How a teenage diarist scandalized the nation in 1902 with a horny Victorian memoir
Why The New York Times suggested this “girl of nineteen” should be spanked
Before there were Instagram thirst traps or Twitter main characters, there was Mary MacLane — a 19-year-old from Montana who wrote the horniest, most scandalous memoir of 1902, about wanting to bang both Napoleon and Satan, lusting openly after her female teacher, and proclaiming her own genius roughly 89 times.
Public Domain Review's excellent essay about MacLane reveals that The New York Times suggested this "girl of nineteen" should be spanked. Meanwhile, The Butte Daily Post got it, dubbing it a "Weird, Pagan Book" that "Reveals Its Author's Brilliant, Erratic Genius."
Titled The Story of Mary MacLane, her confessional sold 100K copies in its first month, Victorian-era viral numbers. MacLane rode her notoriety like a demonic pony. She proposed marriage to literary patronesses, starred in a silent film about her many lovers, and when told her book had driven a girl to suicide in Kalamazoo, replied: "Who should be blamed, me or Kalamazoo?"
Sample spicy excerpt:
The Devil has given me some good things — for I find that the Devil owns and rules the earth and all that therein is. He has given me, among other things — my admirable young woman's body, which I enjoy thoroughly and. of which I am passionately fond.
A spasm of pleasure seizes me when I think in some acute moment of the buoyant health and vitality of this fine young body that is feminine in every fiber.
The next time a MAGA cultist tells you woman need to behave like they did 100 years ago, remind them that MacLane was bringing this energy back when horses were still the main form of transportation. She wasn't ahead of her time — everyone else was just late to the party.
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