Sadie Blackeyes [i.e. Pierre MacOrlan]. – Fort, Jean (ed.):
Petite Dactylo (The Little Typist), Suivi de LES BELLES CLIENTES DE M. BROZEN, et du MAITRE D’ECOLE avec un choix de lettres concernant les faits curieux touchant la flagellation de Misses, et des Femmes

Published by Jean Fort, Faubourg Paris, s.d. early copy, (possible first edition from 1914). Tall 8vo bound with original color illustrated front cover in solid contemporary red half calf with marbled side papers and raised bands and gilt title. 297 pages. With the original illustrations. Overall a very good well preserved copy

Petite Dactylo (The Little Typist) an erotic novel by Sadie Blackeyes, that is Pierre Mac Orlan. Born Pierre Dumarchey (1882–1970), Mac Orlan was a leading French songwriter and novelist whose work included Quai des Brumes (1928): filmed by Marcel Carné in 1938 and starring Jean Gabin, it remains one of the enduring cornerstones of French cinema. But Mac Orlan had a third profession, as a writer of under-the-counter novels. Under a variety of pseudonyms – Sadie Blackeyes, Pierre du Bourdel, Docteur Fowler – as well as his real name, Mac Orlan wrote a multitude of erotic novels, most of them sadomasochistic. As Sadie Blackeyes, he wrote regularly for Jean Fort, one of the early twentieth century’s most assiduous publishers of such material. This one is illustrated by a G. Smit. Who was he? “Gaston Smit, Georges Topfer and James Barclay: It is now universally accepted that all three names belong to the same artist, or possibly an artist plus a copyist or copyists given thescale and variable quality of the combined output. But no biographical details of artists with these names exists, which strongly suggests that there never were illustrators with the names Smit, Topfer and Barclay, as appear (all interestingly in a very similar hand) as signatures on many of the thousand or so drawings they are supposed to have created. So, if ‘Smit’, ‘Topfer’ and ‘Barclay’ are pseudonyms, who are the real artist or artists hiding behind them? Smith, Potter (Töpfer is German for a potter) and Barclay are all common English names, though whether this suggests an English artist is unlikely. More likely is an allusion to ‘the English perversion’ of flagellation. Of all the artists in the genre whose identities are known, the closest in style are Luc Lafnet and Louis Malteste, especially the latter. If we had to guess, we believe that at least some of the ‘Smit/Topfer/Barclay’ drawings are by Malteste, and it is even more likely that publishers like Paul Brenet and Jean Fort maintained a small band of freelance artists who were regularly commissioned to illustrate these ever-popular titles, and who knew exactly what was required”