Guillaume Apollinaire

The Debauched Hospodar: The Eleven Thousand Virgins Guillaume Apollinaire

Hospodar is an ancient Rumanian title for the equivalent of a governor or prince. The hero is the wealthy and handsome Prince Vibescu, who migrates from Bucharest to Paris in his pursuit of beautiful women - and finds them in full measure, in fact more than he had bargained for.

The outrageous amorous adventures of the Balkan prince, ranging from the brothels of Paris to the bath-houses of the Orient during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05, constitute a remarkable and memorable erotic tour de force - obviously written with tongue in cheek, in the style of the "underground novels" so popular in Victorian times.