Publisher: Ralph Ginzburg, New York.

Format: Four hardcover folio magazines, 80pp or 96pp, 33 x 25.5cm.

EROS Magazine ran for only four issues in 1962, at the dawning of the sexual revolution. It ceased publication at the end of the same year, partly due to production costs, but primarily because editor Ralph Ginzburg was prosecuted and jailed.

With art direction by Herb Lubalin and editorial by Ginzburg, the quarterly magazine was “devoted entirely to the joys of love and sex” and contained literary and artful content as well as racy illustration.

EROS published articles and short stories on sexuality and sexual politics; Bert Stern’s photo session with the recently deceased Marilyn Monroe, which became known as “the last sitting”; an editorial on women’s favourable reactions to JFK; hate mail they’d received from the American public after mailing “three million letters to Americans of higher than average income and intelligence” for advertising; and, an editorial titled Black and White in Colour. A Photographic Tone Poem by Ralph M. Hattersley Jr., showing naked interracial love.

These subjects in particular spurred Robert Kennedy into prosecuting Ginzburg “because of his continual testing of boundaries of obscenity.” In 1966, after fighting the lower courts, the Supreme Court found Ralph Ginzburg guilty of violating a federal statute, commercial exploitation, pandering, and of titillation. He spent eight months in jail. Ref: Wiki.

Bumping to corners, foxing overall, tape repair to spine of number four.