Following an indiscretion with a maid, exuberant Julian Robinson is sent to his family's country estate to be educated by a beautiful and bewitching French governess, Mademoiselle de Chambonnard, who subjects him to a rigorous disciplinary regime of birching and cross-dressing. Complete in three volumes, Gynecocracy is an influential masterpiece of Victorian clandestine erotica, first published in 1893. It is significant for the novelty of its focus on the subjection of a young man to women through enforced cross-dressing. The authorship of Gynecocracy is attributed to an English lawyer, Stanislas Matthew de Rhodes (1857-1932), who is also credited with writing The Yellow Room (1891) and The Petticoat Dominant (1898), which are also available from Birchgrove Press.