We know almost nothing beyond the name about the clandestine publisher Françis Flores, who published at least fourteen erotic titles from his base in Toulouse in the late 1950s. Débauche au pensionnat (Debauchery at the Boarding School) is a light romp through naughty goings-on at a seaside boarding school in the early years of the twentieth century, illustrated with twelve mediocre but rather sweet line illustrations by an unknown artist.

The author is given is Lamothe-Phyne, a play on words suggesting ideas like ‘le mot fine’ (the fine word), ‘le mot fin’ (the last word), or more daringly ‘la motte fine’ – ‘the lovely hill’ of the mons veneris or Mount of Venus.

The same author-artist combination collaborated a year later on another Flores title, Baignades fin de siècle (Bathers at the End of the Century), an equally unbelievable sequel to Débauche au pensionnat. We have included three of the Baignades illustrations at the end of the portfolio. Both titles were published in a limited numbered edition of 800 copies, which appears to have been Flores’ standard practice.

We are grateful to Steve Mullins of the Olympia Press website (www.parisolympiapress.com) for these illustrations.