P N Dedeaux

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P N Dedeaux

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1CliffordDorset
gen. 30, 2015, 9:54 am

I think it's time to mention the progress being made in studies of the many erotic novels written under the name of P N Dedeaux. For those unfamiliar with Dedeaux I should say that his erotica is uniformly in the sub-genre which I term 'erotic chastisement', of the F/F and M/F flavours.

Largely as a result of two items on 'Dedeaux' which appear on the 'Kilahara Library of Spanking Fiction' website under the authorship of Leslie Jones, it has now become clear that the real name of this author was Geoffrey Atheling Wagner, a respected novelist who was born in the UK before becoming a US citizen. He lived most of his life in New York and who was a Professor of English there, outspoken on the teaching of English. His PhD was gained at Columbia University where he taught. He also taught at University of Rochester and NYU as well as at the City College of New York.

Wagner was married to the unfashionable figurative artist Colleen Browning, whom he met in Ischia and quickly married in the US (1949). She died in 2003 at the age of 85, Geoffrey dying a few years later. He was a good friend of John Glassco, who is known for his magnificent The English Governess, which transcends the F/M region of the erotic chastisement sub-genre.

Wagner wrote many non-genre novels between the 1950s and the 1990s, the available ones of which I am currently working my way through. They are in general only vaguely erotic, but I have found a meagre few chastisement references. The Sands of Valour can be recommended as a good yarn about tank warfare in the desert.

Dedeaux' true identity has long been a mystery to most genre aficionados, and many of us will be pleased to know that this particular authorship is finally being unravelled, thanks to Leslie Jones' researches.

{Postscript: It has occurred to me in my own researches that Wagner and/or Browning could well have been known to the (also pseudonymic) author John Colleton (See his thread in this topic) who, as Robert Walter Marks was writing on arts topics for the New York Times during the relevant period. It seems that Wagner lived very private lives, but even so ... However, this thought is likely to remain pure speculation.}

2lennynero
gen. 30, 2015, 5:41 pm

Finally, after many years of wondering. Have you been able to pin down his date of death? I wonder if he had any children. Also, were most of his books first published in the 60's or 70's?

3CliffordDorset
gen. 31, 2015, 6:56 am

Sorry, I omitted the date discovered by LJ - 2006.

The first novel for which I have a date is Born of the Sun in 1957, and I have dates in the sixties, but interestingly none in the seventies. My list may be incomplete, of course, and comes from the end papers to A Singular Passion (1994). There are also dates in the 80s.

He and Colleen died childless.

I'm currently reading Sophie (1960), which is a fact-based historical novel.

A truly fascinating man.

4JohnCrowe
jul. 16, 2015, 8:45 am

You may be interested in an annotated bibliography I have recently published of Dedeaux which
can be found at https://cpbiblio.wordpress.com/

I would welcome comment and corrections.

I am working on bibliographies of Martin Pyx, Richard Manton, Alan Mac Clyde and Jean de Villiot

5lennynero
jul. 19, 2015, 10:49 am

^^^ Thank you for posting. Now I know what titles I need to track down. I've only read/own about 6 of those.

6CliffordDorset
jul. 20, 2015, 1:03 pm

>4 JohnCrowe: JohnCrowe

Wonderful work on Dedeaux/Wagner. As you will have gathered from my earlier posts and those of LeslieJones, I have been working on Wagner for some time, and your work and mine complement each other. I can improve on your birth date for Wagner. It is definitively 27 December, 1920; his death date 21 August, 2006 My approach has recently begun to draw on the (rather more complete) available data for his wife, the realist painter Colleen Browning; the two were inseparable for the whole of their 53 year marriage, and she loved playing games with journalists regarding her age and origin. Sometimes Geoffrey played a similar game, but mostly in his pseudonymic life, which you have now enlightened me as including Colleen (in some editions of S-M: The Last Taboo; my review appears in LT and in Amazon, but I never made the Dedeaux connection). One approach I have is to study his 'straight' novels and non-fiction; I have copies of almost all his books. Two of his novels have short, but very graphic chastisement scenes, and interestingly, he published these novels in different versions. I believe we have much to share, potentially, and I would be happy to cooperate with you. Cooperation is too complex for LT, I feel, and if you are able to let me have a discreet email address I will reciprocate to this end.

Clifford.

7JohnCrowe
jul. 21, 2015, 7:54 am

Clifford,

Thanks very much for your response and comments. I will email you based on your cpbiblio comment.

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