to a series of letters relating to a divorce case which introduce what was missed out of the narrative, namely foot fetishism, toe-sucking, urolagnia, bukkake and – I don’t know the word for it – introducing lactating breasts into some very odd places.
Throughout the narrative we are presented with incestual act after incestual act. I found myself surprised that Charlie’s mother, throughout everything, remained virginal and played no part in any of the orgies. Then I remembered the old adage that there are, for some men, only mothers and whores. On the surface that problem was dealt with by attaching a condition to her widow’s inheritance that she could not marry. Poor mummy.
Out of pure (or impure) curiosity I decided to see if this book is readily available and was surprised to find it on Amazon, firstly because Project Gutenberg books are not supposed to be sold elsewhere without permission and secondly because Amazon has a tendency to jump on the obscene and withdraw it (if you will pardon the pun). I can only construe that it is possibly heavily edited or abridged or that Amazon, assuming it to be fairly innocent stuff, has not vetted it at all.
So, to recommendations... I leave that to you, dear reader, suffice it to say that if you want a book about under-age orgies and incest and don’t mind the absence of bestiality and necrophilia or you enjoy solving Rubik’s Cube in your head – but with body parts – you might like this one. As for myself, I never like to review before completing a book but now I feel I need to read a couple of clean Christian romances to wash my mind out with detergent.

[Keri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hmmm. Ummm. Wow. Uhhh.

Ok, trying to figure out what to say about this book.

Um, well, it seems like it's going to cover it all, meaning in the way of sex.

I didn't finish this book because really it's just a lot to take in all at once. I'm about 20% into the story and had to set it aside. It's not bad but it really is sex after sex. The story is told by a man who is telling about his sexual adventures through his life. The story begins when he is just shy of 15. And really it's about a boy who discovers sex and loves it and then does everything he can to get more of it. And he's not picky. In fact, he's VERY open.

This is supposedly written by Anonymous a long time ago. It's Victorian erotica. Like I said, the book was just getting started, and it's a long book, but I believe there is going to be not much that "Charles" (the narrator) won't be experiencing in his sexual life. If you're going to read this book you'll need to be open minded. Don't read this book if you're not okay with an "anything goes" mentality in your reading material.

I'll probably go back now and then to continue the story but it's not a book I can just sit and read straight through.

[Sneh Pradhan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Delves into matter=of-the-fact right from the start .......and if u read d book in one go , there's a chance u'll feel pretty numbed / refractory from the constant "action" which just becomes so repetitive and similarly described ......Well , ok there's not much more to the act , anyway ;).....but just feels u r reading recurring words in the sentence . The only thing that precludes it from becoming a book version of a hard-core porn film , are d rather artistic metaphors and descriptions . Never knew before however that there were true exceptions to the infamous Victorian prudishness and morality .

[Natalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

this book at first made me speechless.. it was unbelievable 2 see the cans of sexual acts taking place between family members, men and men, and women and women.... although it had all these shocking things i still learned some new thing that was unbearable for me at first, overall this book was really!!!!!!!!!! great....... all smiles :))))))))))))))))

[Phalgun · Rating 3 out of 5]

Leave your sisters alone, man! No, that’s not anatomically correct, you can’t peg him with your clitoris! Ewwwww, gamahuching? That doesn’t sound right!

I might actually be a prude by nineteenth century standards. Werebears seem so tame now.

3/5 for its historical import.

[Nonnin · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5/5 สมกับเป็นนิยายอีโรติก

[Mak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my proudest fap

[Mark Balson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Romantic Lust
I have been to a war, a World’s Fair and a goat-roping contest. I lived for a bit over 4 years in various reform schools and institutions for both boys and girls (My father was the person that ran them for various states and state agencies). I have worked at similar institutions. I was a tank commander with the 3rd Tank Battalion, 3rd Marine Division in Vietnam. I then worked in or ran programs that concentrated on the poor, lost and homeless. For a while there was not a hooker, stripper, grifter, burgler or some form of deviant in North West Columbus, Ohio I did not know.

I like a ribald tale more than most. But…. But…. Oh hell, but I could only read 187 of 347 pages and I am done. There is every form of perversion; sodomy, pederasty, coprophilia, frottage, BD/SM, masochism, and bestiality in this book in abundance. In fact, unnecessary abundance

The story is monochromatic as there is not an instant that is not occupied in voyeurism, fondling rubbing, sucking and fucking. I swear to god normal genitals would be worn down to a nub if they were used as described. It got to the place where it was painful to read, so I will have my mind professionally washed and I quit.

