The unusual literary periodical , The London Aphrodite , 1928-29, published by Fanfrolico Press , was founded by two talented Australians - writer, book publisher and political activist Jack Lindsay and fiery debater , author and publisher Percy "Inky" Stephensen , who also edited a small greyhound racing newspaper and contributed to a volume about the Russian prima ballerina Anna Pavlova .
The above prancing illustration, consisting of six volumes , the first edition on the far right, a total of 496 printed pages , is in the last list for 2024 from Douglas Stewart Fine Books , Melbourne , $125 .
The bimonthly publication was only intended to run for six issues, only complete sets of six issues could be ordered for nine shillings .
Lindsay , who ran some Norman Lindsay ( his father ) illustrations and decorations in its pages, declared the publication was not for profit , but for fun .
In the joint editorial manifesto Lindsay and Stephensen cocked a snoot at the literary and artistic establishment . Their motto : We stand for a point of view which equally outrages the modernist and the reactionary .
Jack Lindsay had been one of the editors of another short lived literary quarterly, Vision, started in Sydney in l923, designed to invigorate the Australian culture which it claimed was stifled by regressive provincialism and the influence of The Bulletin .
Born in l901 at Maryborough Hospital , Stephensen was a brilliant student , renounced religion in his teens, associated with leading revolutionaries and reformers in Brisbane , became a member of the Communist Party of Australia.
At Queensland University he became editor of its magazine , which he renamed Galmara , Aboriginal for messenger . While there he met Jack Lindsay and helped him launch his literary career in the magazine by running a three-page spread of poetry , some of it erotic, which upset the university authorities , who had it withdrawn , for which they received a four page blast attacking the academic institution.
Stephensen helped select poems for a 1920-22 anthology of Australian university verse . After graduating in arts, he taught school at Ipswich Boys ' Grammar , got involved with industrial workers, and wrote freelance pieces for the Brisbane Labor paper, the Daily Standard,one being the first substantial review of the D.H. Lawrence's novel, Kangaroo .
Awarded a Rhodes Scholarship, he studied at Oxford ,where he quickly became known as a troublesome colonial , took part in the l926 General Strike , sporting a sandwich board which supported, Gandi of India . He was the subject of questions in the House of Commons , even accused of wanting to break up the British Empire . At times he wrote for the Communist Sunday Worker .
While in London he teamed up with Jack Lindsay . Another Australian there was Jack Kirtley , an amateur publisher of limited editions and keen book collector , who ran Fanfrolico Press. Feeling homesick , Kirtley handed Fanfrolico Press over to Lindsay and Stephensen , and set off for Australia via America .
Lindsay , who supported the l917 Russian Revolution, and Stephensen then launched The London Aphrodite .
Stephenson also became involved with Jewish bookseller Edward Goldston to form Mandrake Press and they published a collection of D.H. Lawrence's paintings, some of which showed pubic hair, attracting much public comment.
Inky Stephensen also helped secretly publish in a London basement what he termed the first "unmutilated " English edition of Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover , which declared it was printed in Italy.
While Lawrence said Stephensen was a worker , he described him as a bit of a windbag and slow with payments. On another occasion he said Stephensen was " another sort of mushroom which grew too fast" in the publishing world and established publishers would squash him in time .
Back in Australia , Stephensen was involved in the book publishing side of The Bulletin , Sydney, started his own book publishing company , wrote The Foundation of Culture in Australia, An Essay Towards National Self Respect ( l936 ), was adviser to the Indigenous committee for the l938 Day of Mourning , tried unsuccessfully to get Xavier Herbert's eventual 1938 Sesqui-Centenary Award winning novel Capricornia published .
Regarded as a security risk during WWll, he was interned in January l942 until the end of hostilities due to his expressed views and involvement with the Australia First Movement , the eventual editor of its journal, The Publicist . During his imprisonment he ghosted eight books for author , travel writer and accountant Frank Clune .
(Aphrodite, Stephensen, Lawrence .)
