Inspired by Psychopathia Sexualis, Richard Krafft-Ebing's controversial study of sexual perversity, White Stains purports to be "the literary remains of George Archibald Bishop, a neuropath of the Second Empire." Aleister Crowley's book of provocative verse was clandestinely published in 1898 and of the hundred copies that were originally printed, only a handful were spared destruction by Her Majesty's Customs.