TIDES OF LUST

First UK edition, first printing. Original card covers. A very good or better copy, the binding square and firm, the covers lightly rubbed at the extremities. The lightly toned contents are clean throughout and without previous owners' stamps or inscriptions.

An extremely transgressive, violent erotic novel that includes particularly dark, controversial subjects such as incest, rape and pedophelia, by the Hugo and Nebula Award winning science fiction writer Samuel R. Delany. First published in 1973 by Lancer Books and later published under the author's preferred title 'Equinox'. This edition was published in 1980 by Manchester's independent, punk-spirited science fiction publisher Savoy Books, founded in 1976 by Michael Butterworth and David Britton. Savoy suffered over 50 raids by the Manchester Police between 1976 and 1981, during which countless copies of 'Tides of Lust' as well as Charles Platt's 'The Gas' were seized, leading to the imprisonment of Britton in Strangeways prison under the Obscene Publications Act. Persistent police pressure forced Savoy to go into liquidation in 1981, though Butterworth and Britton retained the Savoy name as book packagers. They later resumed publishing, branching out into records and comics, but, having experienced losing copyrights as publishers in 1981, now exclusively published their own work. Police raids continued until 1997 and two charges were made against Savoy's 'Lord Horror' and 'Meng and Ecker' titles (for which Britton served further prison time), one of which was overturned with the help of the human rights organisation Article 19. A fascinating artefact of Britain's complex relationship with censorship and the disruptive publishers and creatives that have challenged it.