迷失的女孩 (2006)

Lost Girls is a graphic novel written by Alan Moore and illustrated by Melinda Gebbie, depicting the sexually explicit adventures of three female fictional characters of the late 19th and early 20th century: Alice from Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Dorothy Gale from L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and Wendy Darling from J. M. Barrie's Peter and Wendy. They meet as adults in 1913 and describe and share some of their erotic adventures with each other.

Plot summary

Alice from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass (now grey-haired, and called "Lady Fairchild"), Dorothy from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (now in her 20s) and Wendy from Peter and Wendy (now in her 30s, and married to a man in his 50s named Harold Potter) are visiting the expensive mountain resort "Hotel Himmelgarten" in Austria on the eve of World War I (1913–1914). The women meet by chance and begin to exchange erotic stories from their pasts. The stories are based on the childhood fantasy worlds of the three women:

Wendy Darling. Wendy's sexual escapades begin when she meets a homeless teenage boy named Peter and his sister Annabel in Kensington Gardens. Peter follows Wendy and her brothers home and teaches them sexual games, and the siblings begin regular meetings with Peter and his group of homeless boys in the park for sex. These encounters are watched by The Captain, a co-worker of Wendy's father, who later hires Peter as a male prostitute and brutally rapes Annabel. He attacks Wendy, who escapes by confronting him with his fear of ageing. She only sees Peter once more, hustling on the street. She marries the much older Harold Potter with whom she is sexually incompatible. The pair have a largely platonic marriage, resulting in a son, Peter, who is away at boarding school, and Wendy is able to repress her memories of sex.

Dorothy Gale. While trapped in her house during a tornado, she begins masturbating and experiences her first orgasm at the age of fifteen. She has sexual encounters with three farm hands whom she refers to as The Straw Man, The Cowardly Lion and The Tin Man. Throughout most of her stories, she refers to her "aunt" and "uncle", whom she later admits were her step-mother and father, who discover her affairs. Her father takes her to New York City, under the pretense of seeking psychological help, but has sex with her repeatedly while they are in the city, enticing a group of little person revellers and a prostitute. Dorothy feels guilty for the pain they have caused her stepmother, and leaves to travel the world.

Alice Fairchild. At fourteen, Alice is coerced into sex with her father's friend, which she endures by staring into a mirror and imagining she is having sex with herself. At an all-girls boarding school, Alice convinces many of her schoolmates to sleep with her, and develops a strong attraction to her P.E. teacher, who offers Alice a job as a personal assistant (and sexual plaything) when she leaves employment at the school. Alice's employer marries a Mr. Redman, but begins hosting extravagant, drug-fuelled lesbian sex parties. Alice is pimped out to an ascot-wearing woman who hosts an orgy (complete with a mousey woman who's passed out) and a pair of lesbian twins. Alice becomes addicted to opium (supplied by a hooka-smoking doctor), and watches a young girl named Lily (daughter of Mrs. Redman's friend Lady White and her wealthy husband), among many others, abused just as she was. When Lily is instructed by Mrs. Redman to secretly perform cunnilingus on Alice under the table during a dinner party, Alice exposes her employer's secrets to the guests. Mrs. Redman has Alice declared insane, and she is put into a mental hospital where she is systematically raped by the staff. Upon release, Alice resumes her very active sex life and drug use. Disowned by her family, she moves to Africa to run a family-owned diamond mine.

In addition to the three women's erotic flashbacks, the graphic novel depicts sexual encounters between the women and other guests and staff of the hotel. The erotic adventures are set against the backdrop of unsettling cultural and historic events of the period, such as the debut of Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring and the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. The graphic novel ends with Alice's mirror being destroyed by German soldiers who burn down the hotel.

Literary significance and reception

The release of this work received widespread coverage in the industry media. Despite the price of US$75, the book's first two print runs of 10,000 each sold out at the distributor level on the day of their release, with the US sales at the end of 2007 reaching 35,000 copies.

Controversy about child sexuality

In the US and Canada, many retailers have stated that they will not stock the book out of fear of possible obscenity prosecution, though some said they might make the book available to their customers via special order and simply not stock it.

In Canada, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) initially seized a copy of the book citing obscenity, and Top Shelf ceased its import from the UK. However, after an appeal was made to the agency by the publisher, the Senior Program Advisor of the Prohibited Importations Unit of CBSA approved entry of the book stating in a letter, "these depictions are integral to the development of an intricate, imaginative and artfully rendered storyline", and, "the portrayal of sex is necessary to a wider artistic and literary purpose".