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La Génération de l' Homme ou Tableau de l' Amour Conjugal, considéré dans l'état du mariage, tome premier, Nicolas Venette (np 1776) 4″x6.75″, 365pp, vol. 1 only (of 2), full mottled calf, 5 raised bands, titles on spine are worn off, marbled boards loose but holding, fair condition for age. Illustrated throughout including a beautifully engraved frontispiece and title page, some illustrations are fold-outs. Nicolas Venette (1633–1698) was a physician, sexologist and French writer. Born in La Rochelle, he studied medicine at Bordeaux where he received his doctorate in 1656. He then went to Paris where he studied under Guy Patin and Pierre Petit, before travelling to Spain, Portugal and Italy. He then returned to La Rochelle, where he became Regius Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in 1668. First published in Amsterdam in 1686 as Tableau de l’amour humain considéré dans l’état du mariage (Table of human love considered in the state of marriage) under the pseudonym Salocini Venetian (anagram of Nicolas Venette), this book, more properly titled Table of conjugal love, or the complete history of the generation of man, is considered to be the first treatise on sexology in West. It proved to be a bestseller and was translated into English, Spanish, German and Dutch. There were 33 editions published sporadically until 1903. This edition was published in 1776 in two-volume. This book is volume 1. Many images are upgraded from previous editions to be fold-outs. The author discusses four sub-topics with respect to sex: anatomy, reproduction, desire, and impotence/infertility. For each topic, he reviews ancient and medieval authors, adding his own observations or those of later authors, and comments where common sense prevails. The resulting composition has an ambiguous mixture of seriousness and light-heartedness bordering upon erotic literature.
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La Génération de l' Homme ou Tableau de l' Amour Conjugal, considéré dans l'état du mariage, Nicolas Venette (np London, 1768, "Nouvelle Édition") 6.25″x3.75″, 408pp, vol. 1 only (of 2), full mottled calf, 5 raised bands worn), gilt title and decorations on spine (worn), marbled boards, fair condition for age, beautiful illustrations including a beautifully engraved frontispiece and title page. Nicolas Venette (1633–1698) was a physician, sexologist and French writer. Born in La Rochelle, he studied medicine at Bordeaux where he received his doctorate in 1656. He then went to Paris where he studied under Guy Patin and Pierre Petit, before travelling to Spain, Portugal and Italy. He then returned to La Rochelle, where he became Regius Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in 1668. First published in Amsterdam in 1686 as Tableau de l’amour humain considéré dans l’état du mariage (Table of human love considered in the state of marriage) under the pseudonym Salocini Venetian (anagram of Nicolas Venette), this book, more properly titled Table of conjugal love, or the complete history of the generation of man, is considered to be the first treatise on sexology in West. It proved to be a bestseller and was translated into English, Spanish, German and Dutch. There were 33 editions published sporadically until 1903. This edition was published in 1768 in two-volume. This book is volume 1. The author discusses four sub-topics with respect to sex: anatomy, reproduction, desire, and impotence/infertility. For each topic, he reviews ancient and medieval authors, adding his own observations or those of later authors, and comments where common sense prevails. The resulting composition has an ambiguous mixture of seriousness and light-heartedness bordering upon erotic literature.
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Jakub Casanova: Memoiry (Czech: Cassanova's Memoirs), Giacomo Casanova (Alois Hynek, J. Rokyta, Praze, n.d. [c. 1890-1900]) 8.75" X 6.25" 9 vol. in 8 books 275pp. [220pp 144pp in one vol.] 283pp. 358pp. 304pp. 356pp. 326pp. 345 i-v. Hardcover with beautifully decorated red cloth boards. Very good condition. Rare complete set with full color boards. Even more rare copy translated into Czech. Giovanni Giacomo Casanova (1725-1798) was an ecclesiastic, writer, soldier, spy, and diplomatist, chiefly remembered as the prince of Italian adventurers and as the man who made the name Casanova synonymous with "libertine." His autobiography, which perhaps exaggerates some of his escapades, is a splendid description of 18th-century society in the capitals of Europe. This is a beautiful Czech edition, 9 volumes in 8 books in publisher's original decorative cloth-binding. A beautifully bound edition. I am unable to find another complete set. The only other place I can find mention these books is in the Czech National Library.
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Woman and Puppet, Pierre Louys, illustrated by Clara Tice, "designed and supervised by Harry Cunningham" (The Pierre Louys Society, US, 1927, #617/990) 9 7/8" X 6 1/2", 270pp, hardbound with , black boards with red titles and decorations, MINT condition, with dust jacket wrapped in mylar. Bookstore stamp on front paste-down "C. J. Schnieder Books" During the carnival in Seville, the Frenchman André Stévenol meets and falls under the spell of Conception 'Concita' Perez, a young Andalusian woman. His friend, don Mateo Diaz warns him off by describing his own history with the woman – a history of being repeatedly attracted and then rebuffed by her. Conchita continually flirted with other men to torture don Mateo. On each occasion he was made to feel guilty for his jealous thoughts and actions towards her, until he realised finally that he had been her puppet for fourteen months and in an explosion of passion he beat her. She then astonished him by declaring the violence a sign of the strength of his love and came to his bed. She was a virgin. Although the two then started living together, she continued her flirtatious behaviour towards other men and simultaneously became very possessive. Don Mateo left the country and travelled for a year to escape her. The novel has a short epilogue, described as the moral of the piece. The Frenchman accidentally meets Conchita again, and they spend the night together. The next morning, as Conchita packs her bags for Paris, a note is received from don Mateo asking to be taken back into Conchita's good graces. Pierre Louys (1870 - 1925) was a French poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who "expressed pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection." Woman and Puppet is described as "Spanish romance". The "puppet" in the story refers to men she is able or unable to bend to her will.
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Ovid Travestie: A Burlesque upon Ovid's Epistles, Captain Alexander Radcliffe, of Grays-Inn (Private Reprint, 1889 [Smithers/Nichols Erotica Biblion Society?] #220/250) 8.75" X 5.5", 102pp, hardbound with plain black boards, pages untrimmed. Very good condition. Reprint of an obscene parody of Ovid, first published in 1680, with 17th-century English characters substituted for Ovid's Romans. 'That it merits a place in every collector's library is undisputed, its singularly easy strain of wit and ludicrous parody of Ovid's famed Heroides, shewing Capt. Radcliffe to possess not only an intimate knowledge of Ovid's manner, but a graphic power of turning to ridicule his author's most poetic flights.' So says the introduction, adding that nonetheless it 'is not a volume fitted for the ordinary bookshelf'. "The present reprint is made verbatim from the fourth and complete edition (A.D. 1705)." Alfred Rose (Registrum Librorum Eroticorum, entry no. 3380), lists an edition with the same date and limitation as the present edition, but with the impress of the Smithers/Nichols Erotica Biblion Society."
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Odes of Anacreon, Anacreon, trans. Thomas Moore (J. and T. Carpenter, London, 1802) 6 1/2" X 4 1/4", 2 vol. 163pp 148pp, hardbound in red morocco with gilt lettering and decorations, gilted edges, marbled boards, worn edges and corners befitting it's age, binding tight, ribbon markers intact. Armorial bookplate of british judge, Geoffrey Lord Cross of Chelsea on front pastedowns Anacreon (582 BC _ 485 BC) was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets. Thomas Moore (1779 _ 1852) is considered Ireland's "National Bard". He was a poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death. These books are the second edition (original edition published in 1800) of his first work, a translation that he did at Middle Temple where he studied law. In his lifetime he was often referred to as Anacreon Moore.
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Out of stockWhite Rebenque 23" long, flap is 12", white leather with rawhide/sinew stitching and decorations, slight yellowing from age. Beautiful hand-made white leather rebenque 50+ years old. It has decorative rawhide work on the handle and on the strap, using two colors of rawhide. The handle is textured by wrapping a wet cord around it, leaving an imprint on the leather. Rebenque is the name in Brazilian Portuguese for a type of whip used by gauchos in South America. Especially in Argentina, it is the traditional riding, fighting, and punishing whip of the gaucho. It consists of a rawhide wrapped wooden handle with a thong made of a leather strap a little longer than the handle. The wide strap made the rebenque an instrument less severe on the horse than the European riding crop. As the gaucho was never far from the horse, the rebenque was always on him. When not in use, he made a knot with the strap and held the rebenque lazily by the wrist strap with the middle fingers of his hand, or hung it from the handle of his facón knife (as he used the large knife almost horizontally at his back, held by the belt or waistband, the handle protruded from his right side). The rebenque was used also for fighting, as a weapon by itself, when the fight did not merit a knife, or with the strap rolled on his left hand and the handle hanging, as a secondary weapon to the knife in his right hand. Of course, it was also used for domestic punishments, and for quasi-judicial chastisement. A couple of lashes with the rebenque on the bare legs were widely used as a punishment for children, even in the urban areas.
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Katherine Hepbern in "Belle of the Hills", (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.
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Ginger Rogers in "Hot Panties", (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.
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The Ragionamenti or dialogues of the devine Pietro Aretino, Pietro Aretino, trans. Isidore Liseux (Isidore Liseux, Paris, 1889) 8.25" X 6", 6 volumes, xxxv+83pp, 89pp, 100pp, 134pp, 129pp, 138pp, original publishers paper wraps in just good condition with chipping at the top and bottom of the spine on some volumes, internal pages in mint condition, protective cover with green boards in fair condition, some joints loose and cloth peeling away, edges deckled, ex-libris of E. M. Schnadig Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) was one of the most important figures in Italian Renaissance literature, and certainly the most controversial. Condemned by some as a pornographer, his infamy was due largely to his use of explicit sexuality and the vulgar tongue of ordinary speech in much of his work. Dialogues center around a conversation between two rather frank, experienced, and sharp-tongued women on the topic of women’s occupations. We learn that at the time there were only three: wife, whore, or nun. Their discussion is a rollicking account of the advantages, perils, and pleasures each profession offers. Not only was Dialogues the first erotic book in the Christian world to be written in the common vernacular, it was but one of the few to describe the obscenity of commercial love, and is thus a cornerstone of both Italian literature and Counter-Renaissance vigour. First dialog: The Life of Nuns Second dialog: The Life of Married Women Third dialog: The Life of Courtesans Fourth dialog: The Education of Pippa Fifth dialog: The Wiles of Men Sixth dialog: The Bawd’s Trade Isidore Liseux (1835-1894) was a French bibliophile and publisher of erotica and curiosa. His publications were mostly rare texts of 16th to 18th century authors, hard to find and little known books which were usually translated and annotated by his friend and associate Alcide Bonneau or by Liseux himself. Liseux and Bonneau, both ex-priests, knew each other since seminary. His books were published in small numbers, on high quality paper, and with excellent typography. His usual printers were Claude Motteroz, Antoine Bécus, and later Charles Unsinger. Liseux’s books were published openly as the climate was more permissive in Paris at the time. His books were so well regarded that pirates of his books and even unrelated books bearing his imprint with a false date were published clandestinely into the 20th century. French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire wrote: “The publications of Liseux are more and more sought after because they are correct, beautiful and rare.” (Le flaneur des deux rives, 1918).
