With drawings by Nicolaus Vadasz [Vadász Miklós (1884. Budapest - 1927. Párizs)]

The following work, which G. Legman has called “one of the most charming erotic books in any language," was the second volume issued by the Council of the Erotika Bibllon Society. Written, according to Legman, by Paul Perret and first published in Paris in 1870 Tableaux Vivants is a kind of French “Manual of Erotology,” treating a repertory of erotic vagaries in the sprightly manner and with the out-spoken language which aficionados of “under the rose” publications have come to associate with the Gallic point of view. The work is here given in its entirety, in a literal translation from the original French: it consists of a preface, fifteen delicious chapters, and an epilogue, each of which illustrates a different phase of venery. With a view toward explaining the text, the translator has graced the volume with about forty notes, which are, in themselves, as delightful as most footnotes are boring. Some of the chapter titles are indicative of the pleasures and treasures to be found in these burning leaves: "A Husband from Africa"; “The Adultery in the Wedding Dress"; “The Straw- berry”; “Help for the Widows” (which is set in a hotel called the Golden Cock); and “The Pearl-Grey Stocking and the Red Star,” a delicate, mock-heroic dissertation on fetishism. The drawings in this volume are by Nicolaus Vadasz (1884-1927), a Hungarian portrait painter who studied and worked in Paris. In 1926, a year before his death, he came to America. Although he produced a large number of erotic drawings, most have been lost. The group included in Tableaux Vivants are from a private collection.

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