Perhaps the most famous woman publisher of erotica in the nineteenth-century was Mary
Wilson. Whether she
published primarily for men or for women is not known, but she produced a wide variety of
literature. She was
called by the famous "governess," Theresa Berkeley, "the reviver of erotic literature in the
present century." Mary
Wilson had a number of peculiarities, one of which was an intense dislike of sodomy in any
form; she would allow
no mention of it to appear in any of her books. She also wrote an essay in a collection called
"The Voluptuarian
Cabinet"; the piece was called Adultery on the Part of Married Women, and
Fornication on the Part of Old
Maids and Widows defended by Mary Wilson, Spinster, With Plans for Promoting the same,
Addressed to the
Ladies of the Metropolis and its Environs. The plan was for the establishment of a
palatial brother for women
only. It was to be a sanctuary "to which any lady of rank and fortune may subscribe, and to
which she may repair
incog; the married to commit what the world calls adultery, and the single to commit what at
the tabernacle is
termed fornication, or in a gentler phrase, to obey the dictates of all powerful Nature, by
offering up a cheerful
sacrifice to the God Priapus, the most ancient of deities." The plan, alas, never materialised.