This book has also been published many times under the name 'Sadopaideia'. The ‘Boston’ noted in the title is a dance, interrupted when the principal male character in the story embarks on an affaire with a hot-blooded young widow. The widow and her maid, who have a dominant-submissive relationship founded on birch and cane, are soon turned (mostly) submissive by the lusty young male, and the pattern of the tale is by then pretty well established. The ensemble is joined by two young (rather, perhaps, too young) nieces, and the book thereafter quickly becomes a punitive litany in which propriety is barely maintained, if at all. Although it’s quite well written, and inventive, the book thus falls into the commonest trap of Victorian erotic literature, that of repetition. However, it is something of a classic, with quite a few novel touches, even though there is little plot to speak of. ( )