Sex and The Single Girl (Cult Classics Series), Vol. 1 Book

"Before I knew anything about sex or New York City, I read Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl, a seminal book that will live on in the lives, minds, and libidos of women forever."
—Kim Cattrall

"Surprisingly, the book that truly celebrates the single woman was written four decades ago. Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl, (first) published in 1962, 'torpedoes one of the most absurd (if universal) myths of our time: that every girl must be married.'"
—The New York Times (10/12/02)

Before Sex and the City's Carrie Bradshaw, Samantha Jones, Miranda Hobbes, and Charlotte York tore up the town, there was Helen Gurley Brown, the real-life editor in chief of Cosmopolitan.

In this deliciously tantalizing book, Cosmo's leading lady told women how to be glamorous and sophisticated and how to fill their lives with romance and delectable men. She showed women how to meet men and sweep them off their feet-all while looking and feeling fabulously sexy. Since that time, sexual attitudes may have changed, but the art of being a woman has not.

Still provocative after all these years, Brown celebrates the pleasures of flirting, of enjoying affairs from beginning to end, throwing brunches and dinner parties, finding men where you might not think to look, dating (and ditching) married men, and being both feminine and powerful.

It's been over 40 years since Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sent shockwaves through American culture. How times have changed, or have they?

On bargain hunting:

• "Some of my girl friends bring back their two-dollar blouses and shoes from the sales with the comment, 'For two dollars how could you go wrong?'

"My notion is, "For two dollars, how could you go right?"

On eating:

• "Keep an almost bare cupboard. You don't eat much. Who are those other people you're feeding?"

• "Men are to buy you cocktails. That's no way for you to spend your money."

• "I think marriage is insurance for the worst years of your life. During your best years you don't need a husband. You do need a man of course every step of the way, and they are often cheaper emotionally and a lot more fun by the dozen."

Helen Gurley Brown became the Editor-in-Chief of Cosmopolitan in 1965. For five years she was voted by World Almanac one of the 25 Most Influential Women in the U.S. She is a well-known television personality, having made frequent appearances on "20/20," "60 Minutes," "The Oprah Winfrey Show," "Larry King," "Entertainment Tonight," and many others.