I've never read any Edith Wharton before now, but maybe I should start.

[nonelvis]

Via profrobert, classic erotica from Edith Wharton that's almost worthy of weepingcock.

A few choice excerpts after the cut, with a warning that it's possible what's being described is incest. (See the Jezebel link for more info.)

An instant more, and his tongue had left her fainting mouth and was twisting like a soft, pink snake about each breast in turn, passing from one to the other till his lips closed hard on the nipples, sucking them with a tender gluttony.

...

But she hardly heard him, for the old swooning sweetness was creeping over her. As his hand stole higher, she felt the secret bud of her body swelling, yearning, quivering hotly to burst into bloom.

...

Instantly, one of her hands was caught, and while Mr. Palmato-rising, bent over her, his lips on hers again-she felt his firm fingers pressing into her hand that strong, fiery muscle that they used, in their old joke, to call his third hand.

"My little girl," he breathed, sinking down beside her, his muscular trunk bare, and the third hand quivering and thrusting upward between them, a drop of moisture pearling at its tip.

Comments

[columbina.livejournal.com]

Oh, you hadn't seen that? Yeah, it's been going around. I was not especially impressed by the staid prose, but it does give me new respect for Edith Wharton.

[nonelvis]

I am a little astounded at how much porn still reads like this, just over 90 years later.

[dietcokebreak.livejournal.com]

Is this for realz????

[nonelvis]

Apparently! Amazing, isn't it?

[papilio-luna.livejournal.com]

lol @ the badfic tag

I like "tender gluttony" though. I'm totally keeping that.

[nonelvis]

It seemed silly to break out a one-time "back away from the porn slowly, edith" tag when these excerpts so closely resemble some of fandom's greatest hits.

[profrobert.livejournal.com]

I think she wrote erotica under her pen name: "Edith Whoreton."

[nonelvis]

*rimshot*

[ms-prue.livejournal.com]

OMG. And yet, despite all the flinging and abysses of bliss, this is far better than the romance novel I forced myself to finish the other day.

[nonelvis]

Oh dear.

[elliptic-eye.livejournal.com]

That… is a side of Wharton I had not seen. Um. At least she wrote some damned porn?
And you totally should read some Wharton—just, for the love of sanity, not Ethan Frome. Read The Custom of the Country, it's excellent and either very darkly funny or fucking chilling, depending on your perspective.

[nonelvis]

After I finish Tristram Shandy, I'll load The Custom of the Country on the iPad. Project Gutenberg = win.