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Mademoiselle De Maupin – Double Love, Theophile Gautier, illus. Clara Tice (Privately Printed for The Pierre Loüys Society, 1927 #67/1250) 6.5″x10″, 407pp., black spine over decorated boards, gilt titles and decorations on spine, binding loose but holding. In September 1833, Gautier was solicited to write a historical romance based on the life of French opera star Mlle. Maupin, who was a first-rate swordswoman and often went about disguised as a man. Originally, the story was to be about the historical La Maupin, who set fire to a convent for the love of another woman, but later retired to a convent herself, shortly before dying in her thirties. Gautier instead turned the plot into a simple love triangle between a man, d'Albert, and his mistress, Rosette, who both fall in love with Madelaine de Maupin, who is disguised as a man named Théodore. The message behind Gautier's version of the infamous legend is the fundamental pessimism about the human identity, and perhaps the entire Romantic age. The novel consists of seventeen chapters, most in the form of letters written by d'Albert or Madelaine. Most critics focus on the preface of the novel, which preached about art for art's sake through its dictum that "everything useful is ugly". Pierre Jules Théophile Gautier (1811 – 1872) was a French poet, dramatist, novelist, journalist, and art and literary critic. While an ardent defender of Romanticism, Gautier's work is difficult to classify and remains a point of reference for many subsequent literary traditions such as Parnassianism, Symbolism, Decadence and Modernism. He was widely esteemed by writers as disparate as Balzac, Baudelaire, the Goncourt brothers, Flaubert, Pound, Eliot, James, Proust and Wilde.
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Musée Royal de Naples. Peintures, bronzes et statues érotiques du Cabinet Secret, avec leur explication par M. C. F., contenant soixante gravures. (Au cercle du livre précieux, Paris, 1959, #209/2500) 12.25" X 9.25", xxx-152pp, loosely contained by paper wraps in a blue slipcase, good condition, some fading, bumping and peeling to slipcase, interior pages are mint condition. This is a republishing of the 1836 portfolio of the "secret cabinet" erotic works of the Museum of Naples. It was published privately for circulation among member of "Au cercle du livre précieux" [circle of the precious book] to avoid prosecution for indecency. There are full-page descriptions of the works and then 60 illustrations on coral colored paper. The pages are unbound and contained in a slipcase.
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Out of stockEmmanuelle, Bianca, and Venus in Furs, Emmanuelle Arsan, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Guido Crepax, introduction by Paolo Caneppelle and Günter Krenn [Evergreen/Benedikt Taschen Verlag GmbH, 2000, Germany, 1st edition thus] 8 x 10.5", 463pp, Hardcover w/DJ, red boards with white lettering, like-new condition. Published in 2000, and nolonger in print, designed by Lambert & Lambert, this edition has become rare and sought after. It was published with another volume “Justine and The Story of O”. This book has three of Crepax’s graphic novels. All three (like most of Crepax’s works) are very sexually graphic stories of sexual self-discovery under varying circumstances. Guido Crepas (1933-2003), better known by his nom de plume Guido Crepax, was an Italian comics artist. He is most famous for his character Valentina, created in 1965 and very representative of the spirit of the 1960s. The Valentina series of books and strips became noted for Crepax's sophisticated drawing, and for the psychedelic, dreamlike storylines, generally involving a strong dose of erotism. Marayat Rollet-Andriane formerly Marayat Krasaesin (1932-2005), known by the pen name Emmanuelle Arsan, was a French novelist of Thai origin, best known for the novel featuring the fictional character Emmanuelle, a woman who sets out on a voyage of sexual self-discovery under varying circumstances. It was later claimed that the real author of the book was her husband, Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane. The novel Emmanuelle was initially published and distributed clandestinely in France in 1959, without an author's name. Successive editions were ascribed to Emmanuelle Arsan, who was subsequently revealed to be Marayat Rollet-Andriane. Though the novel was sometimes hinted to be quasi-autobiographical, it was later revealed that the actual author was her husband Louis-Jacques Rollet-Andriane. Several more novels were published under the Emmanuelle Arsan pseudonym. Venus in Furs (German: Venus im Pelz) is a novella by Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), an Austrian writer and journalist. It is now his best known work and because of its themes the term masochism is derived from his name, coined by the Austrian psychiatrist, Krafft-Ebing. The novel was to be part of an epic series that Sacher-Masoch envisioned called Legacy of Cain. Venus in Furs was part of Love, the first volume of the series. It was published in 1870. The novel draws themes, like female dominance and sadomasochism, and character inspiration heavily from Sacher-Masoch's own life. Wanda von Dunajew, the novel's central female character, was modelled after his mistress Baroness Fanny Pistor. In December 1869 the two signed a contract making him her slave for a period of 6 months. In 1873, after the publication of Venus in Furs, Sacher-Masoch married Aurora von Rümelin who he pressured to continue the lifestyle he wrote about in his book. After 10 years they divorced. Rümelin, using the pseudonym of the books title character, "Wanda von Dunajew", wrote Meine Lebensbeichte (My Life Confession) published in 1906. It detailed Sacher-Masoch's private life and her relationship with him. During his lifetime, Sacher-Masoch was well known as a man of letters, a utopian thinker who espoused socialist and humanist ideals in his fiction and non-fiction. Most of his works remain untranslated into English. Until recently, his novel Venus in Furs was his only book commonly available in English.
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Flagellation & the Flagellants. a History of the Rod in All Countries, The Rev. Wm. M. Cooper, B.A. [James Glass Bertram] (John Camden Hotten, London, n.d. [1870, from ads at end of book]) 7 3/4" X 5 1/2", 544pp plus 32 pages of advertisements for "Very Important New Books", hardbound with red cloth, gilt lettering and decorations, spine worn at top and bottom and lower front, Binder's ticket on lower pastedown: "Bound by W. Bone and Son. 76 Fleet St. London E.C.", front pastdown has cute bookplate asking the book be returned to Robert Day, front end-paper has armorial bookplate of Robert Day. Good condition, corners bumped, top and bottom of spine worn, back boards loose but holding. Bertram was apprenticed to Tait's Edinburgh Magazine and became managing clerk, before joining a company of strolling players. He returned to Edinburgh and set up as a bookseller and newsagent. In 1855 he was appointed the editor of the North Briton and in 1872 of the Glasgow News, leaving to become a freelance journalist two years later. He published "flagellation" pornography under the names "Revd William Cooper" and "Margaret Anson". Illustrated throughout with a colored frontispiece. The bookplate is of Robert Day (1836_1914), an Irish antiquarian and photographer who collaborated with Franz Tieze in producing imitation Williamite, Jacobite and Irish Volunteer glassware. He was an important and well-travelled antiquarian collector. He was involved in his family's extensive saddlery business together with a sports shop well known to Cork anglers.
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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."
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Manuel D'Érotologie Classique (de figuris Veneris) by Fred. Chas. Forberg, trans. Alcide Bonneau (Imprimé pour René Bonnel, Paris, 1933, #123/500) 6" x 9.25", 223pp, three quarter red leather, gilt titles on spine, 4 raised double bands, near fine condition, ribbon intact, hand-laid Arches paper (identifying watermarks), original paper covers bound in. Rene Bonnel, the publisher of this edition, was one of the foremost publishers of finely printed illegal erotica in the 1930's. This work was openly published and is no exception to the quality of his books. De figuris Veneris (On the figures of Venus) was an anthology of ancient Greek and ancient Roman writings on erotic topics, discussed objectively and classified and grouped by subject matter. (I. Of Copulation, II. Of Pederastia, III. Of Irrumation, IV. Of Masturbation, V. Of Cunnilingues, VI. Of Tribads, VII. Of Intercourse with Animals, VIII. Of Spintrian Postures) It was first published by the German classicist Friedrich Karl Forberg in 1824 in Latin and Greek as “Antonii Panormitae Hermaphroditus”, an erotic poem sequence in renaissance Latin. Forberg later reprinted it as “Manuel D’Érotologie Classique (de figuris Veneris)”. It was translated into English (published by Charles Carrington in 1899 and again by Charles Hirsch in 1907), French and German (one French edition was illustrated by Édouard-Henri Avril [Paul Avril]). It concludes with a list of 95 sexual positions. In 1899 Forberg's work was translated into English and published by Charles Carrington as De figuris Veneris, Manual of classical erotology, and again in 1907 by Charles Hirsch, and into French, German and Spanish. The French edition by Alcide Bonneau was titled Manuel d’érotologie classique. One French edition of 1906 was illustrated by Édouard-Henri Avril, which concludes with a list of 95 sexual positions. Most of the editions were restricted to high society or censored; one of the copies edited in France was immediately deposited on the secret shelves of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
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D'Accord Ex Libris Erny Camen, by Franz von Bayros paper size 4.75 x 6.25", print size 3.25 x 4.5" topless woman and two children lounging on a long line of erect penises, unknown signature in lower right corner not seen in other copies Franz von Bayros (1866 – 1924) was an Austrian commercial artist, illustrator, and painter, now he is best known for his erotic work. He belonged to the Decadent movement in art, often utilizing erotic themes and phantasmagoric imagery. At the age 17, Bayros passed the entrance exam for the Vienna Academy with Eduard von Engerth. Bayros mixed in elegant society and soon belonged to the circle of friends of Johann Straub, whose step daughter Alice he married on 1896. The next year, Bayros moved to Munich. In 1904, Bayros gave his first exhibition in Munich, which was a great success. From 1904 until 1908, Bayros traveled to Paris and Italy for his studies. Typically, for an artist dealing with such imagery, von Bayros produced work under several pseudonyms, most notably Choisy Le Conin, and was hounded by authorities for much of his life for his “indecent” art often very imaginative, and including such taboo subjects as sadomasochism and bestiality. He became equally well-known for his masterly drawn figures of elegant modestly nude and non-nude women.
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Ex Biblioteca Erotica Artur Wolf, by Franz von Bayros paper size 5.5 x 6.25", print size 3.5 x 4" topless women with large hat and a crop under her right arm, walking(?) a large penis Franz von Bayros (1866 – 1924) was an Austrian commercial artist, illustrator, and painter, now he is best known for his erotic work. He belonged to the Decadent movement in art, often utilizing erotic themes and phantasmagoric imagery. At the age 17, Bayros passed the entrance exam for the Vienna Academy with Eduard von Engerth. Bayros mixed in elegant society and soon belonged to the circle of friends of Johann Straub, whose step daughter Alice he married on 1896. The next year, Bayros moved to Munich. In 1904, Bayros gave his first exhibition in Munich, which was a great success. From 1904 until 1908, Bayros traveled to Paris and Italy for his studies. Typically, for an artist dealing with such imagery, von Bayros produced work under several pseudonyms, most notably Choisy Le Conin, and was hounded by authorities for much of his life for his “indecent” art often very imaginative, and including such taboo subjects as sadomasochism and bestiality. He became equally well-known for his masterly drawn figures of elegant modestly nude and non-nude women.
