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His tales invariably began quite unremarkably, and the first pages could almost be mistaken for an adventure novel of the period: a female pearl diver, a shipwrecked gentlewomen, or an unwary (lady) bather would fall prey to a wily octopus, and become enmeshed in its vigorous tentacles. But what's this? Can it possibly be that the ladies in question are not struggling against their cold-blooded captor's rough advances as wholeheartedly as might be expected? That they are, in fact, succumbing to the rude blandishments of tentacle and sucker?
Sadly, his work found no favour with any of the publishers of unconventional literature with whom he had collaborated in the past, and indeed alienated a good few of them. Even the famously tolerant Sir Neville Thripp was driven to express his disquiet; it was one thing to depict ladies being ravished by cephalopods, he told Handley in a letter, and indeed quite titillating to a certain sadistic type of person, but quite another to suggest that they might be enjoying the experience.
Handley, thoroughly depressed and even ashamed of his tastes, abandoned all involvement with pornography and turned instead to illustrating children's books, using his mother's maiden name to obscure his identity, and earned a certain reputation as a capable and competent workman, whose sea monsters and octopi were always especially vivid...
Anonymous
August 11 2005, 12:58:02 UTC 6 years ago
I find this line particularly delightful: Sir Neville ... washed his hands of the whole scheme, and turned to producing unremarkable flagellation literature of the type so beloved of English aficionados of the time.
On another note, I've seen photos of at least one person out there with that Hokusai image etched permanently into their skin. That's also odd, and doubtless interesting to explain to the family when you head to the beach during a summer vacation.