Dreaming of Utopia

Dreaming of Utopia by Steve Holland
To be published: 24 November 2024
Format: A4, 88 full colour pages, softcover with matte cover

The book is now available on my eBay store and will shortly be available via Amazon.

American orders can be made via PayPal, price £25.49 UK pounds paid to steve [at] bearalley.co.uk. Please make sure you include your address.

DREAMING OF UTOPIA

The story of Lloyd Cole, Benson Herbert and Utopian Publications stretches from cycling around Sunderland selling religious tracts to studying paranormal activity in Wiltshire. For a decade between 1941 and 1951, the two founded and managed a dozen different companies, publishing novels, non-fiction and magazines, some of them now highly prized by collectors. But the business also led authorities to condemn Cole for being "without any sense of commercial honesty" and accuse Herbert of making "a large profit out of pornography" before fraud, theft and court cases brought an end to their publications.

This is their story...

... and the stories of the authors who provided so much of their output, with essays on Edmund Burton (Edmund Burton Childs), R.C. Finney, N. Westley Firth and Sydney J. Bounds. The latter two wrote dozens of stories for Benson Herbert's 'spicy' magazines, many of which were deemed by post-war era's magistrates to be obscene and resulting in over 600 destruction orders issued against them. The magazines were Herbert's way of publicizing his more lucrative business of selling 'art studies' from his home.

Norman Firth, who had earned himself the nickname 'The Prince of Pulp Pedlars', lived with his family at Herbert's home in Kensington, churning out book after book, but was forced to leave when he developed TB. A writer of potential, Firth was dead before he reached 30.

The book also includes an essay on Reina Sington, later Reina Bull, who went from drawing stylistic book covers for paperbacks to drawing fetish illustrations for Herbert's Fads & Fancies magazine and covers for his 'spicy' titles that emphasized legs, stockings, suspenders, frilly knickers and super-high heels.

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