Today when you go to Times Square in New York, it’s like entering a swarm of tourist flies, people everywhere consuming and celebrating capitalism at its most gaudy. In past decades, however, Times Square was where New Yorker’s went to buy their smut – shops full of 5 cent contraband “soft-core hard-boiled” paperbacks. Shops were raided, artists and shop owners were arrested and thrown in jail for drawing and selling obscene materials. Jim Linderman has made it his mission to collect the books that were confiscated from smut peddler Edward Mishkin, all 72 of them. Mishkin served 3 years in jail, charged with “198 counts of possession with the intent to sell items deemed ‘masochistic and disgusting'” (source). So far, Linderman has 40 in his possession, and he has compiled them into his new book, Times Square Smut, which features 250 pages of almost unseen illustrations from the golden era of smut. You can pick up his book in formats ranging from a PDF download to hardcover here, plus check out a selection of illustrations below…
