Made to Order

Paul Hugo Little (1915–1987) was an American pulp fiction writer and author of the historical novels forming the Windhaven series and The Hawk and the Dove series. He is acclaimed as perhaps this country`s most prolific writer, and produced more than 700 romantic, historic and pornographic novels published under a number of different pen names. The Guinness Book of World Records lists a South African woman, Kathleen Lindsay, as the most prolific writer with 904 novels. Mr. Little believed he was second, averaging a novel every week and a half since 1963. Paul was a Chicago native born on February 5, 1915. He he graduated from Northwestern University with a B.S. degree in Journalism (after having transferred from the University of Chicago where he started in 1932). His father was Israel Isaac Litwinsky (also changed to Little), a Russia-born, Polish linen merchant; his mother was Ida Marie (Demont) Litwinsky. He married Helen Mary McGrew, a teacher and designer, on April 3, 1941. Little was many things- CPL wrote: Before he became a writer, he worked as an educator, broadcaster, advertising manager, sales manager, announcer, account executive, and translator. He also taught fiction in the City Colleges of Chicago. But that really doesn't do him justice. He was a critic of fine food and wine for Hospitality Magazine, as well as an extremely eclectic music critic- reviewing such diverse music as the Vienna Philharmonic in The Hyde Park Herald and folk music in an article in Down Beat: Seeger Helps Restore American Folk Heritage, extolling Pete Seeger. He was Associate Editor of Musical Leader magazine from 1944 thru 1952. For Chess magazine, Little contributed Baden-Baden 1870 The First Tourney Interrupted by War. He wrote articles for Chess Review, tried his hand at poetry and had a poem published in American Poetry Magazine, in Sept. 1934 An acquaintance wrote of Little: The man of a 1000 pseudonyms was born Paul Hugo Litwinsky in Chicago to wealthy merchants. Little ultimately became one of America's most prolific writers with over 700 novels and books to his credit. They are almost all porn of the poorest literary quality. A chess expert, he has a few chess instructionals to his name, and wrote a book in 1965 titled "The Procurers," a title about one of Chicago's most notorious call-girls who had her phones unilaterally turned off by the sheriff of Cook County. Some believe this book is fiction. It is not. My uncle, Elmer Gertz, in his day one of the U.S.'s most celebrated civil liberties and First Amendment attorneys (he won Tropic of Cancer's first case in the U.S.), was this woman's advocate in her suit against the sheriff and, natch, got her off hook and back on the phone. I once possessed a copy of this book that Little had inscribed to my uncle. I sold it ten years ago. It is now online and selling for $150. Geez... One day someone will write at length about this character, known primarily for his porn work under the pseudonym, "A. Grandamour," who, according to my uncle (who knew him well), was a spoiled rich Jewish kid, well-educated, who turned his back on his family and background, was thrown out of the Chicago branch of The Standard Club, the social organization for successful Jews, for conduct unbecoming, married an Episcopalian, converted to Christianity, and then churned out so much crude erotica that he surely could not have had time to perform his connubial responsibilities. While the man above describes Little's works as "porn of the poorest literary quality," this wasn't a consensus. Most critics of that genre seemed to believe that Little's writing transcended the traditional quality. For instance, Vintage Sleaze writes: Paul Hugo Little (born Paul Hugo Litwinsky) was one of the most curious figures in American letters. To find a comparable character, one would need to reanimate Vladimir Nabokov to invent him, for he was among other things -- a businessman, a professor, a writer, a chess champion and a gourmet, who divided his time equally between reviewing restaurants, writing on chess strategy, and producing perhaps the most extensive oeuvre of any erotic/pornographic writer in history. His pseudonyms are many, Kenneth Harding, A. De Granamour, Dr. Guenter Klow, Dr. Gerda Mundinger, Sylvia Sharon, Paula Little, Paula Minton, Hugo Paul, Myron Kosloff, Jon Parker, Olga Rich, Larry Preston, Lana Preston, to name but a few. . . . Little's works are distinguishable for their attention to historical detail and imaginative BDSM scenarios; they are a high calibre of writing and recommended. ''He was a very unusual man,'' said Helen Deer, a friend. ''You might say he was an eccentric. He could go from being very much a gentleman to cussing people out on the street. He was always gracious with my husband and myself. He struggled for years before he made it. He was in his 40s before he became recognized as a writer. And that is all he ever wanted to be, a writer. He and his late wife never had children because they didn`t feel they could afford them. He did not own a car. He lived in Hyde Park in those days and delivered his tapes by bike to a transcriber in the Loop.'' Mr. Little, an expert in chess and fluent in French, also wrote a book, ''Chessworks,'' on moves in the game and worked for many years as a professional translator from French to English. He also taught fiction in the City Colleges of Chicago. Among his other jobs before becoming a full-time writer were ad salesman, Montgomery Ward & Co. copy writer, radio announcer, music critic and food and wine writer. He was the author of such popular historical novels as the Windhaven series, under the pen name of Marie de Journlet; the Hawk and the Dove series, using the name Leigh Franklin James; and of books in the Silverbell Romance series. Paula Minton, Kenneth Harding and Sylvia Sharon also have been his pseudonyms. Mr. Little wrote only a couple of books under his own name. One of them was ''Condominium Trap,'' published by the University of Alabama Press. He was the author also of a plethora of sexually explicit novels. ''Sure, call me a hack writer,'' he told a Tribune reporter in 1976. ''It doesn`t bother me.'' Still, he tried not to be a hack. ''Even when I have to do a hack job,'' he said, ''I try to get meaning into at least two of the characters. I try to get feeling and life into them and that, obviously, makes them much more vivid.'' *Chicago Tribune 23 June 1987