It is difficult to say what the difference is between erotica and pornography. Those who praise sexual manifestations in art will tend to use the former word, those who are perpetually disgusted by all things carnal will incline to savour the latter. To say of a magazine that it was "pornographic" is not necessarily to condemn it, nor, mutatis mutandis, is it to praise it.

However, one publication popularly dubbed pornographic in the nineteenth century was "The Pearl" - which carried the happy subtitle, Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading. The journal appeared monthly between July 1879 and December 1886, and declared as its imprint, Oxford: Printed at the University Press. The entire run, in three volumes contained 36 obscene coloured lithographs - said by Ashbee to be of "vile execution."

Six serialised novels were also included, as well as short stories, numerous ballads, poems, "gossip" notes and anecdotes, amounting to a total of five hundred pages. Some items, in translation, were simply stolen from elsewhere. "The Pearl" was neither the first nor the last of its kind; it was the most famous.