Moineau de Paris: les expériences de Friquette (A Parisian Sparrow: The Exploits of Friquette) is typical 1950s erotic fare, recounting the sexual awakening of a young woman in a big bad city. Published by Françis Flores in 1955, it was one of the first productions from a publisher who would go on to produce more than a dozen similar volumes, many of them accompanied by trademark semi-gloss illustrations. H. Orti is a pseudonym, maybe for Flores himself. Moineau de Paris was banned by the French censors in December 1965, but by then the book was almost certainly out of print.

The anonymous illustrations are printed by photogravure in carmine on thin card, in a semi-photographic style uncommon in erotic illustration, but very much of the mid-1950s. They are by the same artist as the drawings for Ambre la précoce, which you can see here, and Les débordements de Michou, which are here.

Moineau de Paris was issued in a limited numbered edition of 750 copies ‘pour une groupe de bibliophiles, strictement réservé aux souscripteurs’ (for a group of bibliophiles, strictly reserved for subscribers).

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