Die sexte Versuchung by Ferry Hirschmann

Die sexte Versuchung. Liebe & Lust in Österreich (“The Sexth Temptation. Love & Lust in Austria”) is a 1970 book by Austrian journalist and author Ferry Hirschmann. It adopts a reportage approach typical of the period, combining social observation and an irreverent, mildly provocative perspective to present a wide-ranging portrait of Austrian society at a time of changing sexual attitudes and social conventions. Among the subjects covered are courtship, marriage and infidelity, prostitution, censorship, same-sex relationships, and contemporary youth and drug culture. Most of the extensive photographic material is by the young Michael Horowitz.

A striking contrast marks the graphic treatment of exterior and interior. The dust jacket is comparatively conventional in its composition: symmetrical, centered on the vertical axis, and employing serifed typefaces (although the specific execution is very much of its time). The interior, on the other hand, takes a markedly more modernist approach, using asymmetrical page layouts, sans-serif typography, pronounced shifts in scale, detached page numbers, off-center text blocks, and generously deployed white space, creating a more dynamic page architecture and turning the page itself into an active compositional field.

The production is notably elaborate. The black cloth binding carries a small debossed fig leaf on the front board, and the text block has a dark-stained top edge. A vivid reddish magenta recurs in the fig leaf, the spine lettering, and the endpapers, while the dust jacket shifts the accent toward a cooler violet-magenta. A black lace-like pattern on the endpapers echoes the book’s subject matter. The photographic sections are arranged in magazine-like editorial layouts and are printed on ivory-colored coated stock that contrasts with the uncoated text pages. In the final section, the ivory stock is overprinted in black, with imagery and captions reversed out.

Egyptienne Bold Condensed is used on the front and spine of the dust jacket, as well as on the spine of the black cloth binding. The back of the dust jacket features Stempel Garamond. The body text is set in Helvetica. Both Stempel Garamond and Helvetica show lowered umlaut marks on capitals. Page numbers, including those in the table of contents, are set in the schmalfett (bod condensed) style of Neuzeit-Grotesk, while the chapter titles in the table of contents and on the chapter openers appear in Breite Fette Information.

Published by Kremayr & Scheriau in Vienna in 1970. 320 pages, 15.5 × 22.5 × 2.7 cm, black clothbound hardcover with dust jacket. Dust jacket by Haimo Lauth, using a photograph by Michael Horowitz; the designer of the interior is not credited. 60 credited photographs, 50 by Horowitz. Includes a poem by H.C. Artmann, a text by Gerhard Bronner, and a small line illustration. Overall production by Wiener Verlag, Vienna.