literary or artistic works having an erotic theme; especially, books treating of sexual love in a sensuous or voluptuous manner. The word erotica typically applies to works in which the sexual element is regarded as part of the larger aesthetic aspect. It is usually distinguished from pornography, which can also have literary merit but which is usually understood to have sexual arousal as its main purpose.

There are erotic elements in literary works of all times and all countries. Among the best-known examples of erotic literature are the Kāma-sūtra and other Sanskrit literature from about the 5th century AD, Persian lyric poems called ghazals, Ovid's Ars Amatoria, the 16th-century Chinese novel Chin p'ing, William Shakespeare's Venus and Adonis, the writings of the Marquis de Sade, and D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.