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Femina Hominis Voluptati Crucifigata, Ex Bibliotheca Erotica Dr. J. Klueber, by Franz von Bayros paper size 5.5 x 6.25", print size 3.5 x 3.5" Topless handcuffed woman consoling naked girl nailed to cross. "Femina Hominis Voluptati Crucifigata" is possibly latin for "the woman is man's pleasure crucified"? The detail in this print is magnifying-glass-worthy as there are copulating couples at the top of the columns. Franz von Bayros (1866 – 1924) was an Austrian commercial artist, illustrator, and painter, now he is best known for his erotic work. He belonged to the Decadent movement in art, often utilizing erotic themes and phantasmagoric imagery. At the age 17, Bayros passed the entrance exam for the Vienna Academy with Eduard von Engerth. Bayros mixed in elegant society and soon belonged to the circle of friends of Johann Straub, whose step daughter Alice he married on 1896. The next year, Bayros moved to Munich. In 1904, Bayros gave his first exhibition in Munich, which was a great success. From 1904 until 1908, Bayros traveled to Paris and Italy for his studies. Typically, for an artist dealing with such imagery, von Bayros produced work under several pseudonyms, most notably Choisy Le Conin, and was hounded by authorities for much of his life for his “indecent” art often very imaginative, and including such taboo subjects as sadomasochism and bestiality. He became equally well-known for his masterly drawn figures of elegant modestly nude and non-nude women.
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Mae West and Will Rogers in "The Sod-Buster", (np. nd.) 3.25" x 6", 16pp. pamphlet, stapled In the style of a "Tijuana bible" but larger and with 16 pages (instead of the traditional 8). Cover art and back cover in black and red. 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.
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Ovid's Art of Love. In Three Books. Together with His Remedy of Love. Translated Into English Verse By Dryden, Congreve, and Others. To Which are Added The Court of Love, a Tale, from Chaucer and the History of Love, Ovid, Maynwaring, Hopkins, translated by Dryden & Congreve (Printed for Jacob & Richard Tonson, London, 1764) 4″x6.75″, 7+265pp, gilt edges, beautiful decorative full red Moroccan leather binding by master binder Canape, 5 raised bands, gilt titles and decorations including boarder of paste-down, marbled boards, very good condition for age, frontispieces for each work, engraver unknown. This book contains an English translation of Ovid’s Book of Love and two works in the style of Ovid: Chaucer’s The Court, by Arthur Maynwaring, and the History of Love by Charles Hopkins. The Art of Love (Ars amatorial) is an instructional elegy series written in 2 AD in three books by the ancient Roman poet Ovid. Book 1 shows a man how to find a woman. In book two, Ovid shows how to keep her. The third book, written two years after the first books were published, Ovid gives women advice on how to win and keep the love of a man. Arthur Maynwaring (1668-1712) of Ightfield, Shropshire, was an English official and Whig politician who sat in the English and British House of Commons from 1706 to 1712. He was also a journalist and a polemic political author. In this work he paraphrases Chaucer’s The Court of Love using the poetic style of Ovid. Charles Hopkins (1664?–1700?) was an Anglo-Irish poet and dramatist. The elder son of Ezekiel Hopkins, bishop of Derry, he was born about 1664 at Exeter and was taken early to Ireland. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, and then at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. 1688. Returning to Ireland Hopkins engaged in military service. He subsequently settled in England, and gained some reputation as a writer of poems and plays. Giles Jacob in the Poetical Register says that he might have made a fortune in any scene of life, but was unmotivated. His death aged 35, about the beginning of 1700, was put down to a “debauched lifestyle”. The full title to his contribution to this work is History of Love. A poem in a letter to a lady. The letter is addressed to “Her Grace the Dutchess of Grafton” who was Isabella Bennet FitzRoy (1668 -1723). It was originally published in 1695. Considered one of France’s master binders, Georges Canape, Georges (1864-1940) is the son of the bookbinder Pierre Jules Canape established in rue du Bac. He inherited his father's workshop in 1894 and also became a gilder. Canape follows the Art Nouveau movement of its time. Around 1927, he joined forces with the bookbinder Corriez.
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The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore, Thomas Moore (Oliver S. Felt, New York, nd. [c.1860]) 9.5" X 6.5", 776pp., 8 volumes in one. Full leather binding, tooled leather, gilt lettering and decorations, 5 raised bands on spine, marbled end papers, gilt edges. Beautiful steel engravings throughout with tissue guards. Thomas Moore (1779 _ 1852) is considered Ireland's "National Bard". He was a poet, singer, songwriter, and entertainer. He was responsible, with John Murray, for burning Lord Byron's memoirs after his death.
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Le Sopha, conte moral by Crébillon fils, illus. Hanriot (Ch. Gilliet, Bruxelles, 1881, #380/550, Imprimerie Clerbaut & Cie.) 5"x7.5", 342pp, 3/4 morocco over marbled boards, 5 raised bands, gilt titles on spine (title worn), marbled endpapers, top-edge gilt, other edges deckled, printed on hand-laid "papier de Hollande", green ribbon intact, frontispiece with tissue guard and 2 small engravings by Hanriot, beautifully bound copy in very good+ condition with delicate engravings Le Sopha, conte moral is a 1742 libertine novel by Claude Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon (Crebillon fils). It was first translated into English in the spring of 1742. The story concerns a young courtier, Amanzéï, whose soul in a previous life was condemned by Brahma to inhabit a series of sofas, and not to be reincarnated in a human body until two virgin lovers had consummated their passion for him. The novel is structured as a frame story in an oriental setting, explicitly evocative of the Arabian Nights, in which Amanzéï recounts the adventures of seven couples, which he witnessed in his sofa form, to the bored sultan Shah Baham (grandson of Shehryār and Scheherazade). The longest episode, that of Zulica, takes up nine chapters; the final episode concerns the teenage Zéïnis et Phéléas. Amanzéï, witnessing their innocent pleasure, is edified and freed through the experience of virtuous love. Many of the characters in the novel are satirical portraits of influential and powerful Parisians of Crébillon’s time; the author takes the opportunity to ridicule hypocrisy in its different forms (worldly respectability, virtue, religious devotion). 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. Although Le Sopha was published anonymously and with a false imprint, Crébillon was discovered to be the author and was exiled to a distance of thirty leagues from Paris on April 7, 1742. He was able to return on July 22, after claiming that the work had been commissioned by Frederick II of Prussia and that it had been published against his will. Jules-Armand Hanriot (1853-1930) was a French painter, engraver and illustrator.
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The Songs of Bilitis, Translated from the Greek, Put into English from the French of Pierre Louys by Horace Manchester Brown, illust. James Fagan (Privately Printed for Members of the Aldus Society, London and New York, 1904, #30/971) 7.25"x10.25", 341pp., 3/4 blue leather over blue boards, gilt decorations on boards, gilt titles and gilt and color decorations on spine, marbled boards, top edge gilt, other edges deckled, frontispiece portrait of author and two original etchings by James Fagan, good+ condition for age, some rubbing on spine and bumping to corners. Early (first?) translation of Les Chansons de Bilitis, rare and beautifully bound english translation of this classic in lesbian literature. The Songs of Bilitis (Les Chansons de Bilitis) is a collection of erotic, essentially lesbian, poetry by Pierre Louÿs published in Paris in 1894. Since Louÿs claimed that he had translated the original poetry from Ancient Greek, this work is considered a pseudotranslation. The poems are in the manner of Sappho; the collection's introduction claims they were found on the walls of a tomb in Cyprus, written by a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis, a courtesan and contemporary of Sappho to whose life Louÿs dedicated a small section of the book. On publication, the volume deceived even the most expert of scholars. Louÿs claimed the 143 prose poems, excluding 3 epitaphs, were entirely the work of this ancient poet — a place where she poured both her most intimate thoughts and most public actions, from childhood innocence in Pamphylia to the loneliness and chagrin of her later years. Although for the most part The Songs of Bilitis is original work, many of the poems were reworked epigrams from the Palatine Anthology, and Louÿs even borrowed some verses from Sappho herself. The poems are a blend of mellow sensuality and polished style in the manner of the Parnassian school, but underneath run subtle Gallic undertones that Louÿs could never escape. To lend authenticity to the forgery, Louÿs in the index listed some poems as "untranslated"; he even craftily fabricated an entire section of his book called "The Life of Bilitis", crediting a certain fictional archaeologist Herr G. Heim ("Mr. C. Cret" in German) as the discoverer of Bilitis' tomb. And though Louÿs displayed great knowledge of Ancient Greek culture, ranging from children's games in "Tortie Tortue" to application of scents in "Perfumes", the literary fraud was eventually exposed. This did little, however, to taint their literary value in readers' eyes, and Louÿs' open and sympathetic celebration of lesbian sexuality earned him sensation and historic significance.
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Les dessous de la pudibonderie anglaise expliqués dans les divorces anglais, ou procès en adultère jugés par le banc du Roi et la Cour Ecclésiastique d'Angleterre [trans. The Basics of English Prudishness Explained in English Divorces, or Adultery Trial Judged by the King's Bench and the Ecclesiastical Court of England], anonymous [most like Carrington himself as editor/compiler], illustrations Jacques Wely (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1898, first edition) 7.5"x5", 2 volumes in one, xxiv-108, xxx-287-xii, quarter morocco over marbled boards, 4 raised bands, gilt titles and decoration on spine, marbled endpapers, great condition, previous owners name on title page, some bumping to corners. According to the British Library this is a compilation of entries from "Trials for Adultry" [Trials for Adultery: or, the History of Divorces. Being Select Trials at Doctors Commons, for Adultery, Cruelty, Fornication, Impotence, &c. From the Year 1760, to the present Time. Including the whole of the Evidence on each Cause. Together with The Letters, &c. that have been intercepted between the amorous Parties… Taken in Short-Hand , by a Civilian. London: Printed for S. Bladon, 1779-1780] which, as the full title suggests, is considered one of the Earliest of "The Genre of Pornographic Trial Reports". Also present are excerpts from some English plays. According to Yale, this compillation also "Contains case histories from: Crim. con. biography attributed to Francis Plowden." London, 1798. Criminal conversation, commonly known as crim. con., is a tort arising from adultery, abolished in almost all jurisdictions. (Conversation is an old expression for sexual intercourse that is obsolete except as part of this term.) As far as we can tell, this is a book compiled and edited by Carrington. Carrington himself was an Englishman, a Londoner who was married to a woman from France. He published this book a few years after the couple left London and moved to Paris, presumably so he would have more freedom to publish books that London would have no doubt considered pornography. This book is a case study of the prudishness of the English and it uses salacious material taken from various sources listed above to prove the point.
