During the recent renovations of the Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts—home of the famed Alcott family—workmen repairing rotting beams discovered a handwritten manuscript tightly rolled into a bottle and buried in the earthen floor of what was once the root cellar. Conservators from Harvard University’s Peabody Museum date the manuscript from the late 1800s. Although the title page bears no signature, there can be little doubt of its authenticity or its author.
The text, published for the first time, will no doubt offend scholars—while capturing the prurient imagination of many readers. The author’s true purpose is lost to us, save for hints throughout suggesting that writing this mémoire d’amour served as a cathartic exercise. Only the manuscript remains, and it is offered in unexpurgated form here.
Louisa May Alcott, author of the classic Little Women, consort of Emerson, Thoreau and Hawthorne, beloved icon of professors of American 19th-century literature and perhaps less loved by their legions of students, had a lusty side that was less academic, and more . . . transcendental than any of us knew.
The above is part of the blurb with which OR Books lists in their catalogue Fifty Shades of Louisa May; A Memoir of Transcendental Sex.
The book, written by a mysterious Louisa May Anonymous definitely rides on the coattails of Fifty Shades of Grey, which I found a little cheeky, to say the least. It would be akin to publish The Formal Vacancy, Catch 23 or Fahrenheit 452, to give a few examples. I realize that once a writer strikes the mother lode, a stampede of gold diggers ensue, but one would have thought professional integrity among writers had not completely disappeared.
Next, OR Books,as a publicity stunt, offered copies of Fifty Shades of Luisa May in exchange for used copies of of Fifty Shades Of Grey.
BONNETS FOR BONDAGE GIVEAWAY
Here’s the deal: there are over 20 million copies of 50 Shades of Grey out there. Some of you, dear readers, might even be the blushing owners of one or two (three?). But it’s taking up valuable bookshelf space all over America, and even tucking it behind a stack of PG-rated books won’t help you to move on and leave behind that whole nightmare of awful prose.
So we’re offering to take it off your hands. And not only that: we’ll send the first fifty respondents a free, illustrated copy of Fifty Shades of Louisa May (“perhaps the most clever parody of the E.L. James’s erotica novel” - The Daily Beast), which is simply a superior read, and might actually rock your world, old school style. *We’ll also select five entries at random for a bonus OR Books goodie package.*
Great stuff. Just in case there was any doubt, there you have it loud and clear. I’ve been expecting Random House—even if they don’t have a leg to stand on—to do something about it, call it a token show for appearances sake. Well, it seems they might have done just that.
A while ago I read in Mediabistrothat Random House legal department has sent a polite note to OR Books:
Random House has asked OR Books to change the cover of Fifty Shades of Louisa May, a work that parodies the best seller 50 Shades of Grey–framed as an erotic diary written by Louisa May Alcott.
Wait, the title is a rip off, but surely not the cover…
Judge for yourselves.
No further comment. The 136-page Fifty Shades of Louisa May, explicitly illustrated with X-rated woodcuts and published by OR Books in August 2012, is on the shelves on paperback; ISBN 978-1-935928-95-9 or ebook; ISBN 978-1-935928-96-6
Just an update. The 2012 Literature Nobel Prize winner will be revealed on Thursday October 11. Ladbrokes, the UK gambling organization is giving Haruki Murakami 2/1 odds to win, up from 10/1 a month ago. As I previously mentioned in an earlier article, yours truly laid 100€ on Murakami when the odds were 5/1. If Murakami wins, the $500 profit will keep this writer in Lagavulin for the rest of the year.
During the recent renovations of the Orchard House in Concord, Massachusetts—home of the famed Alcott family—workmen repairing rotting beams discovered a handwritten manuscript tightly rolled into a bottle and buried in the earthen floor of what was once the root cellar. Conservators from Harvard University’s Peabody Museum date the manuscript from the late 1800s. Although the title page bears no signature, there can be little doubt of its authenticity or its author.
No further comment. The 136-page Fifty Shades of Louisa May, explicitly illustrated with X-rated woodcuts and published by OR Books in August 2012, is on the shelves on paperback; ISBN 978-1-935928-95-9 or ebook; ISBN 978-1-935928-96-6