THE LEVEN MAIL

Leven, Fife, Scotland

4 February 1959

(page 10)

Family Bookshelf.

For Father.

“A History of Orgies” by Burgo Partridge (A. Blond 25s.) is the first book to present a detailed account of orgies through the ages, and a most intriguing book it is. Mr. Partridge evaluates the motives behind orgies and examines to what extent social environment and individual psychology overlap in producing these phenomena. The Greeks and Romans, the medieval ecclesiastics, the eighteenth-century ‘Hellfire’ Clubs, the Victorian orgies organized by the courtesans of the day, and this century’s Aleister Crowley’s temple of Cefalu in Sicily are all surveyed and examined in a manner that combines good taste and learning with entertainment.