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Alosie, ou Les Amours de Mme. de M. T. P. | Avec une notice historique sur Pierre Corneille Blessebois par Marc de Montifaud et Une très-belle eau-forte, Marc de Montifaud [pseud. Marie-Amélie Chartroule, Mme Quivogne de Montifaud] (Comité de Bibliophiles, London, 1880 [131/500 printed on Holland paper]) 7.5" x 5.25", 104pp, hardbound 1/2 leather, marbled boards and endpapers, gilt decorationson spine and leather corners, five raised bands on spine. Top edge gilt. Frontispiece engraving. #131 of 300 on Holland paper. Great condition for age. Initials "P.G." above frontispiece. Mme Quivogne de Montifaud (1845-50 to 1912/13) french writer and "free-thinker". She often dressed as her male pseudonym Marc de Montifaud. This book (published in London in 1880) is a reprint of part of the larger 17th century erotic work, "Amours des dames illustres de nostre siècle" (Loves of Illustrious Ladies of our Century) with an essay where Montifaud tries to unravel the authorship (usually the work is attributed to Pierre Corneille Blessebois). The author changes the original name to reflect that this is an autobiography of Madame de Montespan, the notorius mistress of Louis XIV. When originally published in Holland in 1878 (as "Lupanie, histoire amoureuse de ce temps") a court in Seine called it a moral outrage describing "licentious scenes on almost every page; told in a style revoltingly obscene". For publishing this book Montifaud was sentenced to 8 days in jail and fined 500 francs and ordered all copies of the book destroyed. The publisher was also fined 500 francs. This is a rare copy of a rare book in it's original "publishers leather".
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La Tradition de la Garde. Illustré d'après Roze. Précédé d'une étude sur les chatiments corporels. [Tradition of the Guard. Illustrated by Roze. Preceded by a study on corporal punishment.] by Jean de Villiot, [pseud. Georges Grassal de Choffat or Hugues Rebell], illus. Léon Roze (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1907, #244/700) 7.75" x 9.75", 209pp, very good condition for age, some light stains, soft covers and binding good, a rare, numerous illustrations
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One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories, ed. by Antoine de La Sale, trans. Robert B. Douglas (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1899 [first edition, first english translation]) 8" X 5.75", xxx 532pp, 3/4 tan morocco leather over marbled boards, gilt title on spine, 5 raised bands, marbled endpapers, excellent condition for age, ribbon intact, small tear at top of front cover. No illustrations One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories (from the original French "Cent Nouvelles nouvelles" France, c. 1456-1461) is a collection of stories supposed to be narrated by various persons at the court of Philippe le Bon, and collected together by Antoine de la Sale in the mid 15th century. Charles Carrington was the first to have this translated into English. This edition does not contain the illustrations which were sold separately.
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Folk Poems and Ballads An Anthology, anonymous [A. Reynolds Morse] ( Cruciform Press, Mexico City: Privately Printed for Private Circulation to Subscribers Only, 1944 [Cleveland, Ohio: A. Reynolds Morse, 1948.] #230/250) 8" X 5.5", vi 128pp. Hardbound, black cloth boards, gilt lettering on cover. Fair condition, 1st signature detached, 4th signature loose but holding (a common problem with these books), good copy of a poorly made book. Subtitled: "A collection of rare verses and amusing folk songs compiled from scarce and suppressed books as well as from verbal sources which modern prudery, false social customs, and intolerance laws have separated from the public and historical record." A. Reynolds Morse was an American, born in 1914, who died in 2000. He moved to Cleveland from Denver in 1941. An industrialist and philanthropist, he is best known for his activity in collecting works by Salvador Dali, and founding the Salvador Dali Museum. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Reynolds and his wife "embarked on a sometimes turbulent friendship with Dali and his wife, Gala". He also had a hobby of collecting and publishing works that other publishers would not print. Title page: "A collection of rare verses and amusing folk songs compiled from scarce and suppressed books as well as from verbal sources which modern prudery, false social customs, and intolerance have separated from the public and historical record." Mr. Morse also published "Limericks, A Facet of Our Culture". Both books were suppressed by police action in the late 1940's. This is the more rare of the two books.
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Julie, ou J'ai sauvé ma rose, Madame de C*** [Félicité Choiseul-Meuse] (Gay et Doucé, Bruxelles, 1882) 7.5" x 4.75", 2 vol. 169pp 188pp, hardbound half-leather over decorated paper boards and marbled endpapers. Gilt lettering and decorations on spine, 5 raised bands. 2 frontispiece engravings. Fair condition for age. Vol. 1 front boards loose and first few endpapers not attached, no missing pages, wear and tear to top of spine. Edges worn, corners bumped. Felicite de Choiseul-Meuse wrote approximately twenty-seven novels from 1797 to 1824. Writings are sometimes identified by pseudonyms and acronyms: LFDLC; Emilia P ***, Madame de C *** , etc.. Her 1807 novel "Julie, ou j'ai sauvé ma rose" [Julie, or I saved my rose] is widely considered the first erotic novel written by a woman. It is more appropriately translated as "how I kept my cherry" for it tells the tale of a young woman who lets her lovers fondle her all they want, but will not allow penetration until she finds the right man and marries him. The work was condemned as obscene and its destruction ordered by the Cour royale de Paris on August 5, 1828. Excerpt: "I tasted in his arms unspeakable pleasures. Deadened by pleasure, then revived by an even more delirious pleasure, I made the object of happiness almost as happy as I was myself; and yet, true to my system, I made sure that he did not harvest the rose."
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The secret history of the most renowned Q. Elizabeth and the E. of Essex, "By a Person of Quality", ("Printed for R. Wellington, at the Dolphin and Crown in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1708. Where you may be furnish'd with all sorts of Plays.") 3.25"x5.5", in two parts with separate title pages 1-62,63-112pp(of 115?), bound in brown leather, no front or rear endpapers, not illustrated, poor condition, binding and boards are solid but pages soiled and edges tattered, page 111/112 piece torn off, pages 113-155 missing, writing (alphabet letters) near and on part one title page. By the late seventeenth century, Elizabeth's love life became a subject of obsession in England and especially in France. This book is the most famous of the absurd tattle-tale books. It was a translation of Comte d'Essex histoire angloise first published in 1678 by Claude Barbin – a Parisian publisher who edited the works of Molière, La Fontaine, Charles Perrault and Corneille. The earliest translations to english date show up around 1680. Most of them have a false imprint of "Cologne : Printed for Will with the Wisp". Few are seen with this particular imprint. The story was turned into a play and in 1912 adapted as a silent film entitled Les Amours de la reine Élisabeth starring Sarah Bernhardt as Elizabeth.
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The Limerick, a facet of our culture, anonymous [A. Reynolds Morse] ( Cruciform Press, Mexico City: Privately Printed for Private Circulation to Subscribers Only, 1944 [Cleveland, Ohio: A. Reynolds Morse, 1948.] #208/250) 8" X 5.5", vii+157pp. Hardbound, black cloth boards, gilt lettering on cover. near fine condition (rare for this edition!), slight rust around staples. A. Reynolds Morse was an American, born in 1914, who died in 2000. He moved to Cleveland from Denver in 1941. An industrialist and philanthropist, he is best known for his activity in collecting works by Salvador Dali, and founding the Salvador Dali Museum. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Reynolds and his wife "embarked on a sometimes turbulent friendship with Dali and his wife, Gala". He also had a hobby of collecting and publishing works that other publishers would not print. Title page: "A study of the history and development of the limerick, ensplendor'd with over two hundred examples of the immortal verse form, commentaries, and index" This book is considered by most to be the "dirtiest" collection of limericks. Mr. Morse also published "Folk Poems and Ballads An Anthology". Both books were suppressed by police action in the late 1940's. This is a VERY rare near fine copy of this hard-to-find book. It was poorly made so most of the copies out there have signatures loose.
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Les métamorphoses ou l'asne d'or de Luce Apulée philosophe platonique, Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (124-170 AD), trans. Jules De Marthold, illust. [21 etchings] Martin van Maele (Charles Carrington, Librairie-Éditeur, 1905, Paris, #88/750) 9.25" X 6.25", xlviii+328pp., original soft wraps protected by glassine wraps, Chapter pieces in orange and black, tail pieces in black, large, decorative first letter of each chapter, frontispiece + 21 full-page b/w engravings with tissue guards and numerous in-text illustrations by Martin van Maele, very good condition for age. The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as "The Golden Ass", is the only Ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety. The plot Lucius and his curiosity and insatiable desire to see and practice magic. While trying to perform a spell to transform into a bird, he is accidentally transformed into an ass. This leads to a long journey, literal and metaphorical, filled with in-set tales. He finally finds salvation through the intervention of the goddess Isis, whose cult he joins. The date of the original work is uncertain. Scholars are not sure if he wrote it in his youth or at the end of his life. He adapted the story from a Greek story written by Lucius of Patrae, however his original Greek text has long been lost. Maurice François Alfred Martin van Miële (1863-5 - 1926), better known by his pseudonym Martin van Maële, was a French illustrator of early 20th century literature. Though he gained notoriety with his illustration for H. G. Wells in Les Premiers Hommes dans la Lune, and he worked as an illustrator for the Félix Juven's French translations of the Sherlock Holmes series, he is now most widely renowned and mostly remembered for his erotic illustrations. This is a beautiful and rare book in it's original paper wraps.
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Aphrodite, a novel of ancient manners, by Pierre Louÿs, illus. Ed. Zier (Charles Carrington, 1906, first edition thus, first English translation) 5.25 x 8", 412pp, full green moroccan, gilt lettering and decoration on spine and borders, 5 raised bands, gilt edges, gilt decorations boardering pastedown, near fine condition, some cracks in the hinges. Pierre Louys (1870 - 1925) was a French poet and writer, most renowned for lesbian and classical themes in some of his writings. He is known as a writer who "expressed pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection." "Aphrodite: mæurs antiques" (Ancient Manners) is a "libertine" story set in ancient Alexandria. Highlights include the loves of Chrysis, an orgy banquet ending in the crucifixion of a slave, the love of two young musician girls and the festivals of Aphrodite. "This Translation of Aphrodite was executed on the Printing Presses of Charles Herissey, at Evreux (France), for Mr. Charles Carrington, Paris, Bookseller et Publisher, and is the only complete English version extant." A beautiful example of this important first edition of the first translation. Very hard to find in full leather. Édouard François Zier (1856-1924) was a French illustrator and painter.
