In the assembly-room of the Society of Aristocratic Flagellants, Mayfair, Colonel Spanker strives to confirm his thesis that the punishment of a refined young lady produces more exquisite pleasures than flogging lower-class women and prostitutes... Experimental Lecture by Colonel Spanker is one of the most notorious nineteenth-century English flagellant novels. Henry Spencer Ashbee's Catena Librorum Tacendorum describes it as 'the most coldly cruel and unblushingly indecent of any we have ever read, [it] stands entirely alone in the English language.' (Fraxi, 1885: 250) This edition of Experimental Lecture also includes the full text of The Yellow Room or, Alice Darvell's Subjection, a late Victorian novella focusing on the delights of birching and the pleasures of cruelty. Following the death of her aunt, beautiful Alice Darvell is sent to live with Sir Edward Bosmere, a stern disciplinarian and devotee of Venus Callipyge, who initiates her into the mysteries of the rod. The Yellow Room was first published in 1891. The name of the author, M. Le Comte du Bouleau, is a pseudonym. Authorship is attributed to an English lawyer, Stanislas Matthew de Rhodes (1857-1932). He is also credited with writing Gynecocracy (1893) and The Petticoat Dominant (1898), which are available from Birchgrove Press.

In this provocative novel of reconstruction and race, a Civil War veteran tries to create a new utopia in his Southern hometown after gaining enlightenment and riches in the North. Revolutionary in both its storyline and its storytelling, The Colonel’s Dream was one of the most progressive books of its time when it was first published in 1905. Few authors of African descent created white protagonists, but Charles Chesnutt did just that, exploring the economic and social conditions of freed slaves through the eyes of Colonel French, a former Confederate officer. Returning to his impoverished hometown after years as a successful businessman in the North, French attempts to revitalize the community and improve living conditions for a vibrant cast of characters living there, including his old servant and an ambitious young woman. Despite his hopes, French faces roadblocks at every turn, including a corrupt convict-leasing system that essentially re-enslaves many of the town’s black residents. With a new, no-holds barred Introduction by the incomparable Ishmael Reed, The Colonel’s Dream offers a prophetic perspective on modern issues of multiculturalism and economic disparity, making it a keystone in American literature and history.

Reproduction of the original: The Colonel ́s Dream by Charles W. Chesnutt

"Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" a short story by American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, about a doctor who claims to have been sent water from the Fountain of Youth. Originally published anonymously in 1837, it was later published in Hawthorne's collection Twice-Told Tales, also in 1837.

This is the acclaimed biography of a giant of American journalism. As editor-publisher of the Chicago Tribune, Robert R. McCormick came to personify his city. Drawing on McCormick's personal papers and years of research, Richard Norton Smith has written the definitive life of the towering figure known as The Colonel.