This fresh and persuasively argued book examines the origins of pornography in Britain and presents a comprehensive overview of women's role in the evolution of obscene fiction. Carefully monitoring the complex interconnections between three related debates--that over the masquerade, that over the novel, and that over prostitution--Mudge contextualizes the growing literary need to separate good fiction from bad and argues that that process was of crucial importance to the emergence of a new, middle-class state. Looking closely at sermons, medical manuals, periodical essays, and political tracts as well as poetry, novels, and literary criticism, The Whore's Story tracks the shifting politics of pleasure in eighteenth-century Britain and charts the rise of modern, pornographic sensibilities.

A Working History of Working Girls (and Guys) Have you ever wondered how Heidi Fleiss came to be the face of upscale prostitution or if Casanova really was the world's greatest lover? How about why Latin playboy Rubi Rubirosa got the nickname "The Ding Dong Daddy"? Anything but judgmental, Whore Stories sheds light on one of our more stigmatized icons: The Prostitute. Featuring the true stories of famous streetwalkers, call girls, rent boys, and go-go dancers, this book offers a revealing look at the men and women who have blazed the bawdy trail of prostitution since the dawn of time. While you may think that you know everything about this occupation, Whore Stories includes plenty of details and even celebrities, such as Maya Angelou and Bob Dylan, that will leave you in awe. From private schools and child preachers to mime fantasies and unfortunate amputations, this book uncovers the truth behind the world's oldest profession.

A woman did that? The general reaction to women's political violence is still one of shock and incomprehension. Mothers, Monsters, Whores provides an empirical study of women's violence in global politics. The book looks at military women who engage in torture; the Chechen 'Black Widows'; Middle Eastern suicide bombers; and the women who directed and participated in genocides in Bosnia and Rwanda. Sjoberg & Gentry analyse the biological, psychological and sexualized stereotypes through which these women are conventionally depicted, arguing that these are rooted in assumptions about what is 'appropriate' female behaviour. What these stereotypes have in common is that they all perceive women as having no agency in any sphere of life, from everyday choices to global political events. This book is a major feminist re-evaluation of women's motivations and actions as perpetrators of political violence.

Beyond Mothers, Monsters, Whores takes the suggestion in Mothers, Monsters, Whores that it is important to see genderings in characterizations of violent women, and to use critique of those genderings to retheorize individual violence in global politics. It begins by demonstrating the interdependence of the personal and international levels of global politics in violent women's lives, but then shows that this interdependence is inaccurately depicted in gender-subordinating narratives of women's violence. Such narratives, the authors argue, are not only normatively problematic on the surface but also intersect with other identifiers, such as race, religion, and geopolitical location.

After the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Protestants worried that King Charles II might favour religious freedom for Roman Catholics, and many suspected that the king was unduly influenced by his Catholic mistresses. Nell Gwyn, actress and royal mistress, stood apart by virtue of her Protestant loyalty. In 1681, Gwyn, her carriage surrounded by an angry anti-Catholic mob, famously declared 'I am the protestant whore.' Her self-branding invites an investigation into the alignment between sex and politics during this period, and in this study, Alison Conway relates courtesan narrative to cultural and religious anxieties. In new readings of canonical works by Aphra Behn, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding, and Samuel Richardson, Conway argues that authors engaged the same questions about identity, nation, authority, literature, and politics as those pursued by Restoration polemicists. Her study reveals the recurring connection between sexual impropriety and religious heterodoxy in Restoration thought, and Nell Gwyn, writ large as the nation's Protestant Whore, is shown to be a significant figure of sexual, political, and religious controversy.

The Sinaloa Story tells of DelRay Mudo and Ava Varazo, two down-and-outs looking for a reasonable life and maybe even a little redemption in a corrupt and violent world. Ava is a Mexican prostitute, beautiful and no victim of circumstance. When DelRay falls in love with her at the drive-in whorehouse where she is the prize, she seizes the chance to break free. They take off for Sinaloa ,Texas, the lone-dog state where "nothin’ good ever happens." The far-out border flunkies they meet — Thankful Priest, the one-eyed former football player; Indio Desacato, Ava’s pimp and a small-town racketeer; Arkadelphia Quantrill Smith, an octogenarian whose father marched with Shelby in the Iron Brigade; and many others — fill out the sinister and electrifying ride.

A thrilling, gothic debut sure to appeal to fans of Sarah Waters and Susanna Clarke. Oxford, 1887: Even as Victoria celebrates the fiftieth year of her reign, a stone's throw from the calm cloisters and college spires lies Jericho, a maze of seedy streets and ill-lit taverns, haunted by drunkards, thieves and the lowest sort of brazen female as ever lifted her petticoats. When Stephen Chapman, a brilliant young medical student, is persuaded to volunteer at a shelter devoted to reforming the fallen women of Oxford, his closest friend Edward feels a strange sense of dread. But even Edward - who already knows the devastating effect of falling in love with the wrong woman - cannot foresee the macabre and violent events that will unfold around them, or stop Diana, the woman who seems destined to drive them apart.

This stunning new collection of stories confirms William T. Vollmann's growing reputation as the American writer whose books tower over the work of his contemporaries by virtue of their enormous range, huge ambition, stylistic daring, wide learning, audacious innovation, and sardonic wit (Washington Post Book World). All these qualities are in evidence in this collection in which the character of the writer and that of some of his intimates - both real and imaginary - surface and resurface in a series of extraordinary situations and encounters. Two astonishing stories frame this collection. The first, The Ghost of Magnetism, tells about a young man leaving San Francisco to become a sort of literary hobo living on his freeze-dried memories. The last, The Grave of Lost Stories, describes the death of Poe in a fungus-encrusted tomb somewhere deep in the earth. Here is the colorful and disreputable group of people familiar to us from Vollmann's earlier fiction - pimps, tramps, pornographers, witch doctors and massage-parlor girls. Within these stories, Vollmann gives us one of the most searching, bizarre, and subversive views of America today.

In five richly imaginative novellas and a short story, Zhu Wen depicts the violence, chaos, and dark comedy of China in the post-Mao era. A frank reflection of the seamier side of his nation's increasingly capitalist society, Zhu Wen's fiction offers an audaciously plainspoken account of the often hedonistic individualism that is feverishly taking root. Set against the mundane landscapes of contemporary China-a worn Yangtze River vessel, cheap diners, a failing factory, a for-profit hospital operating by dated socialist norms-Zhu Wen's stories zoom in on the often tragicomic minutiae of everyday life in this fast-changing country. With subjects ranging from provincial mafiosi to nightmarish families and oppressed factory workers, his claustrophobic narratives depict a spiritually bankrupt society, periodically rocked by spasms of uncontrolled violence. For example, I Love Dollars, a story about casual sex in a provincial city whose caustic portrayal of numb disillusionment and cynicism, caused an immediate sensation in the Chinese literary establishment when it was first published. The novella's loose, colloquial voice and sharp focus on the indignity and iniquity of a society trapped between communism and capitalism showcase Zhu Wen's exceptional ability to make literary sense of the bizarre, ideologically confused amalgam that is contemporary China. Julia Lovell's fluent translation deftly reproduces Zhu Wen's wry sense of humor and powerful command of detail and atmosphere. The first book-length publication of Zhu Wen's fiction in English, I Love Dollars and Other Stories of China offers readers access to a trailblazing author and marks a major contribution to Chinese literature in English.