Buttons and Blame

Frank Harris (14 February 1855 – 26 August 1931) was an Irish editor, novelist, short story writer, journalist and publisher, who was friendly with many well-known figures of his day. Born in Ireland, he emigrated to the United States early in life, working in a variety of unskilled jobs before attending the University of Kansas […]

Gershon Legman (November 2, 1917 – February 23, 1999) was an American cultural critic and folklorist, best known for his books The Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1968) and The Horn Book: Studies in Erotic Folklore and Bibliography (1964). Legman was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania to Emil and Julia Friedman Legman, both of Hungarian-Jewish descent; […]

Kenneth Peacock Tynan (2 April 1927 – 26 July 1980) was an English theatre critic and writer. Making his initial impact as a critic at The Observer (1954–58, 1960–63), he praised Osborne’s Look Back in Anger (1956), and encouraged the emerging wave of British theatrical talent. In 1963, Tynan was appointed as the new National […]

Joséphin Péladan (28 March 1858 in Lyon – 27 June 1918 in Neuilly-sur-Seine) was a French novelist and Martinist. His father was a journalist who had written on prophecies, and professed a philosophic-occult Catholicism. He established the Salon de la Rose + Croix for painters, writers, and musicians sharing his artistic ideals, the Symbolists in […]

Philaenis of Samos[a] was supposedly the author of a famous ancient sex manual. According to a surviving fragment of a treatise which claims to have been written by her, she was from Samos, and her father was called Ocymenes. However, many modern scholars consider “Philaenis” a fictional character whose persona may have been adopted by […]