What? Who? Where? & When?

WHAT?

What is ‘Story of O’?

Story of O is a small literary gem. It is also a dangerous book. It is a romance of violence written by a gentle French woman who for over forty years hid behind the name ‘Pauline Reage’. It is a book which should come with a health warning… Story of O might seduce your heart. It might claim your soul. It could even change your life.

Originally published in France in 1954 by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Histoire d’O relates the tale of a young Parisian fashion photographer, called O, and her willful debasement at the hands of her lover Rene and the members of a clandestine society dedicated to the pleasures of sadomasochism.

The publication of Histoire d’O caused immediate controversy. The daring nature of the novel became the talk of the French salons and cafes and there was much speculation as to the true identity of its author.
In the following year Story of O won the Prix des Deux Magots, a literary prize generally awarded to new and unconventional books, with a number of famous writers amongst its earlier recipients. The literary quality of Story of O was confirmed and the novel’s notoriety was firmly established.

Despite subsequent public outrage and a police investigation involving the interrogation of the publisher Jean-Jacques Pauvert, the book continued to be published, and the identity of Pauline Reage, who, it is said, quelled further police intervention after meeting the Minister of Justice over lunch, remained a well kept secret.

For many years Story of O was assumed written by a man but in fact its author was a French woman of letters who kept her identity secret until just before her death on 2 May, 1998 – at the age of 91 – when she revealed that she had written it as a ‘love letter’ to her lover of 20 years.

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WHO?

Who was Pauline Reage?

The writer who penned Histoire d’O did not reveal her true identity for decades after publication. In 1994, 86 year old Dominique Aury publicly announced that she was the author. Already a respected literary figure in France, and publicly perceived as a conservative middle-aged woman, few suspected Aury had written Story of O. The few that did know her identity, never released the information.

Dominique Aury wrote Histoire d’O at the age of 47. She had no intention to publish the manuscript as a book, nor to shock the 1950’s French literary world. She scribbled the story down in pencil, writing deep into the night, to complete a work to entice her own lover – Jean Paulhan.

Aury was devoted to Paulhan. He was married and much older. She wanted to produce something to hold his interest. Paulhan was known for enjoying erotic literature and upon reading her manuscript he convinced Aury to finish the work as a complete novel and have it published.

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WHERE?

Where does Story of O take place? 

Published in French by Jean-Jacques Pauvert, Story of O is a tale of female submission about a beautiful Parisian fashion photographer. O’s adventure begins in Paris thus, “Her lover one-day takes O for a walk, but this time in a part of the city – the Parc Montsouris, the Parc Monceau – where they’e never been together before…” Her ordeal begins when her lover René takes O to Roissy, a place where she is bound, gagged, whipped, and made accustomed to being sexually available.

Although in the novel O is taken to a “small mansion” on a “fine avenue”… “nestled away between courtyard and garden” – the way “the Faubourg Saint-German mansions are…”, Chateau d’O near Mortrée in Lower Normandy, a wonderful Renaissance style chateau surrounded by water, is perhaps more in keeping with the Sadean flavor of the corridors of “Roissy”. – Little wonder it features in the Guido Crepax illustrated version of Story of O. These days much of Roissy lies beneath the concrete and tarmac of the Aéroport Paris-Charles de Gaulle. The village of Roissy lies quietly at its edge. In the third chapter of her story ‘O’ is taken to Samois on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau. She is told, “When you come back from Samois your true condition will speak for itself…”

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Unique MAP of places mentioned in the novel:  O MAP  – with kind permission of Sirlpe (Sweden)

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WHEN?

When was Story of O published?

After a few reluctant rejections from Paris publishers, Histoire d’O was published in June 1954 by Jean-Jacques Pauvert who had previously published the entire works of the Marquis de Sade, sparking off a series of court cases that lasted eight years.

Histoire d’O was published, at the same time, in English by Maurice Girodias, a colleague of Pauvert’s and the founder of The Olympia Press. Olympia was known for publishing risqué books in English in Paris for the consumption of foreign tourists, who because of censorship could not obtain such materials at home. French censorship laws had a loophole allowing English works to be published without domestic confiscation. Despite this Girodias consistently ran into difficulties with the authorities throughout his career. The Paris police, often pressured by British customs, seized and destroyed many copies of his books. Story of O was rushed through as a poor translation in less than three weeks as the publishers wanted to release both books together.

