The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein. By John Lauritsen. 232 pages.  Illustrations, bibliography, and appendices. Trade Paperback: $16.95 ISBN 978-0-943742-14-4. Also available in a Library Binding (Smythe sewn, case binding, acid-free paper): $24.95  ISBN 978-0-943742-15-1. Pagan Press 2007.

Frankenstein is the most famous work of English Romanticism. Victor Frankenstein and the monster he created have entered our collective imagination — through movies, comic books, T-shirts, Halloween masks, etc. They have entered the discourse of erudite scholars, as well as the man on the street.

The conventional belief is that Frankenstein was written by a teenaged girl, Mary Godwin (later Mary Shelley), who took part in a ghost-story contest in Geneva, had a nightmare, and was inspired to write a story “which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!”

John Lauritsen's new book, The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, explodes the Mary Shelley myth, demonstrating that Frankenstein is not just a scary story, but a work of profound and radical ideas, written by one of the greatest poets in the English language, who deliberately concealed his authorship. The book has three theses:

     
According to Lauritsen, male love, as romantic male friendship, is a central theme of Frankenstein. Sometimes the expressions of male love are remarkably direct, but at other times they are expressed in coded language or references known only to the “initiated”. He uses his skills as a gay historian to decode and interpret these references.

The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein has nine appendices, which include full texts of the following:



There is also an annotated Bibliography.

For Camille Paglia's Salon.com review click here.

For Jim Herrick's review in Gay Humanist Quarterly click here.

For Richard Labonte's “Bookmarks” review click here.

For Tom Elliott's Mensa Bulletin review click here.

For Jesse Monteagudo's review in the South Florida  Express click here.

For Hubert Kennedy's review in The Guide click here (for HTML) — or, for PDF click here.

For Ian Young's review in Torso click here.

For Andrew Calimach's review click here.

For Douglas Sadownick's review in Gay & Lesbian Review click here (for HTML) — or, for PDF click here.

NEW: To visit The Frankenstein Pages, devoted to illustrations and essays on Frankenstein click here.








The Banquet. By Plato, translated by Percy Bysshe Shelley. 96 pages. $8.00 (trade paperback). ISBN 0-943742-12-9. Pagan Press 2001.

Witty, sexy and radiantly beautiful, the Shelley translation of Plato's great Dialogue on Love, The Banquet (or The Symposium) is by far the best in the English language. It has been described as conveying “much of the vivid life, the grace of movement, and the luminous beauty of Plato” — “the poetry of a philosopher rendered by the prose of a poet”.

Although a masterpiece in its own right, the translation was suppressed and then bowdlerized for well over a century. In 19th century Britain, male love — at the heart of the dialogue — was unmentionable. The Banquet and Shelley's accompanying essay, “A Discourse on the Manners of the Antient Greeks”, were not published in their entirety until 1931, and then in an edition of 100 copies intended “for private circulation only”.

For many years, the Shelley translation has been unobtainable, new or used. Pagan Press now offers a new edition, which is complete and authentic. In terms of both typography and editing, it is the most readable edition ever published.

For William A. Percy's review in the Gay & Lesbian Review click here.

For Jim Herrick's review in New Humanist click here.







A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love. By John Lauritsen. 96 pages. $6.95 (trade paperback). ISBN 0-943742-11-0. Pagan Press: 1998.

The main essay in this book, “A Freethinker's Primer of Male Love”, is a celebration and defence of male love from a secular humanist perspective. Its leading thesis: Male love is good; the opprobrium suffered by gay men is a product of Judeo-Christian superstition.

A companion essay, “Paradigms For Gay Liberation”, recounts the ideas that have informed the movement. The author analyzes how the present-day movement has lost its bearings, and he indicates a way out of the thicket.

There are eight Excursus: Male Beauty, The Golden Legend, Gay Christian Revisionism, Pluralistic Ignorance, Freethought, Circumcision of the Spirit, The Aster Epigrams of Plato, and A Pagan Prayer. An annotated Bibliography provides guidance for further reading.


For Jack Nichols's review in Gay Today click here.

For William A. Percy's review in Journal of Homosexuality click here.

For Ian Young's review in Torso click here.







The AIDS Cult: Essays on the gay health crisis. Edited by John Lauritsen & Ian Young. 224 pages. Photographs and appendices. $15 (trade paperback). ISBN 0-943742-10-2. Asklepios: 1997.

Published in February 1997 under the Asklepios imprint (for health-related books), this is the first book to deal comprehensively with the real reasons gay men are becoming sick in ways that are called “AIDS”.

The editors, John Lauritsen and Ian Young, and the other six contributors to The AIDS Cult examine psychological and cultural issues — the ways religious intolerance, group fantasies, toxic drugs, pharmaceutical propaganda, deadly counselling, and a Cult of Doom have acted together to destroy the health of gay men.

In his Introduction Ian Young writes: “The orthodox view of our protracted health crisis — as a highly infectious contagion from without — has been found wanting.... we must seek the causes of this and other medical dilemmas in our own society, our own assumptions, our group-fantasies, our regimens, our recreations, and our rituals.”

For Mark K. Anderson's review in the Valley Advocate click here.

For Elizabeth Ely's review in Townsend Letter for Doctors & Patients click here.

For Alex Russell's review in Continuum Magazine click here.

For Henry H. Bauer's review in Journal of Scientific Exploration click here.

Rex Poindexter's review in 4Front has been deleted. For an explanation click here.







The AIDS War: Propaganda, Profiteering and Genocide from the Medical-Industrial Complex. By John Lauritsen. 480 pages. Photographs, graphs, and other illustrations. Name and subject indices. $20 (trade paperback). ISBN 0-943742-08-0. Asklepios: 1993.

The AIDS War is a collection of John Lauritsen's major writings on AIDS, going back to February 1985. Book and author have been featured on Tony Brown's Journal, radio talk shows, and American, Canadian, British, Australian and German television.

There are 35 chapters, including:


For Mike Chapelle's review in Bloomsbury Review click here.

For Christopher DeCenzo's review in the Cornell Review click here.

For Jule Klotter's review in the Townsend Letter for Doctors click here.

For Henry H. Bauer's review in Virginia Scholar click here.

For Jerry Terranova's review in Praxis click here.


OUT-OF-PRINT:

The following titles are out-of-print: Ioläus by Edward Carpenter; Male Love: A Problem in Greek Ethics and Other Writings by John Addington Symonds; Death Rush: Poppers & AIDS by John Lauritsen and Hank Wilson; Poison By Prescription: The AZT Story by John Lauritsen.


ORDERING:

To order directly from us, just send a check, endorsed to Pagan Press, for the list price of the book or books. Postage is free. For overseas air mail, add $10 for The AIDS War, $8 for The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, $6 for The AIDS Cult, or $3 for A Freethinker's Primer or The Banquet. The check must be in U.S. dollars, drawn on a US bank, or an international money order.

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Pagan Press books can also be ordered from Calamus Books in Boston (617 338-1931) or from Amazon.com. In addition, any bookstore can place a special order for them.