ABSTRACT
The works of George Thompson (1823-ca. 1873), who in his day was better known under such mischievous pennames as “Greenhorn,” “Eugene de Orsay,” and “Appollonius of Gotham,” cover almost the entire spectrum of nineteenth-century sensationalism: seduction tales, criminal adventures, erotica, racy journalism, urban horror, and related genres. An amazingly prolific writer, Thompson in just two decades published somewhere between sixty and one hundred pulp novels (some estimates go even higher) as well as enough “tales, sketches, poetry, essays and other literary stock of every description,” he boasted, “to constitute half a dozen cart loads” (Thompson, Venus 315). The great majority of these literary productions exploit provocative themes which certainly could not help but infuriate some readers: sadism, meaningless violence, pornography, crossdressing, voyeurism, and pedophilia. But what is perhaps most bewildering about Thompson’s subject matter was his line of defense. He claimed that he indulged in the scandalous for no other reason than to promote traditional American values and to warn his compatriots about the dangers that their culture faced, particularly what he considered the pernicious influence of European art and literature.
