Ancient statues, like all true ones, are often naked, indecent - never. Alexander Dumas . The first celebrated erotic novel of the 19th century, The Novel of Violetta, was released in 1870 in Lisbon by the publisher Boa Vista, with the subtitle The Posthumous Work of a Disguised Celebrity. There are different versions of the authorship. According to some sources, the author is Theophile Gautier, according to others - a certain lady, acting under the name Manuri d'Ecto . The novel is not signed by Alexandre Dumas, but the style of Dumas the father is seen in every page of this autobiographical narrative. The prototype of Violetta is Henrietta Chevalier, who came into the life of the writer in 1838 and bore him two children, but died early. The memory of her and his youth was dedicated to Dumas's sixty-year-old novel Violette, which, along with other works, is included in his Complete Works (51st t.). ). In the 1923 Catalogue of Underground Publications, this work is classified as a "literary find and a sure remedy for frigidity". In an invariably decent style, bold love pictures unfold, the build-up of voluptuous heat comes from chapter to chapter. The scrupulousness of the description of the sapphic scenes does not in any way reduce their idealized grace. This literary masterpiece, condemned in 1957 for insulting morality, today occupies a worthy place in the library of sophisticated lovers of literature. Translated by Elina Brailovskaya