Chapter 2: “This is, I take it, some kind of private club.” - Chapter Notes

The French brothel Le Chabanais,  the inspiration for the Babylon Exploration Society

Bath at Le Chabanais

This Post provides notes on Chapter 2 of The Lust World: A Sexual Odyssey, an erotic adventure story.

Back at the Reform Club Britten refers to Molloy's 'bagpiping' episode.  This was a not uncommon slang term for fellatio at the time.

The Moorish bedroom at Le Chabanais, the Parisian brothel

The Babylon Exploration Society, the high class bordello which features in this and subsequent chapters, is entirely Triple P's invention and there is no evidence of such an establishment in London at the time.  We have based it more on the Parisian model (hence our French Madame) of the  maisons de tolérance, of which there were at least forty major brothels in Paris at this time (and up to 80 smaller establishments).  Prostitution was legal and regulated in France and brothels (but not prostitution) were only made illegal in 1946.

Margot in Le Chabanais

In Britain, the number of brothels in London had made it the European centre of prostitution in the eighteenth century, with some brothels even being owned by the Church of England!  In 1860 Britain moved to a system of licensed prostitution, mainly as a method to control venereal diseases (the French system required very regular medical checks).  The estimate of the number of prostitutes operating in London in the nineteenth century vary between around 10,000 and 80,000!  Gradually, campaigners sought to ban them and in the Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885 the age of consent was raised from 12 to 16 which undercut the supply of young prostitutes and meant that men were much more worried about getting caught with an underage girl.  Prostitution was banned outright a year later.

The Pompeian Salon at Le Chabanais

So we have framed our bordello as a private member's club which is not open to all and have chosen to decorate it it in a florid international style, which would have appealed at the time.  The themed rooms are based on the famous brothel Le Chabanais in Paris, the opulence of which was simply staggering.

One of Toulose-Lautrec's interiors of Le Chabanais

A favourite of high society, from Toulouse-Lautrec (who painted a number of pictures there which were then displayed on the walls) to regular Parisian visitor the Prince of Wales  (later King Edward VII) it was even included as a destination on official state visits to France and was considered a national treasure.

The Prince of Wales' favourite: the Hindi Room

This copper Sphinx bath in Le Chabanais was a favourite of the Prince of Wales and was located in the Hindi Room. He often used it for Champagne baths with his selected ladies (only using Mumm Cordon Rouge!).  It was eventually bought by Salvador Dali in the nineteen seventies, who installed it in his suite at the Hotel Meurice.  I enjoyed a Champagne bath once (in Rome not Paris) which a lady gave me for my birthday.  I can confirm it takes about 12 cases to fill a bath!  The Prince of Wales' may well have taken more!

The salon Louis XV at Le Chabanais

Some of Le Chabanais' ladies, ready for action in the Salon Louis XV

Founded by an Irish born woman, known as Madame Kelly, Le Chabanais was opened in 1878 and cost a staggering 1.2 million Francs (the equivalent of $12.5 million) to decorate.  It was paid for by wealthy investors who bought shares in the project.

In our Babylon Exploration Society the clients make their choice from a menu of photographs but this was nothing compared with some of the top Parisian establishments who gave their clients stereoscopic viewers so they could look at their potential choices in 3D images!

Oriental bedroom at Le Chabaanais

Le Chabenais did a roaring trade during World War 1 but in World War 2 it, like the other brothels, served the occupying Germans and this was a good part of the reason that all brothels were made illegal and closed down in 1946.  Many of the girls had their heads forcibly shaved as collaborators.

Mirrors everywhere, even on the ceiling, at Le Chabanais

The choice of the name Babylon Exploration Society gives it a respectable sounding name and reflects its international girls.  Most, if not quite all the names of the girls who work at the Babylon Exploration Society are those of foreign ex-girlfriends of Triple P's, such as our German friend Bettina, who wanted a cameo role in the story!

Molloy's choice, the Japanese girl Hoshimi, is a little reference to the fact that the Japanese room at Le Chabanais actually won a design prize at the 1900 Paris Universal Expo!  The French had no problem awarding a gold medal to a brothel interior!

The location of the fictional Hotel Babylon on King Street

We have located the Babylon Exploration Society in King Street, which is not far from The Reform Club or the Ritz Hotel, which feature in some subsequent chapters.  Primarily, though, this a nod to one of Triple P's favourite trashy TV series of a few years ago, Hotel Babylon.  The external location for the fictional hotel in the series was in King Street!

