This is a store for those who prefer the old to the new;

who prefer character to shine;

who value owning and using a piece of history.

This is a store for those people and the ones who adore them.

  • Parisian Pastimes, (Parisian Publishing Co.) 7.75" x 5", 32pp., pamphlet, fair condition, cover detatched, poorly printed in places Erotic story and erotic photos.  
  • Passion and Criminality | a legal and literary study, Louis Proal, trans. "A. R. Allinson M.A. (Oxon.)" (stated "Charles Carrington, Paris, nd [c. 1930 pirated edition of the 1901 Charles Carrington edition]) 8.5" X 5.75", xxiv 679pp. Hardbound no DJ. Green boards. Fair condition, front boards loose but intact, otherwise binding is good some sunning to boards. Proal was a French judge at the Court of Appeals of Riom. This book records the history of various crimes of passion and their sociological and legal implications. Covered here are suicide, love and hate combined, seduction and desertion, jealousy, adultery, crimes of passion resulting from reading books of passion.. etc. There seems to be a great deal of writing on melancholy and suicide. There is a Foreword by the translator.
  • Percy

    $35.00
    anonymous (Paris, France, nd.) 5.5" X 4.25", 32pp, softcover, good quality for age, illustrated with pornographic photos
  • Petting as an Erotic Exercise: a study of the significance and techniques of pre-coital play, D. O. Cauldwell, M.D. (Haldeman-Julius Publications, Girard, Kansas, 1948) 5.5” x 8.5″, 32pp. pamphlet, slight sunning/soiling, very good for age, interior clean. This is one of many books written by David O. Cauldwell (1897-1959), and published by Haldeman-Julius Publications.  Dr. Cauldwell was a self-described sexologist who is usually credited with being the first person to use the term 'transsexual' and 'transsexualism'.  Although that claim has been widely disputed, he did write some of the first works examining transgender issues. In this pamphlet Dr. Cauldwell writes about foreplay in most all its forms and a call for the normalization of activities that were often described as perversions.
  • Petting as an Erotic Exercise: a study of the significance and techniques of pre-coital play, D. O. Cauldwell, M.D. (Haldeman-Julius Publications, Girard, Kansas, 1948) 5.5” x 8.5″, 32pp. pamphlet, slight sunning/soiling, very good for age, interior clean. This is one of many books written by David O. Cauldwell (1897-1959), and published by Haldeman-Julius Publications.  Dr. Cauldwell was a self-described sexologist who is usually credited with being the first person to use the term 'transsexual' and 'transsexualism'.  Although that claim has been widely disputed, he did write some of the first works examining transgender issues. In this pamphlet Dr. Cauldwell writes about foreplay in most all its forms and a call for the normalization of activities that were often described as perversions.
  • Phil Fumble, (n.p. n.d.) 4.5" x 3", 8pp. pamphlet, stapled Tijuana bibles (also known as eight-pagers, bluesies, gray-backs, Jiggs-and-Maggie books, jo-jo books, Tillie-and-Mac books, and two-by-fours) were little pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s.
  • Photo Album (ca. 1900), 81 photos, 6 themed series: Le Duel (The Duel), La Deception (The Deception), Les Armurea (The Armor), La Soubrette (The Coy Soprano), Le Coucher (Going to Bed), Le Bain (The Bath), no date, no photographer, no publisher. 7.25" x 5.5", 87pp unpaginated, no boards, signatures with rivets (no longer holding) and taped together. 81 photos are grouped into 6 "photo stories". The only other marking is on the second photo and reads "SADAG, SW" The photos are elaborately staged photo. Each series starts out with the subject(s) fully clothed, but at some point becoming partially undressed. "SADAG" is "Société Anonyme des Arts Graphiques". According to books from England and France they were a "well known Geneva firm of photo engravers". The marking on the photo could mean that the the photos were processed by a member of this organization or it was processed using the techniques developed by this organization. Le Duel (14 photos) portrays a group of ladies at a lunch or tea. They start drinking and fight breaks out resulting in a duel. The duel is, of course, performed topless. In the end the winner consoles the loser. La Deception (15 photos) portrays a woman sitting in her parlor and her table is set for a two. She reads a letter/note which upsets her then angers her. She clears away the extra table setting and starts to drink wine. The more drunk she gets the less clothes she has on. In the last photo she is passed out and there are two cherubs flying around the room. In Les Armurea (11 photos) a woman is admiring two suits of armor. She undresses and puts on one of the suits of armor. La Soubrette (15 photos, roughly translated as "The Coy Soprano") a maid is cleaning up a woman's dressing room. She decides to play the soprano. She undresses, lets her hair down, uses the brush and puts on a fancy dress. Le Coucher (16 photos, "Going to Bed") is a photo story about a woman preparing for bed. Le Bain (10 photos, "The Bath") a woman prepares for and takes a bath.
