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| Ed Wood wrote several books (for different publishers!) under the name "Spenser & West" in the late 1960s. |
NOTE: I promised last week that I would complete my review of The Oralists (1969) today, but I unexpectedly received bonus information about some other, related Ed Wood books and decided that they deserved an article of their own. The second half of my Oralists review will appear on this blog next week instead. - J.B.
Last Wednesday, I published the first half of my review of The Oralists (1969), Ed Wood's truly depraved guide to oral sex and those who love it. Eddie wrote this book—and possibly a few others—under the pen name Spenser & West. Jean Spenser and Roger West are supposedly a married couple of sex researchers who write books together. It's all bunk, of course, but it theoretically makes the books seem somewhat more credible. (This isn't just smut. It's science.)
I'd always assumed these fictional sexologists, Jean and Roger, were inspired by William H. Masters (1915-2001) and Virginia E. Johnson (1925-2013), two famous real-life sex researchers who actually were married to each other for over 20 years. While M&J's pioneering book Human Sexual Response (1966) was already out on the market and very well-known to the public, including Ed Wood, William and Virginia didn't actually tie the knot until 1971. They divorced in 1993.
In The Oralists, Eddie refers to a previous Spenser & West book called Sexual Fantasia. I was initially unable to find any information about this book whatsoever and assumed Ed Wood just made it up to bolster the fictional resume of Spenser & West, but reader James Pontolillo corrected me on this issue. Like The Oralists, Sexual Fantasia was published by Tiger in 1969. James kindly provided pictures of the front and back covers.
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| The front and back covers of Sexual Fantasia. |
According to James, Sexual Fantasia is quite rare. In fact, his copy might be one of the few left in the world. Naturally, since this book is a companion volume to The Oralists, I wanted to know if Ed Wood had also written it. Here's how James answered:
I've read through it once very breezily and I will say a provisional "Yes". But I really need to take it back out and go through it much more carefully before rendering a final verdict. It definitely has that "Late Wood" porn novel characteristic mixture of corny writing ("my forest is on fire, baby.... get that big hose out and go to work already") with disturbing content (example: very young-age pedophilia). I need to come up with a reasonable solution to scan the rare paperbacks I have in order to get them circulating to interested parties. Perhaps I'll drop some serious $$$ on this in a few years when I retire and will have the time to scan books.
That certainly sounds promising!
James also helpfully sent me a copy of the table of contents page from Sexual Fantasia as well as the front cover of yet another Spenser & West book, The Prostitutes (1968). The page from Sexual Fantasia is especially interesting because it contains summaries of the book's seven chapters. It's obvious from the summary of Chapter Two that Sexual Fantasia revisits some of the same disturbing themes from The Oralists. The book doesn't appear to be limited to the topic of oral sex, however.
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| (left) An excerpt from Sexual Fantasia; (right) the cover of The Prostitutes. |
James informed me that Sexual Fantasia contains references to two rare Spenser & West titles he'd never heard of before, one of which is The Prostitutes. Note that this book, too, is from Tiger and has been granted the catalog number PP106. For comparison's sake, Sexual Fantasia is PP161, and The Oralists is PP190. That gives you some sense of the order in which these volumes were produced. I'm now operating under the assumption that The Prostitutes was also written by Ed Wood, which would not be surprising since prostitution was one of his frequent topics as a writer.
Just yesterday, James kindly provided me with some additional pictures of his copy of The Prostitutes, which you can see right here. I asked him if he thinks Ed Wood wrote this book. Jim answered:
It just arrived this afternoon and I haven't had the time to do anything but lightly skim it. No obvious angora or kaleidoscopes yet, although orgasm does tend to launch the participants out into the solar system among the planets. Not seeing the attention to detail re: women's clothing that I expect to see in an Ed work. Although the very first sex scene in the book is a woman masturbating while watching herself in a mirror. Too early to say; will have to try and read it this week. One odd note: partway through the book, reference is made to Roger West being Chinese?!
Interpret that as you will, dear reader.
But the literary adventures of Spenser & West do not stop there! Other S&W titles include Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History (Pad Library, 1967), Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet (Cougar Publications, 1967), and Lesbian Wife Swapping (Classic Publications, 1968).
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| The covers of Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History and Lesbian Wife Swapping. |
Of all these books, only Bloodiest Sex Crimes of History is known to me first-hand, due to it being reprinted (alongside 1967's Drag Trade) by Woodpile Press in 2006 as Professor Wood's Sex Crimes. I may one day review this extraordinary volume, which actually does contain some historical research on Ed's part!
Information on the other S&W books is extremely tough to come by. I looked through all the usual Ed Wood compendiums—including Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992), Muddled Mind: The Complete Works of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (2001), and Ed Wood's Sleaze Paperbacks (2013)—but I only ever found references to Bloodiest Sex Crimes and The Oralists. Thorough as they are, these books contain nothing whatsoever about The Prostitutes, Lesbian Wife Swapping, and Confessions of a Hollywood Starlet.
For Hollywood Starlet, I haven't even seen the cover! The only information I could locate about that one comes from Cornell University's description of the book in their archives. To wit:
Not mentioned elsewhere in Wood literature, this book contains many Woodian hallmarks, i.e. gratuitous ellipses and Hollywood sleaze, however the writing is slightly more sober than usual. The story concerns casting couch shenanigans, with character names such as Jake Palerack, Wolfgang von Klienshimdt, Fritz Dykeman, and Beverly Fuller.
Those character names seem quintessentially Woodian to me, especially Beverly Fuller, an obvious nod to Ed's former lover and leading lady, Dolores Fuller.
As for Lesbian Wife Swapping, I was able to find virtually nothing on my own. But, once again, James Pontolillo came to my rescue! He generously provided me with photos of his copy of Lesbian Wife Swapping, which I now present to you. Naturally, I asked James if Ed Wood wrote this book. He admitted that he had not read it yet, due to his having a backlog of about 400 books. However, he did say, "At a glance, it shows a heavy use of ellipses throughout."
In all, we're looking at six or seven different books attributed to the fictional duo of Spenser and West. Were all of them penned by Edward D. Wood, Jr.? I don't know, since I've only read two of them (The Oralists and Bloodiest Sex Crimes). Those I am comfortable attributing to Ed, as they contain his typical themes and literary conventions. The others, however, may represent an underreported section of Ed Wood's vast bibliography.
Special thanks to James Pontolillo for his invaluable research and photographs. This article would not have been possible without him.