Leonard Smithers

Born in Sheffield, England, Smithers worked as a solicitor after qualifying in 1884[1] and became friendly with the explorer and orientalist Sir Richard Francis Burton (1821–1890).

[2][3] He also collaborated with Burton in a translation from the Latin of the Carmina of Caius Valerius Catullus and Priapeia, a collection of erotic poems by various writers.

Smithers published works by Aubrey Beardsley, Max Beerbohm, Aleister Crowley, Ernest Dowson, Arthur Symons and Oscar Wilde and lesser known figures such as Vincent O'Sullivan and Nigel Tourneur.

In partnership with Harry Sidney Nichols, he published a series of pornographic books under the imprint of the "Erotika Biblion Society":[1] He was notorious for posting a slogan at his bookshop in Bond Street reading "Smut is cheap today".

His body was found in a house in Parson's Green on his 46th birthday, surrounded by empty bottles of Dr J. Collis Browne's Chlorodyne.