  • Playing with a Mistress, anonymous (np, nd) 5.5" X 4.25", 32pp, pamphlet, good quality for age, very pornographic photos. vintage underground erotic pamphlet illustrated with vintage pornographic photos (these were illegal when printed so no publisher, no date, if listed it is probably false)
  • Poesias: eroticas, burlescas e satyricas, Bocage (Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage) (np, London, 1926, #443/1000 machine numbered) 6" X 8", 220pp, in Portuguese, hardcover, quarter bound red leather over red pebbled boards, gilt titles and decorations on spine, four raised bands, laid paper, top-edge inked, marbled end papers, ribbon present, a handsome quarter-leather bound copy of a clandestinely published edition of Bocage's unpublishable works. (most copies of this edition are softbound). Manuel Maria Barbosa du Bocage (1765-1805) was a Portuguese Neoclassic poet, writing at the beginning of his career under the pen name Elmano Sadino. He aspired to be a second Camões. He was born, the son of a lawyer, in Setúbal, Portugal. He is said to to have made verses in infancy, and being somewhat of a prodigy grew up to be flattered, self-conscious and unstable. He left home at age 14 to join the army then transfered to the navy at age 16. While in the military he devoted most of his energies to love affairs, poetry, and bohemianism. Eventually, like his hero Camões, he was sent to India and became disillusioned by the Orient. He deserted to Macau, returning to Lisbon in 1790. He then joined the New Arcadia, a literary society with vaguely egalitarian and libertarian sympathies, but his satires on his fellow members resulted in his expulsion. In 1797 he was accused of propagating republicanism and atheism and was imprisoned. During his imprisonment he undertook translations of Virgil and Ovid. Translations provided him with a livelihood during the few years that he lived after his release. Despite the Neoclassical framework of his poetry, his intensely personal accent, frequent violence of expression, and self-dramatizing obsession with fate and death anticipate Romanticism. The subversiveness of his poems has meant that for much of the last 200 years they have not been (officially) available in Portugal.
  • Poetica Erotica, T.R. Smith (editor) (Boni and Liveright, New York, 1921 (Vol. 3, 1922) [limited first edition, #523/1500]) 9 1/4" X 6 1/4", 3 vol. xxviii + 324, xvi + 328, xiv + 280, hardbound with green boards with cream vellum spines, deckle edges, corners bumped and worn, binding is tight, vol. 2 boards slightly loose. T. R. Smith writes "In these volumes Eros rules and Aphrodite guides the passionate motives....The poems contained in these volumes range from the earliest time to the present and the names of the most distinguished poets of yesterday and today will be found in the contents."
  • Portfolio of Anatomical Manikins: Picture Story of Body, Keller, David H., M.D. (Falstaff Press, New York, 1937) 14" X 5.75", 27pp. Pamphlet without issued DJ. Good condition for age. Originally folded to fit into dust jacket, crease present, few stains, tears and wear. Limited edition of 5000 "This book is intended for circulation only among mature persons, 21 years of age or over" Anatomical illustrations of the human body, focusing on the reproductive system and organs.
  • Private Hours of Napoleon Bonaparte | from his earliest years to the period of his marriage with the Arch-Duchess Maria Louisa | written by himself during his residence in the island of Elba, (Printed for Germain Mathiot, Paris, 1816, reverse title page says "London: Printed by Schulze and Dean") 7" X 5", 4 vols., 240pp 247pp 248pp 240pp, rebound in 1/2 brown calf over marbled boards, 5 raised bands and gilt titles on spine, blindstamp designs on leather, marbled edges, good+ condition, rare book This was not at all written by Napoleon but written anonymously.  The story (unverified) is that it was commissioned by the publisher Henry Colburn (1784-1855) for British intelligence with the primarily erotic or otherwise scandalous content intended to discredit Napoleon's character while he was in exile in Elba.  This is a very rare work.  Only a few copies located worldwide.  The only other one I've found in the US is in Harvard's library.  This work was also published in French (with a London imprint).
