Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Misspelled

1968

A mixed bouquet: some embarrassingly juvenile sexual fantasies from men's magazines of the early '60s, some poignant tales of romance and friendship, and a couple of candid and compelling personal essays disguised as short stories.

Apart from being Ellison's first hardcover original and bearing one of his all-time great titles, Love Ain't Nothing is valuable as a look at one man's journey through evolving manhood, from the macho streets of gangland to the tangled limbs of the Playboy Mansion to the relative enlightenment of feminism. It ain't pretty, but it's an education.

Highlights: "Daniel White for the Greater Good," "When I Was a Hired Gun" and "I Curse the Lesson But Bless the Knowledge." In the latter, any resemblance to the author is, of course, purely coincidental.

Love Ain't Nothing was republished, with many stories omitted and several added, in 1976. The book's contents were revised yet again for the version included in 1997 as part of Edgeworks 4.

Collector's note

This was Ellison's first hardcover original; specimens in good condition are difficult to come by.

Contents

• Preface: Motherhood, Apple Pie and the American Way
• New Introduction: Having an Affair With a Troll (1976 edition)
• Pretty Maggie Moneyeyes (1968 edition)
• The Night of Delicate Terrors (1968 edition)
• What I Did on My Vacation This Summer, By Little Bobby Hirschhorn, Age 27
• Neither Your Jenny Nor Mine
• Final Shtick (1968 edition)
• O Ye of Little Faith (1968 edition)
• Blind Bird, Blind Bird, Go Away From Me!
• Riding the Dark Train Out
• Valerie (1976 edition)
• Delusion for a Dragon Slayer (1968 edition)
• Daniel White for the Greater Good
• Lonelyache (1968 edition)
• The Universe of Robert Blake
• Mona at Her Windows
• When I Was a Hired Gun (1976 edition)
• G. B. K. -- A Many-Flavored Bird
• The Face of Helene Bournouw (1968 edition)
• The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie
• Ernest and the Machine God (1968 edition)
• Battle Without Banners
• Punky & the Yale Men
• A Path Through the Darkness
• A Prayer for No One's Enemy
• All the Sounds of Fear (1968 edition)
• I Curse the Lesson and Bless the Knowledge (1976 edition)