Albrecht Classen, Prostitution in Medieval and Early Modern Literature: The Dark Side of Sex and Love in the Premodern Era. Studies in Medieval Literature. Lanham, USA: Lexington Books, 2019, 237 p.

As this book notes wryly, sex sells well, and the related topic of prostitution has also had its related impact in scholarly literature, even of the premodern era. However, the author also observes a “curious lacuna”—how has prostitution been represented in literary texts? By whom, for what reasons, and for what purposes have these narratives been employed? And what can they tell us about the history of