  • Pudeur [Modesty], André Billy (Jean Vigneau, éditeur, 1946 [Philadelphia?] limited edition #61/450 first edition) 9.5 X 11.25, 97pp, original state, unbound loose signature, soft wraps enclosed in a cream & green loose hardcover which fits into a slipcase, some very slight foxing on wraps and slipcase but otherwise a very clean copy, small rip at bottom of spine. André Billy (1882 - 1971) was a French writer. He was born in Saint-Quentin, Aisne. After completing secondary studies at the Collège de la Providence in Amiens, he studied under the Jesuits at Saint-Dizier. He began writing in 1907, occasionally using the pseudonym Jean de l'Escritoire. Billy used ecclesiastical settings for the novels Bénoni, L'Approbaniste, Introïbo, and Le Narthex. He was inspired by the story-tellers of the 18th for the essay Pudeur and a few other works. For many years he was the literary critic for L'Œuvre. He edited the collection Leurs Raisons. Billy became honorary president of the Société des amis de Philéas Lebesgue. Retiring to Lyon during the Occupation of France, he worked on a series of imposing biographies: Vie de Balzac, Vie de Diderot, and Vie de Sainte-Beuve. He was elected to the Académie Goncourt in 1943, but could not take his seat until 1944 because of the hostility of several members, some of whom he had criticised in his writings. After the War, he wrote the Chroniques du samedi for Le Figaro littéraire. The collection Histoire de la vie littéraire (éditions Tallandier) was published under the direction of André Billy, who contributed L'Époque 1900. In total, during his career he was to write 11,000 articles for over one hundred European newspapers.
  • Randiana or Excitable Tales, (Société des Bibliophiles [actually Charles Carrington, as part of the stated "Social Studies of the Century" series, reads "for the Delectation of the Amorous and the Instruction of the Amateur in the year of the Excitement of the Sexes". This exact edition is different than mentioned in Mendez.], 1898 5.25"x7.75", 142pp, bound in soft bible-like leather, decorated endpapers, printed on Van Gelder hand-laid paper cut with rounded corners (also bible-like), pages 55-60 loose, otherwise good condition for age, rare and uniquely presented edition of this very erotic work. Randiana, or Excitable Tales is an anonymously written pornographic novel originally published by William Lazenby in 1884. The book depicts a variety of sexual activities, including incest, defloration and lesbianism. From an 1899 ad: "... A Rare Lascivious English Classic! … this is a book written by an English gentleman of considerable wit, command of language, and an imagination of Rabelaisian order. Erotic as are these tales, they are far from being filthy, while a plot of thrilling interest runs throughout the work, binding all the stories together, as with chains of gold. Each story is complete in itself and yet… incomplete without the rest. The events narrated too, are all perfectly natural and might have occurred to any coynte-hunter besides James CLINTON. The story of flagellation is most exciting; “The effects of shell-fish” simply delightful; and the glorious circumvention of proud, cold, haughty, fine-limbed Lady LEVERSON’S dearly guarded chastity, is simply rapturous - one can almost see the movings of her mighty snow-white buttocks, hear her delightful cries, gasps, murmers, pantings of real pleasure, while she rolls, wriggles, jumps, throbs, becomes joy-delirious, as she is prodded by the powerful tool of the man bestriding her, and who has here been bold enough to put his experiences on record. Price £3.3s. P.S. - This book, until lately, was absolutely unfindable and, under the title of The Apotheosis of Prick,£18 was being asked for it."
  • Riding a Gentleman, artist unknown Print from:  The Modern Eveline; or the adventures of a young lady of quality who was never found out anonymous (Printed for Distribution Amongst Private Subscribers, Paris, 1904 [Miller Brothers, New York, c. 1930]) Image: 6.5″ x 10″, high-resolution ink-jet print Paper: 8.5″ x 11″, 65lb White paper
  • Sappho: memoir, text, selected renderings, and a literal translation by Henry Thorton Wharton, Sappho, trans. Henry Thornton Wharton, M.A. Oxon. (John Lane [Bodley Head], London, A.C. McClurg & Co, Chicago, 1895 (third edition)) 7.25″ X 4.75″, xx 217pp + 16pp publisher’s list, hardbound, the third edition (this being the first to have its boards decorated by Aubrey Beardsley) green cloth boards with gilt decorations and titles on spine, bottom of the spine states “The Bodley Head and Chicago” reflecting the two publishing houses, top edge gilt, others deckled. Good condition for age, short tear on spine, binding and hinges good, newspaper article attached to back page “A Newly-Found Poem by Sappho” Sappho was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos. The Alexandrians included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life. The bulk of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired through much of antiquity, has been lost. But, her immense reputation has endured through surviving fragments. Sappho's poetry centers on passion and love for various people and both sexes. The word lesbian derives from the name of the island of her birth, Lesbos, while her name is also the origin of the word sapphic; neither word was applied to female homosexuality until the 19th century, after this translation by Wharton, the first English translation to acknowledge it. Originally John Lane and Elkin Mathews — The Bodley Head was a partnership set up in 1887 by John Lane (1854–1925) and Elkin Mathews (1851–1921), to trade in antiquarian books in London. It took its name from a bust of Sir Thomas Bodley, the eponymist of the Bodleian Library in Oxford, above the shop door. Lane and Mathews began in 1894 to publish works of ‘stylish decadence’, including the notorious literary periodical The Yellow Book. A. C. McClurg was a Chicago, Illinois based publisher made famous by their original publishing of the Tarzan of the Apes novels and other stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs.
