Edward Sellon

Edward Sellon (1818 – 1866) was an English writer, translator and illustrator of erotic literature.

Family

Edward Sellon was born 6 Jan 1818 in Brighton, England (bap. 9 Jul 1818 in Paddington, England),[1] the only child of Edward Sellon (1791-1822) and Laura Willats (b.1794).[2]

Edward, Sr. was the son of William Marmaduke Sellon (1757-1824), a brewer and proprietor of several public-houses (pubs), and Henrietta Say (1761-1844).[2] Laura was the daughter of Thomas Willats (1762-1852) and Laura Elizabeth Littlehales (1760-1825). After her husband's death, Laura married John Booty on Oct. 14, 1828.

Edward, Jr. married Sarah Ann Wilds (abt.1819-1866) on Feb 29, 1840 in Brighton, England.[3] Sarah was the daughter of Amon Henry Wilds (1790-1857) and Sarah Pain (1791-1871). Edward and Sarah had four children, all born in Brighton:[3]

Life and writings

Sellon joined the army at age 16 and served in India for ten years, eventually being promoted to captain. In 1844 he married a wife, but finding that she was not as rich as he had been led to believe before the marriage, left her to live in London with his mother at Bruton Street. Here, after two years, his wife rejoined him, though meantime Sellon was keeping a mistress in another part of town and had seduced his fourteen-year-old parlour maid, a girl called Emma.[6] His wife's discovery of this latter affair led to fighting, and her leaving him, though Sellon was seemingly unrepentant. Hard times followed after the family fortune was lost and Sellon was constrained to work as a stagecoach driver on the Cambridge Mail for two years and afterwards as a fencing master. Later on, after numerous affairs, he was reconciled with his wife and went to live with her in a village in the New Forest, Hampshire for three years. After she had a child, though, he grew tired of her and returned to London where he resumed a life of debauchery.[6] A final reconciliation with his wife was engineered by a rich relation of Sellon, of whom the latter had financial expectations. This was, however, terminated when his wife discovered him leading a group of schoolgirls into a local wood "for a game of hide and seek".[7]

In his last years Sellon wrote erotica for the pornographic publisher William Dugdale. These included The New Epicurean (1865) and a memoir entitled The Ups and Downs of Life (1867) which featured his erotic escapades in India.[8][9] Sellon is one of two likely candidates for authorship of the erotic novel The Romance of Lust. He also wrote papers on phallic worship and Ophiolatreia, a book on snake worship.

Death

At the age of forty-eight, he shot himself at Webb's Hotel, Piccadilly[8] (now the site of the Criterion Theatre) in April 1866. The manner of his death is said to have been a surprise to his 'friends and family alike. No one ever suspected that this happy-go-lucky soldier...might one day plunge to such depths of melancholy.'[10]

Selected publications

Citations

  1. ↑ "India Office Family History".
  2. 1 2 "Church of England Parish Registers". London Metropolitan Archives.
  3. 1 2 "British Isles Vital Records Index, 2nd Edition".
  4. ↑ "ScotlandsPeople".
  5. ↑ "BMD Registers".
  6. 1 2 Henry Spencer Ashbee (1969) Index of Forbidden Books London: Sphere; pp. 407-17
  7. ↑ Henry Spencer Ashbee (1969) Index of Forbidden Books London: Sphere; pp. 416
  8. 1 2 3 Don Herron, ed. (1984) The Dark Barbarian: the writings of Robert E. Howard, a critical anthology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press ISBN 1-58715-203-7; p. 202
  9. ↑ H. Montgomery Hyde (1964) A History of Pornography: 113-5
  10. ↑ Hurwood, p. 207
  11. ↑ Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen (1969) Erotic Fantasies: a study of the sexual imagination. New York: Grove Press; pp. 278-85
  12. ↑ Donald Eugene Hall, Maria Pramaggiore (1996) Representing Bisexualities: subjects and cultures of fluid desire, New York: NYU Press ISBN 0-8147-6634-X, pp. 108, 121
  13. ↑ Alan Norman Bold (1983) "The Sexual dimension in literature", Critical studies series, Vision Press, ISBN 0-85478-304-0, p.107
  14. ↑ Patrick J. Kearney (1982) A History of Erotic Literature, Parragon ISBN 1-85813-198-7, pp. 113-15
  15. ↑ Ove Brusendorff, Poul Henningsen (1967) A History of Eroticism: Victorianism, L. Stuart p. 25

References

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