When Kalleh wrote, "Also, they said the OED says that 'err' rhymes with 'fur.' Is that true?" she reminded me of Elinor Glyn. In 1907 Glyn published Three Weeks, a scandelous novel that details a wild, passionate three-week affair. The critics loathed it – but the public loved it, and it sold wildly.

Why does this remind me of Glyn? Because of the memorable poem this book inspired.

Would you like to sin
With Elinor Glyn
On a tiger skin?
Or would you prefer
To err with her
On some other fur?

If you want to see what drove your (great) grandparents wild, you can read Ms Glyn's novel at Gutenberg.

quote:

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Now this is an episode in a young man's life, and has no real beginning or ending. And you who are old and have forgotten the passions of youth may condemn it. But there are others who are neither old nor young who, perhaps, will understand and find some interest in the study of a strange woman who made the lumination of a brief space.

Paul Verdayne was young and fresh and foolish when his episode began. He believed in himself--he believed in his mother, and in a number of other worthy things. Life was full of certainties for him. He was certain he liked hunting better than anything else in the world--for instance. He was certain he knew his own mind, and therefore perfectly certain his passion for Isabella Waring would last for ever! Ready to swear eternal devotion with that delightful inconsequence of youth in its unreason, thinking to control an emotion as Canute's flatterers would have had him do the waves.

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Also good is James Branch Cabell's Jurgen (1919) which was brought to court in the US for obscenity before Joyce's Ulysses. Cabell was hugely successful in his day. Some of his books are quite readable: e.g., Cream of the Jest (1917).