{"product_id":"gordon","title":"Gordon","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eThe original \u003ci\u003eFifty Shades of Grey\u003c\/i\u003e, Edith Templeton's novel\u003ci\u003e Gordon \u003c\/i\u003ehas been banned, pirated and published under various names for almost fifty years.\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePost-war London. Louisa, a smartly dressed young woman in the midst of a divorce, meets a charismatic man in a pub, and within an hour has been sexually conquered by him on a garden bench. Thus begins her baffling but magnetic love affair with Richard Gordon.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGordon, a psychiatrist, keeps Louisa in his thrall with his almost omniscient ability to see through her, and she is equally gripped by the unexpected pleasure of complete submission. Subjecting herself to repeated humiliations at his hands, but quite unable and unwilling to free herself from his control, Louisa and Gordon sink further and further into the depths - both psychologically and sexually.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn extraordinary novel of psycho-sexual entanglement that was banned for indecency in England in 1966, in \u003ci\u003eGordon\u003c\/i\u003e, Edith Templeton captures one of the most unusual and disturbing love stories ever written.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Templeton's characters are not passive or self-doubting. Their pleasure in sexual submission is a mark of their toughness: they can take what their men give them'  \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNew York Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Sexual perversion, masochistic dependency, obsession and suicide'  \u003ci\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'An unsettling tale of sexual obsession'  \u003ci\u003eThe\u003c\/i\u003e \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'It is unlikely that any young woman will write a book as good, as honest, as provocative as \u003ci\u003eGordon\u003c\/i\u003e'  \u003ci\u003eTelegraph\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Superbly written and unsettling'  Beryl Bainbridge\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEdith Templeton was born in Prague in 1916 and spent much of her childhood in a castle in the Bohemian countryside. Her short stories began to appear in \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e in the 1950s and caused a major stir because of their sexual explicitness (these stories are available in one volume entitled \u003ci\u003eThe Darts of Cupid\u003c\/i\u003e as a Penguin ebook). \u003ci\u003eGordon \u003c\/i\u003efirst appeared in 1966 under the pseudonym Louise Walbrook and was subsequently banned in England and Germany; it was then pirated around the world, appearing under various titles. In 2001, Edith Templeton agreed to publish the novel, with its original title, under her own name. She died in 2006.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Books Ltd","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":54221659832664,"sku":"9780241964644","price":19.99,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0278\/1295\/4195\/files\/9780241964644.jpg?v=1777047370","url":"https:\/\/agendabookshop.com\/products\/gordon","provider":"Agenda Bookshop","version":"1.0","type":"link"}