John Lauritsen: Books

My latest book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, was published on 1 May 2007. It is described in the Booklist on the Pagan Press website. It was very favorably reviewed: by Camille Paglia in her Salon.com column of 14 March 2007. To read her review click here.

An article on the authorship thesis of TMWWF, “Debunking the Mary Shelley Myth”, was published in the Spring 2007 issue of the Gay & Lesbian Humanist. To read it click here.

To visit The Frankenstein Pages, devoted to illustrations and essays on Frankenstein click here.

I founded Pagan Press in 1982 to “publish books of interest to the ingelligent gay man.” There is now a separate Pagan Press website: paganpressbooks.com

The first Pagan Press book was a reprint of Edward Carpenter's legendary anthology of romantic friendship, Ioläus, a work that had been out of print for over half a century.

This was followed in 1983 by a collection of writings by John Addington Symonds, a pioneer spokesman for homosexual emancipation. It was entitled Male Love: A Problem in Greek Ethics and Other Writings, and was a Centennial Edition — 100 years after Symonds published A Problem in Greek Ethics in an edition of only 10 copies. Male Love and Ioläus were both chosen by Richard Hall, literary editor of The Advocate, as among the ten best gay books of the years they were published.

In 1986 Pagan Press published Death Rush: Poppers & AIDS by John Lauritsen and Hank Wilson. This little book (64 pages) warned gay men of the dangers of the nitrite inhalants (or “poppers”). Death Rush: Poppers & AIDS is now online. To read it click here.

All of these first three books have been out of print for many years.

The five books that are currently available are described on the Pagan Press website. These books can be ordered directly from Pagan Press — or, they can be ordered from Calamus books in Boston (617 338-1931) calamusbooks.com or from Amazon.com. In addition, any bookstore can place a special order for Pagan Press books.

Although Pagan Press is a very small press, it has an excellent record. All of its books have been extensively and favorably reviewed. All of them have at least broken even from sales, and two titles — Poison By Prescription and The AIDS War — were best sellers, by the standards of serious, non-fiction, small press books.