The flowering blossoms of popular erotica have developed alongside (and certainly helped develop and enroot) the significant communication media of the the 20th Century -- print, photographic reproduction, film, video, digital, and internet delivery.  As will be asserted elsewhere throughout the vast reference document in which you are now immersed, the curiousity and seemingly universal interest in sexuality has been a primary force in the enrooting of every popular medium throughout history and the various media of the 20th century were no exception.  In the case of book publishing, the publication of sexual contemplative (or as characterized by some minds "explicit") writing proved to open great avenues of fruitful literary exploration, provoking minor revolutions of thought and expression that perhaps may not have been explored otherwise.  I am here thinking of the work of Jack Kahane, publisher of the Obelisk Press, and literally the father of Maurice Girodias and the Olympia Press.  As it is well-known, these scandalized Parisian publishing houses were the enterprises which brought out several writers (Henry Miller, Lawrence Durrell, Vladimir Nabokov, Terry Southern, and others) whose works significantly shaped the 20th century literary landscape.  

It seems that works of erotica have always contained scandalous social and cultural critique in their very marrow -- for one might well imagine bold writers feeling their duty would be shirked if they did not properly characterize the sexuality in the plain truthful manner in which they embraced their other insights.   Unfortunately, this most certainly leads to censorship and the pearls of wisdom are suppressed as they sit amid passages of straight-forward sexual reflections.  

Here is an (as usual) ever-growing collection of erotica texts from the 20th century -- "erotica" in that the works take a literary approach to the writing of sexuality -- and bring sexuality into their textual-universe as a sun in which all other things must necesarily revolve -- a powerful energetic sun -- which like our own sun -- impacts and/or powers each and every activity.   After a period of some 50 plus years, when the major texts of erotica appeared anonymously or were bootlegged and sold "under the counter," a growing handful of publishers established themselves.  Most of these names are familiar now, Maurice Girodias' The Olympia Press, Milton Luros' Brandon House Library Press, William Hamling's Greenleaf Classics, Michael Thevis' Pendulum, Barney Rosset's Grove Press, and Marvin's Miller's Collectors Press, were among the most visible of the erotica publishers.

Without question, Olympia Press, through their lack of US copyright, provided the lion's share of English-language erotica, unable to protect its materials and thus allowing several of the above publishers to "freely" publish its library of erotic books.    Following on the heels of the success of the pirating of the Olympia Press' CANDY, came the Greenleaf Classics and the Brandon House Library Press series, the latter of which poured its substantial author's fee savings into the highest of production values yet seen by the paperback publishing world -- sturdy cover stock and acid-free interior pages rivaled only by the original Pocket Book paperback series issued before World War II.    Earl Kemp supervised the Greenleaf Classics and The Brandon House Library series was edited by poet, book collector and musician Brian Kirby -- each of whom traveled the world acquiring texts of "classic" erotica.   The editorial staffs of the Grove Press and at Pendulum Publications also discovered erotica texts from abroad and brought them out -- while Marvin Miller of Collector's Press was by far the least industrious and choose instead to enjoy the fruits of the others labors and publish knock-offs of just about any erotic text (including James Joyce's ULYSSES!) appearing from his competitors -- in the simplest text-only covers.   Some of these were the heavily circulated (i.e., "pirated") books from the public domain realm, but some were indeed exclusive, appearing only in the Brandon House Library series.