Finally, it is poorly written. If this sounds like something you would like, go to it.

[Nick Matavka · Rating 5 out of 5]

Earlier, I stopped at Martin’s, my bookseller, where I saw the French book which I did think to have had for my wife to read, called “The Romance of Lust,” but when I come to look in it, it is the most bawdy, lewd book that ever I saw, rather worse than “Puttana errante,” so that I was ashamed of reading in it, and so away home. Making up my mind finally, I visited my bookseller’s the very next day, and there stayed an hour, and bought the idle, rogueish book, “The Romance of Lust”, which I have bought in plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I resolve, as soon as I have read it, to shred it, that it may not stand in the list of books, nor among them, to disgrace them if it should be found.

Sunday next, at my chamber all the morning and the office doing business, and also reading a little of "The Romance of Lust", which is a mighty lewd book, but yet not amiss for a sober man once to read over to inform himself in the villainy of the world. After a long, trying day spent working on the Pensky file, I finished reading through "The Romance of Lust", a lewd book, but what do no wrong once to read for information sake (but it did make my prick to stand all the while, and one time to discharge); and after I had done it I shredded it, that it might not be among my books to my shame, and so at night to supper and to bed.

[Annlu · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was in search of gratis ebooks, when I found this one. I thought it would be nice to see the difference between an erotic novel from the 19th century and today. So I started reading... to say the truth on parts it was disturbing with all the incest, "sodomie" and orgies. But then I took at what (most likely) it was - a book full of all filthy fantasies of an man of a time, when such videos like today didn`t exist. So pobably the author thought to but everything that he could imagine into one book. It does not really have a story, although it`s about the live of Charlie (it starts as he is not even 15) and is a resumee of all his sexual excesses - and they are quite a lot. The book is divided in Volumes. After volume two it seemed to me to be always just the same. The author has put all in (in respective of the sexual practices) from the beginning on and than it got on like that. And when the narrator seduced the fourt elder women with acting like an innocent and had his x-th orgie I could not go on and did not read it from the 4.volume on anymore.

[Gregory Freeman · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not my first book of "erotica" but it is the most dull and tedious. I know going into this works that they were not intended to be great works of literature but to sustain interest beyond the salacious content it needs something to hold a reader's attention. The characters are flat and lifeless and move from one overblown sexual encounter to the next. There is not the slightest attempt to develop characters or give any real insight into their motivations. It is just very dull and after a few of these sexual conquests it becomes increasingly tedious and repetitive. I cannot imagine writing hundreds of pages of empty headed smut and maintaining interest even as the very author transcribing these events. I can recall little in ways of action or a storyline. Once I reached the end my brain was wiping it from my memory. Had this been a little more ambitious it could have been an interesting document about the morality and views on sexuality at the time of its writing, but the author was too busy rolling around in the filth to make any such insights.

[Desiree (Anxious Opossum) · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm no stranger to erotic fiction. I've read plenty of stories that deal with taboo subjects of all kinds of depravity. Very little phases me anymore.

That said, this book is weird. There's no real plot to it. It's just the sexual exploits of a man from pre-teen years, on up, told in explicit detail, but also in a manner that felt rushed. The author might have weaved a much better story if they had included more drawing out of the tension rather than just "I discovered sex and from there quickly screwed everything in sight."

I suppose this book would do in a pinch if you needed some fapping material and watching a porn flick wasn't possible (no shame), but if you're looking for a romance-like feel to it, you won't find it here.

[Cee Clarke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book rather erotic in parts but in others, very incredulous. Firstly, I just love the language of the Victorian era. That in itself to me is what I find erotic. Although I don't condone incest and would never indulge in such activities, Charlie's description was good. But what I found VERY incredulous and impossible was the fact that this young man was able to have sex five times or so without having any breaks in between! Even in the prime of my life I could barely manage three times on the go lol.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't think there's really a lot that can be said about this. It's 700 pages of porn and nothing else with only the faintest whiff of plot. After a while it does get tedious to read, but I find Victorian porn interesting. As forewarning to anyone who hasn't read Victorian pornography before: this has pretty much every kink and squick possible in this so beware. There's stuff in here that isn't allowed to be published today.