Out 10th May 2024

Grave Desire - A Cultural History of Necrophilia

By Steve Finbow

Illustrated by Karolina Urbaniak

Interview conducted by Martin Bladh

Afterword by Richard Marshall

Necrophilia has shadowed humanity throughout its existence, from ancient Egypt, to the Moche culture of Peru, the exploits of the renowned Vampire of Montparnasse, the sexual murders of the Weimar Republic, through to serial killers such as Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer. This new edition of Grave Desire – with artworks by Karolina Urbaniak – delves unflinchingly into the myths, art and practices surrounding this taboo subject. Finding Juliet’s catatonic body and believing she had poisoned herself, it could have crossed Romeo’s mind to act out the unthinkable. Maybe Juliet, seeing Romeo’s corpse, considered a little sexual frottage before she stabbed herself with the phallic dagger. Repulsive yet real, disgusting and disturbing, this is an erotic book of the dead.

“If sex and death are two pivotal obsessions of the human species, Steve Finbow nails both of them simultaneously in his brilliantly incisive cultural and corporeal history of necrophilia. Pathologically and outlandishly good.” —Stephen Barber

“If you only read one book before you die make sure it’s Grave Desire.” —Stewart Home

Grave Desire

£30.00

Quantity

Out 10th May 2024 - SHIPPING 22nd May 2024

Hardbound, 316 pages, 148 x210mm

ISBN 78-1-915908-06-3

The first edition includes 28 Collector's sets
Steve Finbow’s non-fiction includes Allen Ginsberg: Critical Lives (Reaktion), Notes from the Sick Room (Repeater), Death Mort Tod (Infinity Land Press), The Mindshaft (Amphetamine Sulphate), Polaroid Haiku – with Jukka Siikala (Infinity Land Press), The Life of the Artist Niccolò di Mescolano (Alberegno Press). Sanbashi – a biography of the postwar Japanese photographer Toru Nakagami – will be published in 2024.

@stevefinbow

Karolina Urbaniak is a multimedia artist and co-founder of Infinity Land Press. Urbaniak’s published works include To Putrefaction, Altered Balance − A Tribute to Coil, The Void Ratio, Death Mort Tod, The Torture of the 100 Pieces, The Songs of Maldoror and Death Poems among others. She lives and works in London. www.karolinaurbaniak.com

Martin Bladh is a Swedish-born artist of multiple mediums and cofounder of Infinity Land Press. His work lays bare themes of violence, obsession, fantasy, domination, submission and narcissism. Bladh’s published work includes To Putrefaction, Qualis Artifex Pereo, The Rorschach Text, The Hurtin’ Club, Darkleaks - The Ripper Genome, Marty Page, The Torture of the 100 Pieces, Braquemard: The Clavicle of Gilles de Rais, DES: The Theatre of Death and Michael Carter - The Practitioner. He lives and works in London.

www.martinbladh.com

Richard Marshall is editor of the online journal 3:16AM after being a contributing editor for 3:AM magazine for twenty years. He has written thirteen avant-pulp novels under the pseudonym Johnny Pulp, has had two volumes of interviews with contemporary philosophers published by Oxford University Press, and has just published a sequence of interviews, Understandings of the Modern World, with anthropologist and historian Alan Macfarlane. As well as writing he has also had several solo and joint exhibitions of his art and has performed live with Steven Fowler’s Poem Brut group as well as at the European Poetry Festival.

www.3-16am.co.uk

Grave Desire

Product Info

About the contributors

Collector's Edition

INFINITY LAND PRESS