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Note: 1954 saw;

  • Pierre Mendès-France become prime minister of France
  • at the close of the Franco-Vietnamese War the Battle of Mang Yang Pass ends in defeat for French forces and the Geneva Conference partitions Vietnam into North Vietnam and South Vietnam
  • Louison Bobet wins Tour de France
  • the deaths of Colette, writer (b.1873), Henri Matisse, artist (b.1869) and Auguste Lumière, filmmaker (b.1862)
  • On the Water Front, White Christmas, Godzilla, and Rear Window are all top grossing cinema releases
  • Marilyn Monroe marries baseball player Joe DiMaggio
  • U.S. officials announce that a hydrogen bomb test has been conducted on Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean
  • The Boeing 707 is released after about two years of development
  • Britain agrees to end its military occupation of the Suez Canal
  • Winston Churchill becomes the first, and as of 2010 the only, serving British Prime Minister to reach his 80th birthday while still in office
  • In the UK J. R. R. Tolkien publishes The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers, the first two volumes of The Lord of the Rings
  • and the publication of Kingsley Amis’s novel Lucky Jim, William Golding’s novel Lord of the Flies, and Ian Fleming’s James Bond novel Live and Let Die.
  • in the UK fourteen years of rationing following World War II comes to an end
  • also in the UK Donald McGill, the artist of saucy seaside postcards, is found guilty of breaching the Obscene Publications Act 1857

Essential Chronology by Autel & R***

  • 1884 Jean Paulhan is born on 2nd December in Nîmes.
  • 1907 Anne Desclos (future Dominique Aury) is born on 23rd September in Rochefort-sur-Mer.
  • 1941 In October (?) Dominique Aury and Paulhan meets for the first time.
  • 1943 Dominique Aury publishes Anthologie de la poésie religieuse française with Gallimard.
  • 1946 In April Paulhan founds with Gallimard Les Cahiers de la Pléiade (that replaces La NRF). Aury works as the editorial secretary. It is the beginning of their collaboration (which will soon develop into a intimate relationship) for life.
  • 1951 In the course of this year Aury gives the manuscript of Story of O to Paulhan portion by portion.
    – In October Paulhan mentions the manuscript of Story of O in his letter to Gaston Gallimard.
  • 1953 La NRF starts to be issued after a twelve year interruption. Paulhan assumes its co-directorship (with Marcel Arland). Dominique Aury becomes its general secretary.
  • 1954 Paulhan publishes “Le bonheur dans l’esclavage” in the January-February issue of Le Disque Vert (Bruxelles).
    – In June Histoire d’O is published under the pseudonym of Pauline Réage with Paulhan’s preface (“Le bonheur…” ) by Jean-Jaques Pauvert.
  • 1955 Story of O receives a Deux-Magots prize on 21st Januray.
    – On 4th March Story of O becomes the subject of legal charges for obscenity (the procedure is annulled in October 1959 but the publicity and the sale to the minors are to be banned until 1967)
  • 1963 Paulhan is elected member of the Académie Française on 27th April.
  • 1967 The publicity ban is lifted.
  • 1968 Paulhan is seriously ill. Aury stays at his beside, writing Une fille amoureuse.
    – Paulhan dies on 9th October.
  • 1969 Publication of Pauline Réage’s Retour à Roissy précédé de : Une fille amoureuse by Jean-Jacques Pauvert.
  • 1975 Publication of O m’a dit, Réage’s interview with Régine Deforges, by Jean-Jacques Pauvert.
    – A homonyme film adaptation by Just Jaekin is released in September.
  • 1994 The New Yorker publishes in its 1st August issue, an interview of Aury in which she acknowledges for the first time publicly her authorship of Story of O.
  • 1998 Aury dies in the night of 26th to 27th April.
  • 1999 Publication of Vocation Clandestine, Aury’s interview with Nicole Grenier, by Gallimard. In this interview realized in
  • 1989 and destined to posthumous publication, Aury talks in details about her Story of O.