St James Theatre (1896)

Although King Street still has some old buildings, it has seen a lot of redevelopment recently (such as the 'Hotel Babylon' office block); the most significant change was the demolishing of the St James' Theatre (built in 1835) which features in our chapter heading and is, in our story, close to the Babylon Exploration Society building.  Despite a campaign led by Sir Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, it was demolished in 1957, although it did lead to a direction from London County Council that no other theatres could be demolished in London without a replacement being built.

At the Babylon Exploration Society Molloy and Britten drink Château Pichon Longueville, Comtesse de Lalande, which is another of my favourite clarets.  They are lucky to be able to drink the 1900, one of the most fabulous vintages on record.  Bordeaux from this vintage is still drinkable today (I have had one!).  The average price of the current vintages is about £125 a bottle. 

Chapter 1: “A doer, not a story teller!” - Chapter Notes

This post provides notes on Chapter 1 of The Lust World: A Sexual Odyssey, an erotic adventure story.

Our hero, Edmund Molloy, meets the lovely Agnes Cardwell and her father at the exhibition of Italian Futurists held at the Sackville Gallery in Sackville Street, just off Piccadilly  This exhibition, then on tour around Europe, did indeed take place in March 1912. The Sackville Gallery (which closed in 1939) specialised in old Masters so this exhibition was unusual for them.

Bal Tabarin by Gino Severini (1912)

It had already stirred up controversy in Paris "Weird paintings exhibited in Paris" said The Daily Mirror in February that year and, in fact, Mr Cardwell's negative reaction to the pictures of the likes of Umberto Boccioni, Carlo Carrà, Luigi Russolo, and Gino Severini  was shared by many.

The Daily Mirror, which obviously had a down on Futurism, published a cartoon by W.K. Haselden on March 15th 1912, entitled how to paint a futurist picture.  Mr Cardwell would no doubt have approved!

The Cafe Royal by Charles Ginner (1911)

Edmund then takes Agnes to the Cafe Royal, a popular place for artistic types at the time. Established in 1865 by a French wine merchant, it attracted many well known figures as its patrons, who enjoyed the glittering gold and mirrored interior. In fact, Arthur Conan Doyle was a regular, as was Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Rudyard Kipling, HG Wells, George Bernard Shaw and many others.

The Cafe Royal by Sir William Orpen (1912)

I was able to get my description of the interior correct thanks to two paintings done at the time by Ginner and Orpen.  I used a black and white version of Orpen's painting for the chapter heading.  I featured one of Orpen's nudes, which has a fascinating backstory, over on Venus Observations here.

The Cafe Royal today

I have been to the Cafe Royal a number of times in the past, most memorably when I was taken there for a four hour lunch by my friend HMS in the nineties, when we demolished several bottles of Chateau Léoville Las Cases 1978 at around £200 a bottle.  Recently the whole place has been turned into a new five star hotel (it was starting to look a little tired) and the main mirrored room, as featured in the two paintings above, has been beautifully restored as the hotel's restaurant.

The Reform Club today

Molloy often meets up with his friend William Britten at the Reform Club, which makes its first appearance in this chapter.  It is somewhere else that still looks much as it did just over a hundred years ago.  I know a former colleague who is a member and so have been there a number of times and it is always easier to write about somewhere you know.   Also, Arthur Conan Doyle was a member!

The District Railway's Charing Cross underground station below Charing Cross mainline station

After being rejected by Agnes, Molloy heads off to the "District Railway to Charing Cross".  All railways in Britain, including the underground ones, were built and run by the private sector at this time and the underground did not come under public operation until 1933.  The District Railway, like all of the London Underground, ran on steam originally but in 1905 the District Railway introduced electric trains (as in the illustration from 1914, above). Charing Cross underground station in 1912 is now known as Embankment.  What is now Charing Cross station used to be two separate stations (for different railway companies).  The first was called Trafalgar Square (owned by the Baker Street (another Conan Doyle link!) and Waterloo Railway - officially changed to  Bakerloo, as it still is today, in 1906).  The second was called Charing Cross (for the Northern Line only) but was changed to Strand in 1915 at which point Charing Cross (Embankment) went back to just being called Embankment. The existing Strand station on the Piccadilly line (now closed but Triple P remembers when it was in weekday only operation) was renamed Aldwych at the same time. Confused?  I remember the old Trafalgar Square station too and that was not subsumed into Charing Cross station until 1979, with the opening of the new Jubilee line. 

