Oriental Stories. (La Fleur Lascive Orientale). Being a Recueil of Joyous Stories Hitherto Unpublished, Translated from Arabian, Mongolian, Japanese, Indian, Tamil, Chinese, Persian, Malayan, and other Sources. Athens: Imprinted by the Erotika Biblion Society. For Private Distribution Only, 1893. Pp xv, 172. Publisher’s black cloth boards, spine lettered in gilt. Lower margins throughout the text water-stained otherwise in good condition.

Limited Edition, ‘Two hundred and fifty copies only of this volume have been printed, none of which is for sale’. This copy No. 60, inserted in purple ink and signed ‘Neaniskos’ in Leonard Smither’s hand.

Neaniskos is the name Smithers had used for his editorial work for Richard Francis Burton (explorer, linguist & orientalist scholar).

Leonard Smithers published works by Aubrey Beardsley, Max Beerbohm, Aleister Crowley, Arthur Symons and Oscar Wilde. After the trials of Oscar Wilde in 1895, Smithers was one of the few publishers prepared to handle “decadent” literature, such as Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol, which he published in 1898.