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The Amours of the Chevalier de Faublas | by John Baptiste Louvet de Courvray | founded on historical facts, interspersed with most remarkable narratives | a literal unexpurgated translation from the Paris edition of 1821, etchings by Louis Monzies from drawings of Paul Avril (Privately Printed for Société des Bibliophiles [possibly Charles Carrington], London 1898, one of 100, first English translation edition) 5.75"x8.25", 4 volumes, ix+330pp, 367pp, 416pp, 430pp, white spine over green boards, gilt title ("Classics Facetius | Faublas") and decorations on spine, top edge gilt, others deckled, many pages unopened, spine slightly soiled, slight sunning, otherwise in excellent condition for age, numerous illustrations with titled tissue guards. This is the first English translation of this work which, when published was a "sensation" all over Europe. It appears to be published by Charles Carrington, who occasionally used the Société des Bibliophiles imprint and often used illustrations from Paul Avril. Édouard-Henri Avril (1849-1928) used the pseudonym "Paul Avril" for his erotic work. He was a French painter and commercial artist. His career saw collaboration with influential people like Octave Uzanne, Henry Spencer Ashbee and Friedrich Karl Forberg. He is one of the most celebrated erotic artists of his age. Avril was a soldier before starting his career in art. He was awarded with the Legion of Honour for his actions in the Franco-Prussian War. Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai (1760 - 1797) was born in Paris as the son of a stationer, he became a bookseller's clerk, and first attracted attention with the first part of his novel "Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas" (5 parts) in 1787; it was followed in 1788 by "Six semaines de la vie du chevalier de Faublas" (8 parts) and in 1790 by "La Fin des amours du chevalier de Faublas" (6 parts). The heroine, Lodoiska, was modeled on the wife of a jeweler in the Palais Royal, with whom he had an affair. She divorced her husband in 1792 and married Louvet in 1793. This is considered a so-called "libertine" novel. It dwells mainly on the sexual escapades of its hero, a sort of amiable young libertine, and on the corrupted morals of eighteenth-century France. At the start of this novel the young Chevalier de Faublas attends a party dressed as a woman and is knowingly seduced by the lady of the house ('. I receive with equal astonishment and pleasure a charming lesson, which I repeated more than once .') Oxford Comp. to French Literature says it is "typical of many frivolous, licentious novels of its time, and still mentioned. Faublas, the amiable hero, is the victim of his own charms. His amorous adventures, recounted with a certain lively force, begin with his entry into society at the age of sixteen. He loves several women by the way and three in particular. A jealous husband and a despairing suicide reduce the three to one. The novel ends on a moral note: Faublas , who had happened to settle down with his remaining love, is haunted by the avenging phantoms of the other two and goes mad."
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The Lysistrata of Aristophanes | Wholly translated into English and illustrated with eight full-page drawings by Aubrey Beardsley with a preface on Aristophanic Comedy and its reflection in the art of the Illustrator by George Frederic Lees, Aristophanes, illus. by Aubrey Beardsley, forward by George Frederic Lees (Privately Printed in Paris, 1931, #352/525) 11.25" X 9.25", 61pp, loosely bound with loose cover, with original slip-case, printed on hand-made Van Gelder paper, 8 illustrations printed on mould-made Annoy Paper, interior pages clean and in fine condition, slip-case is in poor condition, some soiling on the cover. Aristophanes was the greatest writer of ancient Athenian “old comedy,” known for its satires of contemporary life and for its broad, often obscene humor. Lysistrata was first produced in 411 BC, when the Peloponnesian War had been devastating Greece for 20 years. Most people know the plot: Lysistrata assembles women from all of Greece, and they agree that they will not have sex until the men make peace. Aubrey Beardsley was the greatest and the most controversial Art Nouveau illustrator in England, famous for his illustrations of Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur, Oscar Wilde’s Salome, Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, and for several magazines. Because he was associated with Oscar Wilde, Beardsley lost his job as art editor of a magazine named The Yellow Book in 1895, soon after Wilde was arrested for homosexuality. He was approached by Leonard Smithers, a publisher of erotic books, who asked him to illustrate Lysistrata. His illustrations are very much in the spirit of Aristophanes, as funny as they are obscene. Beardsley converted to Catholicism in 1897, and soon after, he asked Smithers to “destroy all copies of Lysistrata” with its “obscene drawings,” but Smithers refused. Beardsley died of tuberculosis in 1898, at the age of 26. Smithers initially published Lysistrata in a limited edition of one hundred copies. It was occasionally reprinted in very small runs, usually clandestinely, often poorly, but copies have long been scarce and expensive. I have only found this copy a few places outside of museums and libraries. This is a rare fine reproduction of the original drawings on quality paper. I do not have information about the actual publisher.
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The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea, Nicolas Chorier, translation by Isadore Liseux (Isadore Liseux, Paris, 1890, first edition, first English translation, printed by Ch. Unsinger) 8.75" X 5.75", 3 books bound in one, xx+87pp, 132pp, 98+2pp, 3/4 crimson morocco over red boards, 5 raised bands, gilt decorations and titles on spine, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, others deckled. Excellent condition for age, very minor bumping on corners and top and bottom of spine. In six dialogues (I. The skirmish; II. Tribadicon; III. Fabric; IV. The duel; V. Pleasures; VI. Frolics and sports) Tullia, who is 26, initiates her 15 year old cousin, Ottavia, in the art of sexual pleasure. The first four dialogues, which are fairly short, focus on tribadism and defloration. The longer fifth and six dialogues introduce flagellation, contractual submission, group sex, and anal sex. Like many sexual fictions, The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea (originally written in latin "Aloisiae Sigeae Satyra Sotadica de arcanis Amoris et Veneris") attempts to conceal the identity of its author: it purports to be based on a Latin manuscript translation of a work written originally in Spanish in the sixteenth century by an erudite young woman, Luisa Sigea of Toledo and translated into latin by Jean Meursius of Holland. In fact, it was written c. 1660, in latin, by a Frenchman, Nicolas Chorier (1612-1692), a lawyer who wrote works on various historical and philosophical subjects. The first first French translation, L’Academie des dames, was issued in the 1680. This 1890 edition was for the first time translated into English by Isidore Liseux and issued as a 3 volume set. (1. I-IV, 2. V, 3. VI). Isidore Liseux (1835-1894) was a French bibliophile and publisher of erotica and curiosa. His publications were mostly rare texts of 16th to 18th century authors, hard to find and little known books which were usually translated and annotated by his friend and associate Alcide Bonneau or by Liseux himself. Liseux and Bonneau, both ex-priests, knew each other since seminary. His books were published in small numbers, on high quality paper, and with excellent typography. His usual printers were Claude Motteroz, Antoine Bécus, and later Charles Unsinger. Liseux's books were published openly as the climate was more permissive in Paris at the time. His books were so well regarded that pirates of his books and even unrelated books bearing his imprint with a false date were published clandestinely into the 20th century. French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire wrote: "The publications of Liseux are more and more sought after because they are correct, beautiful and rare." (Le flaneur des deux rives, 1918).
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Out of stockMemoirs of Cardinal Dubois | translated from the French by Ernest Dowson | with photogravure portraits of Cardinal Dubois and the Duc d'Orleans (Leonard Smithers and Co, London, 1899, First Edition thus, first English translation) 9.75"x6.5", 2 volumes, xvi-282pp, viii-268pp, blue boards with gilt decoration and titles on spine, deckled edges, good condition, bumping to corners, bookplates for Reginald Dalton Pontifex in both volumes. According to the publisher, the original manuscript which was written entirely in Dubois hand was stolen by his secretary Lavergne after his death in 1723. It was later discovered of its literary value that Lavergne attempted to sell the manuscript. He was found and arrested. They later fell into the hands of Comte de Maurepas, then upon his death they were passed on to an anonymous writer named Mercier (possibly M. Paul Laroix) whose family had it published in 1829. The manuscript then became lost. In 1899 and English version of the book translated by Ernest Christopher Dowson, was published by the notorious pornographer, Leonard Smithers & Co. This is, presumably a reprinting of that translation. Guillaume Dubois (1656-1723), a son of a country doctor, rose from humble beginnings to positions of power and high honor in government and in the Catholic Church. He is best known for negotiating the Triple Alliance of 1717 between France, the Dutch Republic and Great Britain against their mutual enemy, Spain. Considered one of the four great French Cardinal-Ministers (Richelieu, Mazarin, Dubois, and Fleury). His ecclesiastical career left a great deal to be desired. Although there is no proof of the prevalent assertion that he got secretly married, his licentiousness, and notorious impiety, even at the time of his death, make it evident that he pursued and used ecclesiastical dignities principally to enhance his political position and prestige. Eventually in 1721, Du Bois was created cardinal. He had the reputation of a libertine and adventurer and made plenty of enemies. One of his rivals was charged at creating his portrait, the Duc de Saint-Simon, who was said to have placed a painting of Dubois in his lavatory. Saint-Simon had this to say about the Cardinal: "He was a little, pitiful, wizened, herring-gutted man, in a flaxen wig, with a weasel's face, brightened by some intellect. All the vices - perfidy, avarice, debauchery, ambition, flattery - fought within him for the mastery. He was so consummate a liar that, when taken in the fact, he could brazenly deny it. Even his wit and knowledge of the world were spoiled, and his affected gaiety was touched with sadness, by the odour of falsehood which escaped through every pore of his body." This famous picture is certainly biased. Dubois was unscrupulous, but so were his contemporaries, and whatever vices he had, he forged a European peace that, with the exception of small, restrained military expeditions against the Austrian Habsburgs, would last for a quarter of a century. Leonard Smithers (1861-1907), a solicitor born in Sheffield, was one of the most notable publishers of erotica of his day. He was said to be a brilliant but shady character who operated on the fringes of the rare book trade, issuing small, clandestine editions of risqué books with the boast: 'I will publish the things the others are afraid to touch'. He was notorious for posting a slogan at his bookshop in Bond Street reading "Smut is cheap today". He developed a friendship with Sir Richard Francis Burton and published Burton's famous translation of the Book of One Thousand and One Nights in 1885. He also worked with, among others, Aubrey Beardsley, Aleister Crowley, and Oscar Wilde. With Beardsley and Arthur Symons, he founded The Savoy, a periodical which ran for eight issues in 1896. Smithers famously partnered with Harry Nichols to publish a series of pornographic books under the Erotika Biblion Society imprint. When Beardsley, on his death bed, converted to Catholicism and asked Smithers to “destroy all copies of Lysistrata and bad drawings...by all that is holy all obscene drawings.", Smithers, famously and thankfully ignored him and continued to publish his works until his death in 1907. It was Smithers who published Oscar Wilde's The Ballad of Reading Gaol, a long poem commemorating the harsh rhythms of prison life in 1898. Smithers went bankrupt in 1900 and died impoverished in 1907 from cirrhosis of the liver. Up until his death he continued to sell reproductions (and forgeries) of Beardsley's work as well as reproductions of the Beardsley's letter asking him to destroy his drawings. Reginald Dalton Pontifex (1857–1951) was born in France, attended Magdalen College at Oxford from 1876–80, getting a Fourth in Law in 1880 and a Third in his BCL in 1882. He later practiced as a barrister. At the time of his death it was said he had quite the book collection containing, several of antiquarian interest. He bequethed his book collection to his alma mater. Most of his books were printed in the early nineteenth century and many of them extensively illustrated. He died in Bournemouth, Hampshire, England in 1951.
