We were excited when a researcher exposed a stash of pornography—long ignored by uptight scholars—in the notebooks of dark writer Franz Kafka. The Metamorphosis author apparently subscribed to the naughty illustrated magazines of the day, probably for the articles. Scholars hate the fact that this is now public: "to call the illustrated magazines he subscribed to as hardcore porn, is like comparing a poem by Heinrich Heine with an advertising slogan for McDonald's," said [researcher] Anjana Shrivastava. Yeah, well, his porn does sound pretty strange (not that we're judging):

"At the focus of Hawes' investigation are pictures he stumbled across in the British Library in London and the Bodleian in Oxford of the pornography to which Kafka subscribed while in his twenties. They include images of a hedgehog-style creature performing fellatio, golem-like male creatures grasping women's breasts with their claw-like hands and a picture of a baby emerging from a sliced-open leg."

How delightful! But whatever, it's no secret that Kafka was a weird dude. How cute that certain prudish scholars felt the need to protect his porn from the world. [Guardian]