?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
FLORIDA LEGISLATIVE INVESTIGATION COMMITTEE
Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, a.k.a. "The Purple Pamphlet." Several illustrations. [48] pages. Octavo, illustrated purple wrappers, uneven toning to rear wrapper; minimal wear to contents. [New York: Guild Book Service,1964].
Unauthorized second edition. The original report was commissioned by the Florida State Legislature to investigate an alleged epidemic of homosexuality, including "infiltration into agencies supported by state funds by practicing homosexuals." The resulting report is filled with moral outrage. Also included are several erotic photographs including a full-page shots of bondage and of oral sex being performed in a public restroom. A "Glossary of Homosexual Terms and Deviate Acts" extends to several pages, as does a "Bibliography on Sexual Deviations." The report was released in mid-March 1964. Copies were distributed to all Florida state legislators, and additional copies were available to the public for 25 cents. The Florida attorney general, in shutting down the distribution of the original printing two days after its publication, warned that "It will become the object of curiosity in every school in the state and could engender perversion."
This second edition was published in unauthorized facsimile by the Guild Book Service, the newly launched mail-order wing of H. Lynn Womack's Guild Press. The price was $2.00. Womack, who had previously been prosecuted and acquitted for sending pornographic gay material through the mail, was investigated by the Postal Investigation Service for mailing the government report. He boasted of "substantial" sales of the "Purple Pamphlet" thanks in part to the legal case: "The publicity has been very helpful." His marketing brochure emphasized the erotic photography, promising that "this is the most amazing book that we have ever seen come from any public body." See Tampa Bay Times, 30 June 1964; Miami Herald, 18 March 1964, 23 July 1964, 15 November 1964.