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Le Hazard du coin du feu, dialogue moral [The Opportunities of the Fireside, a moral dialogue], Crébillon fils (a la Haye, 1763, first edition) 6.25" X 3.75", 260pp, full leather, 5 raised bands and gilt titles on spine and decorating pastedowns, gilt edges, good+ condition, minor bumping to corners, armorial bookplate of Francis John Hughes in front pastedown, Mr. Hughes wrote inside "from the collection of Wallace Stevens. Bought at auction this day 10 March 1959 - FJH" The entire book is a dialogue takes place at Célie's house in a small secluded boudoir and the subject is the deceptions and tricks of debauchery, described through stories, dialogues, and tales by the participants. 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. He received a Jesuit education at the elite Lycée Louis-le-Grand. Early on he composed various light works, including plays for the Italian Theatre in Paris, and published a short tale called Le Sylphe in 1730. From 1729 to 1739 he participated in a series of dinners called "Le Caveau" (named after the cabaret where they were held) with other artists, including Alexis Piron, Charles Collé, and Charles Duclos. The publication of Tanzaï et Néadarné, 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. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) was an American modernist poet. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry for his Collected Poems in 1955.
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Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Aristophanes, illus. by Aubrey Beardsley (Beardsley Press, 1927, one of 750 unnumbered) 8.25″ x 11.5″, 99pp, quarter silver over black cloth, with silver and black patterned endpapers, black lettering to spine, good condition for age, bumping and scraping present, Beardsley’s prints are tipped in. Aristophanes was the greatest writer of ancient Athenian “old comedy,” known for its satires of contemporary life and for its broad, often obscene humor. Lysistrata was first produced in 411 BC, when the Peloponnesian War had been devastating Greece for 20 years. Most people know the plot: Lysistrata assembles women from all of Greece, and they agree that they will not have sex until the men make peace. Aubrey Beardsley was the greatest and the most controversial Art Nouveau illustrator in England, famous for his illustrations of Mallory’s Morte d’Arthur, Oscar Wilde’s Salome, Pope’s The Rape of the Lock, and for several magazines. Because he was associated with Oscar Wilde, Beardsley lost his job as art editor of a magazine named The Yellow Book in 1895, soon after Wilde was arrested for homosexuality. He was approached by Leonard Smithers, a publisher of erotic books, who asked him to illustrate Lysistrata. His illustrations are very much in the spirit of Aristophanes, as funny as they are obscene. Beardsley converted to Catholicism in 1897, and soon after, he asked Smithers to “destroy all copies of Lysistrata” with its “obscene drawings,” but Smithers refused. Beardsley died of tuberculosis in 1898, at the age of 26. Smithers initially published Lysistrata in a limited edition of one hundred copies. It was occasionally reprinted in very small runs, usually clandestinely, often poorly, but copies have long been scarce and expensive. Few copies of Beardsley’s Lysistrata printed before 1966 are currently in circulation. This copy is a rare limited edition printed by the Beardsley Press, London and even rarer with the binding intact.
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The Romance of Chastisement; or Revelations of the School and Bedroom | by and expert, anonymous (Tremont Publishing Company, Boston, 1876) 8" X 5.5", 150pp, green boards with blindstamp decorations, gilt titles on the spine, red inked edges, just good condition, bumping and chipping on corners and spine, red frame decoration throughout book. The Romance of Chastisement is a Victorian pornographic collection on the theme of flagellation by St George Stock (a probable pseudonym, also credited with The Whippingham Papers). It was originally published by John Camden Hotten in 1866. It was reprinted by William Lazenby in 1883 and again by Charles Carrington in 1902 as The Magnetism of the Rod or the Revelations of Miss Darcy. This is the rare edition published in Boston, USA.
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Tales and Novels in verse of J. De La Fontaine, illustrated with eighty fives[sic] original plates by Eisen (E.F. Bonaventure, New York, 1883, signed by the publisher, hand-numbered #324/400) 5.75″x9″, 2 vol., xiii+252pp, x+334pp, three-quarter bound with brown morocco with gilt borders over marbled boards, 5 raised bands, gilt titles and decoration on spines, top-edge gilt with others deckled, illustrated throughout with protective tissue guards. Jean de La Fontaine (1621-1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. After a long period of royal suspicion, he was admitted to the French Academy and his reputation in France has never faded since. Evidence of this is found in the many pictures and statues of the writer, as well as later depictions on medals, coins and postage stamps. The numerous works of La Fontaine fall into three traditional divisions: the Fables, the Tales and the miscellaneous (including dramatic) works. He is best known for the first of these, in which a tradition of fable collecting in French verse reaching back to the Middle Ages was brought to a peak. He published 245 fables, across twelve books between 1668 and 1694, exemplify the grace and wit of his age. Unlike many of his models, his fables function less as didactic tools and more as entertaining art. His beasts, humans, and plants are not merely moral-serving abstractions but rather lively actors in elegantly described escapades. Almost equally as popular in their time, his “tales”, Contes et nouvelles en vers (1665), is an anthology of various ribald short stories and novellas collected and versified from prose. They were particularly marked by their archly licentious tone. La Fontaine drew from several French and Italian works of the 15th and 16th centuries, among them The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Antoine de la Sale’s collection Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles, and the work of Bonaventure des Périers.
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The Mimiambs of Herondas, Herodas, Translated by Jack Lindsay, Decorated by Alan Odle, with a Foreword by Brian Penton. (The Fanfrolico Press, London, nd [c. 1929], #106/375 [first edition, and first Fanfrolico to be printed in London]) 11 7/8" X 9 3/8", unpaginated 72pp, hardbound no DJ, original buckram-backed decorated Japanese paper boards with plain green cloth spine and gilt lettering, top edge gilt, other edges deckle, very good condition minor wear to bottom of boards, Cloister types on Van Gelder Antique handmade paper Herodas was a Greek poet and the author of short humorous dramatic scenes in verse, written under the Alexandrian empire in the 3rd century BC. Mimes were scenes in popular life in South Italy and Sicily, written in the language of the people, vigorous with racy proverbs such as we get in other reflections of that region. The Mimes of Herodas have been known to us only since the discovery and publication of the "Kenyon", M. S. Buck, by the British Museum in 1891 (from a parchment containing 7 legible mimes half of the 8th and a fragment of the 9th). This was Fanfrolico's first London book. It was published "for subscribers to The Franfrolico Press". This new translation of Mimiambs of Herondas was translated by Jack Lindsay and beautifully illustrated by Alan Odle whose grotesque and subversive style was a precursor of surrealism. This is a beautiful printed book in great condition and quite rare. Fanfrolico Press, Australia’s first ‘private press’ in the arts-and-craft tradition, was founded by Jack Lindsay, P. R. Stephensen and John Kirtley, originally in North Sydney in 1923. The press specialized in printings artful, limited editions of classics and forgotten works that were suited to the extravagant style of artist like his father, artist, sculptor and author Norman Lindsay who illustrated many of their books. Fanfrolico was scornful of modernism and with its florid style determinedly backward-looking. They did surprisingly well, despite the lack of business expertise of their young, ambitious "bohemian" owners, eking out a living despite the risky move to London in 1926 and upheavals in ownership that saw the departure in 1927 of Kirtley, and then Stephenson in 1929. Sometime in 1930 they published their last book.
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The Modern Eveline; or the adventures of a young lady of quality who was never found out (2 volumes), anonymous (Printed for Distribution Amongst Private Subscribers, Paris, 1904 [Miller Brothers, New York, c. 1930]) 9 1/8" X 6 7/8", 2 vol. 322pp 222pp, hardbound no DJ, plain blank red cloth boards and spine, deckle edges, fair condition, boards almost separated in volume one, boards loose in volume 2 but attached, frontispiece unattached. First American Edition. Turn of the 20th century erotic adaptation by notorious publisher Charles Carrington of a ca.1840 galante novel, Evelina, that, according to Mendes, was explicitly sexed-up by one of Carrington's staff hacks. This edition, containing the full text to the Carrington three-volume edition, was issued in the early 1930s by the Miller Brothers who were part of New York City's clandestine erotica scene along with Sam Roth, Esar Levine, and Ben Rebhuhn. Very graphic and explicite illustrations from an anonymous 1930's artist.
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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.
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Les Ballades de Maistre Francois Villon, Francois Villon, illus. Chéri Hérouard, caligraphy ["escrites"] by Raymond de Rigné (chez Cres., Paris, 1919) 11.75" X 9.25", 169pp, rebound in red cloth boards with paper labels, decorated end papers. Original soft wraps intact. #450/550 signed by Hérouard. 31 full page drawings by Hérouard plus 31 small vignette type illustrations with a few "signed" by him. Beautifully printed on heavy deckle edged paper. good condition, wear to top and bottom of spine. ribbon intact. François Villon (c. 1431_1464) was a French poet. Most of what is known about Villon has been gathered from legal records and gleaned from his own writings. He was a thief, killer, barroom brawler, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballades. He was the most famous realist poet of the Middle Ages. Chéri Hérouard (1881 - 1961) was a French illustrator who was most famously known for his forty-five-year work for French society magazine, La Vie Parisienne. Under the pseudonym of Herric, he also created erotic and sadomasochistic illustrations for various books including the Kama Sutra. This work was originally published with soft wraps. This copy has been beautifully rebound with it's original wraps intact.
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Out of stockThree Times a Woman, Grushenka, anonymous [possibly Val Lewton?], illus. "a young Russian residing in Paris, who unfortunately must remain anonymous" (Privately Printed, London [New York], 1933) 9" X 7", 252pp, hardbound no DJ, red boards with gilt title on spine, good condition, minor wear and bumping, anonymous bookplate with the profile of a man made from many copulating couples. Title page reads: "The Story of a Russian Serf Girl Compiled from Contemporary Documents in the Russian Police Files and Private Archives of Russian Libraries" Originally published at New York in 1933 with a false Paris imprint. Val Lewton, the supposed author, was a well known film producer, responsible for a series of good low-budget horror movies in the 1940's by such directors as Robert Wise, Mark Robson and Jacques Tourneur. The book purports to be a flaggelation story written by a Russian living in Paris and then translated to english. The story takes place c. 1728, "shortly after the death of Peter the Great". The main character is Grushenka Pavlovsk. This edition is complete with very explicit illustrations.
