The Pearl made its debut in London in July 1879, a self-proclaimed journal for every taste. It flourished on the subterranean market until December 1880, when it vanished as mysteriously as it had appeared. Included in the eighteen issues were six serialized novels that are standards of sensual literature of the time, as well as the meatiest limericks then current, parodies of Robert Burns's Merry Muses, ballads of epic sexual adventures, countless ditties, witticisms, jokes, letters from "readers," and a potpourri of the scatological and scandalous gossip of the day