Arlington House 1980's Erotic Photo Books Front Covers

[Immy]

Might be some repeated titles here but I'd rather not leave anything out.

[glovesfan]

From these pages, we have:

The Art of Mud Wrestling
Touch of Leather* (Peter Barry photography)
Touch of Lace* (Peter Barry photography)
Sexual Secrets (excerpts from other books in the series)
The Art of Photographing the Model
Lovers Behind Closed Doors*
Advanced Sexual Positions*
The Body Kiss*
Heat 2 (John Kelly photography)
Heat 3 (John Kelly photography)
Women Behind Closed Doors* (Pierre Cuisinier photography)
Sex Games (the one with Heather Mills)
Solo Flights*
Foreplay* (drawn from other books in the series)
Women In Love (Peter Barry photography)
Couples in Love* (mostly excerpts from the first "Sexual Positions" book)
How To Keep Your Man Happy In Bed (how-to with photos from other books in the series)
Woman To Woman* (Tanya Heid photography)
Personal Pleasures*
Lust: A Manual for Lovers
Group Sex*
Heat Wave*
Private Parts* (excerpts from other books in the series)
More Sexual Positions* (photos from the same sessions as the first "Sexual Positions" book, featuring the same three couples)

* - books I have in my own collection


One key to recognizing a book from the Arlington House series is that there are characteristic typefaces and photographers' styles, so if you see either of those in an ad (when the image isn't a book cover), you can make a pretty good guess that a given book belongs to the series. Also, Prevue's catalog could change from issue to issue depending on the availability of books and release of new titles, so if you can go through whatever other back issues of the magazine you have and see if anything looks different, that'd be helpful.

From my own experience, I believe the first book in the series (Touch of Lace) came out in 1983. I came across, to my own knowledge, the first books in the series showing couples scenes (Couples in Love and Sexual Positions) in mid-1985, at Crown Books (a now-defunct bookstore chain that was very widespread in several areas of the U.S. in the 1980's and early 1990's; that bookstore sold a lot of the Arlington House series). So I think most of the books in the series were released between 1985 and 1990. When I can get my desktop's scanner back up, I'll post a couple of pictures from the book that seem to be "orphan" pics from series/photoshoots that I've been trying to figure out if full versions were ever published in any books that I don't have. Also, I'll try to post representative pictures of the various models and see if anyone can ID them. (Of course, anyone who has the books and a scanner is welcome to beat me to it. )

EDIT: Damn, I forgot. After I did my original post last year, I obtained Personal Pleasures via Amazon. Contrary to the Prevue ad copy, only one model is featured, but that lady is very, very attractive. I'll add the book cover to my to-scan list.

[Immy]

My last issue. Some dupes of course and I chose not to include calendar listings and erotic art books.

[glovesfan]

Techniques of Making Love (I have this)
Indiscretions (I'm not sure if this is an Arlington House volume, I'll have to do some searching - it's in the right format and size, though)
Heat (John Kelly photography)
Sexual Positions (I have this)
Couples In Love (I have this)
Women Loving Women (I have this - Pierre Cuisinier photography)
Women (not sure if this is an AH series book)
Erotic Aerobics (possible, not sure)
The Manual of Nude Photography (possible, not sure)

One thing to bear in mind while reviewing these ad pages is that many books would stay in the listings for months or years on end, and others would only appear for one or two issues. Also, several photographers (Peter Barry and Pierre Cuisinier, for example) tended to use the same models from volume to volume. The blonde from Techniques of Making Love, for example, shows up in Orgy: An Erotic Experience and Women Loving Women.

Most of the AH books had been published by 1989/1990. We need to try to find some issues of Prevue from 1986 and 1987 and see what might be found in their back pages. One book I'm trying to track down that might be from this series is Contact (Amazon says it was published by Random House Value Publishing on September 21, 1988 and has the following ISBN numbers:

• ISBN-10: 0517608456
• ISBN-13: 978-0517608456)

The last time a copy was for sale was early last year, but it was quite expensive; I tried to get a front cover scan but wasn't able to. The ISBN is very close sequentially to other Arlington House erotica books published at about the same time, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was on the same topic.

I've gotten my desktop back in service and the scanner drivers installed, so I'll try to get some scans this weekend.

[Just William]

For titles that you are missing try entering the details of the books at the following book search site(s)
UK http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Se...-_-Home-_-Advs
USA http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/Sear...-_-Home-_-Advs

[glovesfan]

I've located a title, How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed, on AbeBooks that might be the same book under another title, How To Keep Your Man Happy In Bed; both books have the same text author (Caroline Bertalot) but the ISBN's are different:

How To Drive Your Man Wild In Bed: 0862835194
How To Keep Your Man Happy In Bed: 0517460726

I really can't deliver a more definite verdict until I see both book covers. I do know that there's at least one other book in the series that has two different titles and size formats but is otherwise identical (Erotic Sexual Positions/Special Sexual Positions with text by Roger Baker; the former is in standard 9" x 12" size, the latter is oversized, more like 11" x 14").

[glovesfan]

Here are some sample full-size page scans from Techniques of Making Love, one of my favorite books in the Arlington House erotica series. The scans are a bit cruder than they should be, but as I said, these are really just sample images. ID's of the models in the images, if anyone knows, would be very much appreciated. Also, has anyone ever seen any more images from the photoshoot that's represented in image #17 (the fifth image in the third row)? I've been trying to track more down for literally decades, without success.

[glovesfan]

The cover of the most recent addition to my library, Personal Pleasures:

[glovesfan]

Also: Has anyone ever seen any other pictures from the same photoshoot represented in the image below? It originally appeared in How To Keep Your Woman Happy In Bed and The World of Sex, but I've never been able to find any other images from this set in any other book in the series that I have.

[Bosie]

Thanks for the uploads above Glovesfan, the brunette model that features in the last 9 or so pictures above in Techniques of Making Love looks similar to the one who appears in The Complete Beauty Book, not connected with Arlington House or erotic photography, but certainly from the same era (pub.1985 by Colour Library Books) and the photography is by Peter Barry also. I wonder if its the same model? A sign of the times, we had this book in our school library! Here are a few pics from the book: