In the "Notice to the reader", the author purports to represent a true account: "This little book is not a novel.

The author presents the sexual adventures of a young man of twenty, "X***", to whom a prostitute of thirty-six, Teresa, and her three daughters, Charlotte, twenty, Mauricette, fourteen and a half, and Lili, ten years old, take turns visiting, before they all engage in a big staging of obscene games.

Pierre Louÿs wrote Trois Filles de leur mère in around 1910, although it was first published, posthumously, in 1926.

The work was translated into English for the Ophelia Press as The She-Devils (1965), where the author is called "Peter Lewys" (i.e. Pierre Louÿs).

Jean d'Ormesson, when asked of his interest in genre literature in an interview for Le Figaro, replied: "I like detective novels, but I prefer naughty books.