Being pregnant didn't get you out of having to wear a corset!

Molloy mentions how many women were pregnant by the time they were married and this is an interesting area, given the image of lack of sex outside marriage we have of people from this period.  In fact in 1840 recent research, using parish registers in England, has shown that nearly 40% of women were pregnant on their wedding day and of those over 25% had been pregnant for more than 3 months.   In 1938 the figure was still 18% of women being pregnant at their wedding (with 51% of under 20s being pregnant).  So it is quite clear that women did not wait until they were married to start having sex. Very useful for the purposes of our story!  

The Lust World - Chapter Notes

This blog features some of the material I have researched when researching the background for my erotic adventure story The Lust World; a story set in 1912.  Although much of it appeared on my original deleted blog, I will be updating the old posts and writing new posts here.

Regent Street, London, at the time of our story

Writing historical fiction is much more complex than writing material that is set in contemporary times because of the many changes in the world in the intervening time.  Even the world I remember from my childhood is very different from today in many ways and if you travel back to 1912, when this story is set, then the changes are even more marked, of course.  I enjoy researching the past and these chapter notes showcase some of what I have discovered as I try to establish an approximation of the world as it was over a hundred years ago.  

I have not attempted to write in the style of the time but reading, in particular, erotic novels from the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth century does demonstrate the development of a more more modern writing style.  I do try to avoid, where possible, anachronistic terms; such as, for example, 'teenage'.  I also discovered, too, that the word 'curvaceous' was not in use at this time but 'voluptuous' certainly was. The term 'bosoms' was more common than 'breasts'. 'Bubbie's or 'titties' were used but 'tits' was not, on the whole.  'Pussy' (sometimes spelled 'pussey'), however, was a common term for a woman's sexual parts, somewhat surprisingly.  A year or so ago there were several UK period dramas where the word 'wank' (a common British term for masturbation) was used.  However, I discovered that this word only originated in the nineteen forties so, in 1912, the word 'frig' was the one to deploy.  More on this in another chapter.

The Great Northern Hotel, King's Cross

A lot of time has been spent researching the buildings of London, many of which have since been demolished, especially in the nineteen fifties where buildings from the past were not valued and modernism was the thing.  I have a particular interest in grand hotels and I feature a number in the first part of the story, which is set in London.  

People taking a taxicab at Paddington Station in 1912.  The lady on the left is wearing the newly fashionable hobble style skirt, which, being tight around the knees made walking rather restrictive.  

I have also looked at transport, extensively: from cars, to buses, to the London Underground (some of the station names have changed in the intervening 105 years) to ocean liners, which will feature in a future part of the story.

Charles R Knight painting of brontosaurs, 1897

In an adventure featuring the quest for dinosaurs, an understanding of what the current knowledge was in 1912 has also been necessary.  Interestingly, much of what was known about dinosaurs at the time, hadn't really changed by the time I was reading books about them in the late sixties.  In the last 25 years, however, there has been a huge change in our understanding of how these creatures looked and behaved and this forms a key plot point in Chapter 6.

Typical ladies evening wear from 1912

An erotic story sees, of course, a lot of the removal of clothes and so an understanding of clothes of the time is important.   Women's clothing had not yet reached the levels of simplicity seen during and after the Great War when, for example, corsets disappeared.  In 1912 women's underwear was still voluminous and complex, only reaching styles identifiable today in the nineteen twenties when bras, knickers and stockings with suspenders all became common.  Richer women would often change clothes several times a day and the lines were much slimmer and more fitted than those of thirty years before.  Hats were large and ornate and all women had long hair which was tied up in an elaborate manner or, for younger women, worn in  a pigtail.

1912 clothing

Men's clothes were closer to what we know today, although the undershirt was still the norm and combinations were sometimes still worn rather than a separate undershirt and ankle length drawers.  Formal shirts would have had a separate collar. Waistcoats were always worn with suits. Socks would have been held up with suspenders in many cases and every man wore a hat outside. Research on this has been helped by the many clothing sites devoted to the Titanic, which sank in April 1912.

I would not be able to reconstruct these posts if it had not been for the prescience of one of my readers, who kindly saved all my posts from my old Lust World Chapter Notes blog.  So many thanks to him!