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One Hundred Merrie and Delightsome Stories (Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles) (2 volumes), trans. Robert B. Douglas (Privately Printed for Subscribers only, Carbonnek, 1924, #591/1250) 8 7/8" X 5 3/4", 2 vol. 279pp 272pp, hardbound no DJ, dark green moire silk boards decorated in blind stamp, spines lettered and decorated in gilt, gilt top edge, other edges deckle, frontispiece signed by the artist, Clara Tice, very good condition, slight bumping on corners This is a two volume set of books beautifully bound and in excellent condition. Some pages remain uncut. A rare book in rare condition. It is signed by the artist, Clara Tice, under the frontispiece. It is illustrated with 16 full page drawings by Clara Tice. Purported a collection of short stories narrated by various persons at the court of Philippe le Bon, and collected together by Antoine de la Sale, the nouvelles are, according to the authority on French Literature—Professor George Saintsbury "undoubtedly the first work of literary prose in French ... The short prose tale of a comic character is the one French literary product the pre-eminence and perfection of which it is impossible to dispute, and the prose tale first appears to advantage in the Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles." The stories give a curious glimpses of life in the 15th century, providing a genuine view of the social condition of the nobility and the middle classes. M. Lenient, a French critic, says: "Generally the incidents and personages belong to the bourgeoisée; there is nothing chivalric, nothing wonderful; no dreamy lovers, romantic dames, fairies, or enchanters. Noble dames, bourgeois, nuns, knights, merchants, monks, and peasants mutually dupe each other. The lord deceives the miller's wife by imposing on her simplicity, and the miller retaliates in much the same manner. The shepherd marries the knight's sister, and the nobleman is not over scandalized. The vices of the monks are depicted in half a score tales, and the seducers are punished with a severity not always in proportion to the offence." For four centuries 10 of the stories were credited to Louis XI. Modern scholars have since ascribed them to either Philippe le Bel or Comte de Charolais. In all, some thirty-two noblemen or squires contributed the stories, with some 14 or 15 taken from Giovanni Boccaccio, and as many more from Gian Francesco Poggio Bracciolini or other Italian writers, or French fabliaux, but about 70 of them appear to be original.
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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.
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Étude sur La Flagellation a travers le monde aux points de vue Historique, Medical, Religieux, Domestique et Conjugal | avec un exposé documentaire de la flagellation dans Les écoles anglaises et les prisons militaires, Deuxiéme Édition, Augmentée [Study of the Flagellation throughout the world from the historical, medical, religious, domestic and marital points of view | with a documentary presentation of flogging in English Schools and Military Prisons, Second Edition, Augmented], by Jean de Villiot [pseud. most likely of Charles Carrington, Hugues Rebell and Hector France],illust. by René Lelong, (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1901, "Second Edition Augmented", printed by Achevé d'imprimer le 29 septembre 1900 par Em. Pivoteau. Imprimeur à Saint-Amand-Mont-Rond (Cher)) 5.5"x8.5", xxiv+646pp, quarter-bound in red morocco over red boards, 4 raised bands, gilt titles and decorations on spine, marbled paste-downs, all edges gilt, ribbon intact, binding frayed a bit at bottom, some rubbing and stains, otherwise very good condition for age, frontispiece and 20 B&W illustrations by René Lelong tipped in with titled tissue guards. This book is the compilation and expansion of a few other books previously published by Charles Carrington including the original Étude sur La Flagellation a travers le monde published in 1898. It represents a more complete representation of those writings beautifully bound into one book, covering studies on flogging through the centuries, flogging in England, flogging in the history of France (the cases of Madame Du Barry, the Marquise de Rosen.), the flogging from the medical point of view where one learns its healing properties, flogging in literature or the art of using it for pleasure, the discipline to school and domestic and spousal corrections, and "in our current society". Jean de Villiot is a pseudonym frequently used by Carrington and the various authors he relied upon, especially for works that involved flagellation. The illustrator, René Lelong was a third class medalist at the Salon des artistes français of 1895 which he became a member from 1898. He has produced advertising posters and illustrated numerous books and texts. He was a professor at the Julian Academy from 1879 to 1891.
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The Most Delectable Nights of Straparola of Caravaggio, the first complete translation into english of "Le tredici piacevolissime notte, de Mesier Giovanni Francesco Straparola", with an introduction and notes, in two volumes, illust. by Léon Lebègue and Adolph Lambrecht (Charles Carrington, "Publisher of Artistic, Folklore and Historical Works", Paris, 1906, #152/1000, [first english translation, first edition] "Printed in Holland at the Printing Works of G. J. Thieme, Nymeguen.") 5.75"x8.5", 2 vol. xvi+352pp, xl+420pp, top edge gilt other edges deckled, blue boards with gilt borders and gilt lettering to the spines, red and black text and decorations throughout, numerous illustrations, both vignettes within text and tipped-in full color plates with descriptive tissue guards, handsome good+ copy for age, some foxing, small tear at top of vol. 1 spine, slight sunning to boards. This is a rare, beautifully executed, 1st edition, 1st English translation, 1st printing, low number limited edition, by Charles Carrington. Giovanni Francesco "Gianfrancesco" Straparola, also known as Zoan or Zuan Francesco Straparola da Caravaggio (1485?-1558) was a writer of poetry, and collector and writer of short stories. Some time during his life, he migrated from Caravaggio to Venice where he published a collection of stories in two volumes called Le piacevoli notti (1551 and 1553) (The Pleasant Nights, first translated by W. G. Waters in 1901 as "The Facetious Nights"). The Pleasant Nights is the work for which Straparola is most noted, and which contains a total of seventy-five short stories, fables, and fairy tales. The tales, or novelle, are divided into Nights, rather than chapters, and resemble the type of narrative presentation found in Boccaccio's Decameron. This presentation is of a gathering of Italian aristocrats, men and women, who entertain themselves by singing songs, dancing, telling stories and presenting enigmas (riddles). The Pleasant Nights contains many different types of tales, including realistic novellas, stories about practical jokes, tragic and triumphant love stories, bawdy tales, and animal stories. Some sixteen of these 74 tales are fairy tales including the story of Puss-in-Boots, the story of an impoverished boy whose enchanted cat earns him wealth, marriage to a princess, and a kingdom. Among the other fairy tales in The Pleasant Nights, we find a dragon slayer tale; the tale of a prince born in the shape of a pig due to a fairy’s curse who regains his human form only after marrying three time,; the story of Biancabella or “White Beauty” a princes who undergoes many trials until finally being saved by a fairy; and the a poor girl who acquire a magic doll that poops money and helps her marry a prince. It is claimed that many of the stories within The Pleasant Nights had been taken from earlier works, specifically from Girolamo Morlini, a 15th/16th century lawyer from Naples. If taken at his word, Straparola never denied this. In the Dedication at the front of the second volume, Straparola wrote that the stories ". . . written and collected in this volume [vol. 2 only?] are none of mine, but goods which I have feloniously taken from this man and that. Of a truth I confess they are not mine, and if I said otherwise I should lie, but nevertheless I have faithfully set them down according to the manner in which they were told by the ladies, nobles, learned men and gentlemen who gathered together for recreation."
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Les Ballades de Maistre Francois Villon, Francois Villon, illus. Chéri Hérouard, caligraphy ["escrites"] by Raymond de Rigné (chez Cres., Paris, 1919, #188/550 signed by Hérouard) 11.75" X 9.25", 169pp, original french wraps with glassine cover, 31 full page drawings by Hérouard plus 31 small vignette type illustrations. Beautifully printed on heavy deckle edged paper. good condition, all original, minor rubbing, slight foxing on outer pages, inner pages clean, rips in glassine cover at top and bottom of spine. François Villon (c. 1431_1464) was a French poet. Most of what is known about Villon has been gathered from legal records and gleaned from his own writings. He was a thief, killer, barroom brawler, and vagabond. He is perhaps best known for his Testaments and his Ballades. He was the most famous realist poet of the Middle Ages. Chéri Hérouard (1881 - 1961) was a French illustrator who was most famously known for his forty-five-year work for French society magazine, La Vie Parisienne. Under the pseudonym of Herric, he also created erotic and sadomasochistic illustrations for various books including the Kama Sutra.
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Die Abenteuer des Chevalier Faublas | Erzählt von Louvet de Couvray [[The adventures of the Chevalier Faublas | Told by Louvet de Couvray], etchings by Karl Walser (Georg Müller, Munich, 1910, #1411/1500) 8.25"x5.5", 4 volumes, x+216pp, 279pp, 295pp, 344pp, half calf over decorated silk (from a drawing by Karl Walser), black title and vol. label with gilt lettering and decorations on spine, 4 etched title vignettes and 12 toned etchings by Karl Walser on 12 panels with green tissue guard, ribbons present in all volumes, good+ condition. Karl Walser (1877-1943) was a Swiss painter, set designer and illustrator. His artwork, although very popular during his lifetime, has mostly been forgotten by the art world, unlike his brother, author Robert Walser, who was never able to support himself through writing which gained notoriety after his death. Jean-Baptiste Louvet de Couvrai (1760 - 1797) was born in Paris as the son of a stationer, he became a bookseller's clerk, and first attracted attention with the first part of his novel "Les Amours du chevalier de Faublas" (5 parts) in 1787; it was followed in 1788 by "Six semaines de la vie du chevalier de Faublas" (8 parts) and in 1790 by "La Fin des amours du chevalier de Faublas" (6 parts). The heroine, Lodoiska, was modeled on the wife of a jeweler in the Palais Royal, with whom he had an affair. She divorced her husband in 1792 and married Louvet in 1793. This is considered a so-called "libertine" novel. It dwells mainly on the sexual escapades of its hero, a sort of amiable young libertine, and on the corrupted morals of eighteenth-century France. At the start of this novel the young Chevalier de Faublas attends a party dressed as a woman and is knowingly seduced by the lady of the house ('. I receive with equal astonishment and pleasure a charming lesson, which I repeated more than once .') Oxford Comp. to French Literature says it is "typical of many frivolous, licentious novels of its time, and still mentioned. Faublas, the amiable hero, is the victim of his own charms. His amorous adventures, recounted with a certain lively force, begin with his entry into society at the age of sixteen. He loves several women by the way and three in particular. A jealous husband and a despairing suicide reduce the three to one. The novel ends on a moral note: Faublas , who had happened to settle down with his remaining love, is haunted by the avenging phantoms of the other two and goes mad."
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L'histoire comique de Francion en laquelle sont découvertes les plus subtiles finesses et trompeuses inventions tant des hommes que des femmes de toute sortes de conditions et d'âges. Non moins profitable pour s'en garder, que plaisante à la lecture., Charles Sorel, illus. Martin van Maele (chez Jean Fort, Paris, 1925 #131/ 1100 of copies made with pure Enoshima fibre paper) 9″x6″, 411pp, quarter-bound calf over slate boards, 5 raised bands, gilt titles and decorations on spine, top-edge gilt others deckled, fair condition, boards very loose, barely holding Charles Sorel, sieur de Souvigny (1602 –1674) was a French novelist and general writer. Very little is known of his life except that in 1635 he was historiographer of France. He wrote on science, history and religion, but is only remembered for his novels. He tried to destroy the vogue for the pastoral romance by writing a novel of adventure, the Histoire comique de Francion (first edition in seven volumes, 1623; second edition in twelve volumes, 1633). The episodical adventures of Francion found many readers, who nevertheless kept their admiration for Honoré d'Urfé's L'Astrée, which it was intended to ridicule.
