Early 20th century French spanking literature

Spanking literature refers to the genre of fiction, also known as flagellation, and a subset of sadomasochist literature. Spanking literature reached its "golden age" in the early 20th century in France and lasted nearly forty years. It began in the early 1900s, grew significantly in the 1920s, reached its peak in the 1930s and came to an end at the outbreak of World War II.

Several things are notable and peculiar about this period. Firstly, it was a very local, French phenomenon that did not have counterparts in other countries, such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands or Germany.

After 1950, as the French book market returned to normal, interest in spanking literature did not return to its former levels. The war effectively put an end to the kink-tolerant spirit that had flourished in Paris before the war. No other country filled the gap. There were individual erotic publications, including some with BDSM themes, but these were exceptions, not a mass phenomenon, and many in fact were banned shortly after they had appeared. 1968 put an end to much of this conservatism, but by then the anti-spanking movement had become so strong that spanking novels were unpublishable for other reasons.

The early 20th century saw a flourishing of spanking fiction in France, catering to a fetishist and spankophile (or as it was called then, flagellant) clientele. Publications were typically in novel or novella form, often illustrated with spanking drawings. They were sold over the counter in some adult bookshops and by mail order. The center of this literature was in Paris, where several publishers and many more imprints under which the novels were published. The authors and illustrators typically used pseudonyms to protect their privacy.

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