  • Schnozzle

    $100.00
    Schnozzle, (n.p. n.d.) 4.5" x 3", 8pp. pamphlet, stapled Tijuana bibles (also known as eight-pagers, bluesies, gray-backs, Jiggs-and-Maggie books, jo-jo books, Tillie-and-Mac books, and two-by-fours) were little pornographic comic books produced in the United States from the 1920s to the early 1960s. Their popularity peaked during the Great Depression era. This book parodies Jimmy Durante.
  • Selections from the Poetical Works of A. C. Swinburne, from the latest English edition of his works., A. C. Swinburne, ed. R. H. Stoddard (Thomas Y. Crowell & Co., New York, 1884 [first edition, thus.]) 7.5" x 5", xxii, 634pp, Hardcover, raised and gilted blue cloth decorated binding. Gilt edges internal pages framed in red lines. Good condition, bumped and worn corners and spine. Binding tight. Signed by previous owner "Ray E. Searls 1900" Swinburne was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. Considered a decadent poet, although Swinburne perhaps professed to more vice than he actually indulged in; Oscar Wilde stated that Swinburne was "a braggart in matters of vice, who had done everything he could to convince his fellow citizens of his homosexuality and bestiality without being in the slightest degree a homosexual or a bestializer." He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in every year from 1903 to 1907 and again in 1909.
  • Sex Mythology | including an account of the | Masculine Cross, anonymous, Sha Rocco [Abisha S. Hudson] (Privately Printed, London, 1898, one of 200 copies unnumbered) 8.25" X 6", 64pp, quarter white cloth over grey boards, good condition, some bumping to corners, bookplate of Virginia & Edwin Irwin, bookseller stamp of George T. Juckes, London. An account of primitive symbolism and ancient phallic worship including Yoni, Shaga, Hebrew phallicism, Bacchic festivals, sexual rites, religious prostitution, and the mysteries of the ancient faiths. "The phallus and the sexual vocabulary of the Bible are explained within for the first time." The work is anonymous but much of the text comes from the writer of the preface, Sha Rocco, a pseudonym for Abisha S. Hudson. Abisha was born Abisha Shumway Hudson (1819-1905) was born in Oxford, Massachusetts one half of a pair of twins: his twin brother, Abijah T. Hudson, was never far from Abisha; the two trained as physicians together, lived together, and doctored together, in the midwest and on the west coast, even after they married.  In April of 1855, Abisha radicalized, ordering a copy of Robert Taylor's infamous Diegesis from the bookstore of the Boston Investigator to hone his arguments as an anti-Christian free-thinker: the subtext for Sha Rocco's Masculine Cross. In 1874, The Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship is published, by Asa K. Butts, a free-thought publisher in New York.  Other published editions followed and he contributed to the present book published in London. Abisha was a public Spiritualist and the author of at least one other work "Tree and Serpent Worship" published around 1894, this time using his own name.
  • Sextravaganza, by M. de Crebillon le Fils, With and Introduction by Escar Levine, Illustrator unknown (Privately Printed [The Robin Hood House], New York 1932, one of 1111) 6.25"x9.5", 192pp, decorated boards, vellum spine with silver lettering, some spots and bumps but generally a good copy of this edition. Originally titled La Nuit et le moment ou les matines de Cythère [The night and the moment, or the mornings of Cythere], this is Robin Hood House's famous US "private" publication from the 30's and for a long time the only english translation available in the states.  Written as a dialog, in the course of one night a man and a woman, each of whom is in love with somebody else, gradually warm up to each other until they forget past pleasures in present passions . Satire, irony, word-play and scandal abound.  This edition states "only eleven hundred eleven copies have been issued for collectors of curiosa & sexualia". Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (1707-1777) was a French novelist. He was called "Crébillon fils" to distinguish him from his father, a famous tragedian, Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. The publication of Tanzaï et Neadarne, histoire japonaise (1734), which contained thinly veiled attacks on the Papal bull Unigenitus, the cardinal de Rohan and others, landed him briefly in the prison at Vincennes. Publication of Le Sopha, conte moral, an erotic political satire, in 1742 forced him into exile from Paris for several months.
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