CANDY, the hilarous send-up of pornography by Terry Southern and Mason Hoffenberg, was originally published in 1958, under the pseudonym Maxwell Kenton, for the Olympia Press. Because of peculiarities of the copyright code at the time, the novel, written by two Americans in English and published in France, had no copyright in the US. Banned in Paris, the wily publisher, Maurice Girodias, changed the title of the book to "Lollipop" and it thus evaded the vice squad and postal authorities and kept quietly selling.
When the American publishing company Putnam finally mustered the nerve to publish CANDY in 1964, a slew of unauthorized 'pirate' editions of CANDY came out, taking full advantage of the publicity campaign which Putnams launched, and the 'culture wars' hysteria which the satirical sex novel provoked in the US nationwide.
Below is a sampling of the dozens of different editions which came out mostly between 1964 and 1965, and then during the release of the film adaptation (which starred Marlon Brando and Richard Burton) in 1968. For many publishers, printing CANDY was like printing money, as there were no authors to pay. The CANDY Men, by Nile Southern (Arcade, May, 2004) explores the history of this unique and bizarre publishing saga.