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Out of stockAn Essay on Woman, by Pego Borewell, Esq., "with notes by Rogerus Cuneaus, Vigerus Mutoniatus, & Co. and A Commentary by the Rev. Dr. Warburton, inscribed to Miss Fanny Murray (np, bibliography on last page dated 1883) 7.5" X 9.75", 24pp., original soft wraps appear to be enclosed in brown wrap, appear to be two pages cut out before the title page, articles from "Notes and Queries" (dating July 11, 1857 and July 18, 1857) pasted into back of the book, followed by notes on legal paper from previous owner presumably trying to verify this edition Sometime in 1755, John Wilkes, together with fellow rake and son of the Archbishop of Cantebury, Thomas Potter (c. 1718-1759), composed a bawdy set of parodied Alexander Pope poems entitled An Essay on Woman, a satirical imitation of Pope's An Essay on Man. In 1763 he was put in jail for political reasons ("seditious libel for his anti-Jacobite smearing which appeared in his 'radical' weekly publication"). Upon release, his home was unlawfully searched and proofs of his "Essay on Woman" was discovered. This is an unknown reprint, as no original is known. I am still researching.
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The Ragionamenti or dialogues of the devine Pietro Aretino, Pietro Aretino, trans. Isidore Liseux (Isidore Liseux, Paris, 1889) 8" X 6", 3 volumes, xxxv+83+89pp, 100+134pp, 129+138pp, half-bound brown morocco over marbled boards, gilt titles on spines, top-edge gilt, other edges deckled, each book has the ex-libris of Boies Penrose II Pietro Aretino (1492-1556) was one of the most important figures in Italian Renaissance literature, and certainly the most controversial. Condemned by some as a pornographer, his infamy was due largely to his use of explicit sexuality and the vulgar tongue of ordinary speech in much of his work. Dialogues center around a conversation between two rather frank, experienced, and sharp-tongued women on the topic of women’s occupations. We learn that at the time there were only three: wife, whore, or nun. Their discussion is a rollicking account of the advantages, perils, and pleasures each profession offers. Not only was Dialogues the first erotic book in the Christian world to be written in the common vernacular, it was but one of the few to describe the obscenity of commercial love, and is thus a cornerstone of both Italian literature and Counter-Renaissance vigour. First dialog: The Life of Nuns Second dialog: The Life of Married Women Third dialog: The Life of Courtesans Fourth dialog: The Education of Pippa Fifth dialog: The Wiles of Men Sixth dialog: The Bawd’s Trade Isidore Liseux (1835-1894) was a French bibliophile and publisher of erotica and curiosa. His publications were mostly rare texts of 16th to 18th century authors, hard to find and little known books which were usually translated and annotated by his friend and associate Alcide Bonneau or by Liseux himself. Liseux and Bonneau, both ex-priests, knew each other since seminary. His books were published in small numbers, on high quality paper, and with excellent typography. His usual printers were Claude Motteroz, Antoine Bécus, and later Charles Unsinger. Liseux’s books were published openly as the climate was more permissive in Paris at the time. His books were so well regarded that pirates of his books and even unrelated books bearing his imprint with a false date were published clandestinely into the 20th century. French poet, Guillaume Apollinaire wrote: “The publications of Liseux are more and more sought after because they are correct, beautiful and rare.” (Le flaneur des deux rives, 1918). Time Magazine, Monday, May 11, 1936 Youngish Pennsylvanians whose Progressive fathers frightened them with the name of BOIES PENROSE a quarter century ago could look forward last week to bemusing their own children with that great name some day. In Philadelphia Boies Penrose II, nephew of Pennsylvania's longtime (1897-1921) Senator and Republican boss, received a Republican nomination to Congress in last week's primary. A rich and cultured Harvard man like his late uncle, 34-year-old Boies II has hitherto devoted himself to scholarship and society, is the owner of a notable collection of etchings, engravings, manuscripts and rare books. When he decided few months ago to make a career for himself in politics, leaders of Philadelphia's Republican machine warmly welcomed a young man with so potent a name, so fat a pocketbook. Candidate Penrose, who owns a 125-acre estate on the Main Line at swank Devon where he takes his own and neighbors' small children for rides on his mile-long miniature railroad, promptly established a residence in Philadelphia by renting an apartment, the address of which he is constantly forgetting.— "My platform," he announced in fastidious Bostonese, "will be the Horse & Buggy, or Save the Constitution." In the Republican split of 1912 Boies Penrose temporarily lost his State leadership to the Bull Moose faction, which included an ardent Young Roosevelt worshipper named Gifford Pinchot. While one set of Philadelphia voters was lifting the name of Penrose up last week, another group was setting the name of Pinchot down. In a district inhabited largely by factory workers whose cause she has championed many a time on the picket line, red-haired Mrs. Gifford Pinchot made her third race for a Republican nomination to the House, suffered her third defeat.
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The 120 Days of Sodom or: The Romance of The School for Libertinage | Being an English rendering of Les 120 Journées de Sodome done by Pieralessandro Casavini, with an Essay by Georges Bataille, D.A.F. de Sade, trans. Pieralessandro Casavini [Austryn Wainhouse] (Olympia Press, Paris, 1957, Traveller's Companion Series) 7" X 4.5", 3 vol. 192pp 203pp 224pp, original green soft wraps, good condition for age, some bumping and small tears to spine, slight soiling. The 120 Days of Sodom, or the School of Libertinage (French: Les 120 Journées de Sodome ou l'école du libertinage) is an unfinished novel by the French writer and nobleman Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade, written in 1785. Its plot revolves around the activities of four wealthy libertine men who spend four months seeking out the ultimate sexual gratification through orgies, sealing themselves away in an inaccessible castle in the heart of the Black Forest in Germany with four madams and a harem of thirty-six victims, mostly male and female teenagers. The madams relate stories of their most memorable clients, whose crimes and tortures inspire the libertines to likewise and increasingly abuse and torture their victims to their eventual deaths. Sade states he wrote The 120 Days of Sodom over 37 days in 1785 while he was imprisoned in the Bastille. Being short of writing materials and fearing confiscation, he wrote it in tiny writing on a continuous roll of paper, made up of individual small pieces of paper smuggled into the prison and glued together. The result was a scroll 12 metres long that Sade would hide by rolling it tightly and placing it inside his cell wall. Sade incited a riot among the people gathered outside when he shouted to them that the guards were murdering inmates; as a result, two days later on 4 July 1789, he was transferred to the asylum at Charenton, "naked as a worm" and unable to retrieve the novel in progress. Sade believed the work was destroyed when the Bastille was stormed and looted on 14 July 1789, at the beginning of the French Revolution. He was distraught over its loss and wrote that he "wept tears of blood" in his grief. However, the long scroll of paper on which it was written was found hidden in the walls of his cell where Sade had left it, and removed by a citizen named Arnoux de Saint-Maximin two days before the storming. Historians know little about Saint-Maximin or why he took the manuscript. It was first discovered and published in 1904 by the Berlin dermatologist, psychiatrist, and sexologist Iwan Bloch (who used a pseudonym, "Dr. Eugen Dühren", to avoid controversy). Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary fiction, and is best known for issuing the first printed edition of Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita. In its heyday during the mid-fifties Olympia Press specialized in books which could not be published (without legal action) in the English-speaking world. Early on, Girodias relied on the permissive attitudes of the French to publish sexually explicit books in both French and English. The French began to ban and seize the press's book in the late fifties. Precisely 94 Olympia Press publications were promoted and packaged as "Traveller's Companion" books, usually with simple text-only covers, and each book in the series was numbered. The "Ophelia Press" line of erotica was far larger, using the same design, but pink covers instead of green. In Olympia Press was the first to translate this work into English. "120 Days of Sodom" was first published 1954 (pink covers), and then again in their "Traveller's Companion Series" in 1957 which is this edition.
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L'Amant Salamandre, ou Les Aventures de l'Infortunée Julie,Histoire Veritable, anonymous [Cointreau] , ("Londres, Et se trouve à Paris. Chez Duchesne" 1756, [first edition]) 4"x6.75", in two parts, 132pp, 135pp, Contemporary mottled calf, gilt decorations on spine, marbled boards, in good condition for age, some splitting at spine, but binding good. Julie is the bizarre tale of a young orphan tricked by her wicked governess into believing in magic. The governess delivers the girl to her son, who attempts to seduce her disguised as Salamandre, a magician. The young girl escapes to a convent, only to cross paths with the governess some time later, who once again tries to procure her for her son. 'Salamandre' is attacked by assassins and confesses his mother's crimes on his death bed. The novel was very popular in it's day. Although very popular in it's day, it's a rare find, especially the original 1756 version.
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The London Aphrodite, ed. Jack Lindsay and P.R. Stephensen (Fanfrolico Press, "printed by the Botolph Printing Works", London, 1928 - 29) 9.75" X 6.25", 496pp numbered sequentially throughout series, v1 1-64, v2 45-160, v3 161-232, v4 233-316, v5 317-400, v6 401-496, full set of 6 planned issues, great condition for age, the expected sunning/fading from soft-cover periodical of this era, small ink price stamp to front of v1. A periodical edited by Jack Lindsay and P.R. Stephensen and published in London by the Fanfrolico Press, ran bi-monthly for a planned six issues August 1928 - June 29. Self-described as "A Miscellany of Poems Stories and Essays by Various Hands Eminent or Rebellious." Named as a rebuttal of the conservatism of J.C. Squire's London Mercury, it was committed to the same aesthetic attitudes as Vision. Some prominent writers, including Aldous Huxley, Norman Lindsay, Robert Nichols, Liam O'Flaherty, Edward Marsh, Edward Marsh, Norman Douglas, Stanley Snaith, Alexander Blok, Hugh McCrae, Kenneth Slessor, Philip Lindsay, Brian Penton, P.R. Stephensen, Les Robinson, W.J. Turner, Bertram Higgins, E.J. Rupert Atkinson, Sacheverell Sitwell, T.F. Powys, Rhys Davides, and Edith Hepburn ('Anna Wickham'). Jack Lindsay, the dominant force, used the pseudonym 'Peter Meadows' for several articles. Fanfrolico Press, Australia’s first ‘private press’ in the arts-and-craft tradition, was founded by Jack Lindsay, P. R. Stephensen and John Kirtley, originally in North Sydney in 1923. The press specialized in printings artful, limited editions of classics and forgotten works that were suited to the extravagant style of artist like his father, artist, sculptor and author Norman Lindsay who illustrated many of their books. Fanfrolico was scornful of modernism and with its florid style determinedly backward-looking. They did surprisingly well, despite the lack of business expertise of their young, ambitious "bohemian" owners, eking out a living despite the risky move to London in 1926 and upheavals in ownership that saw the departure in 1927 of Kirtley, and then Stephenson in 1929. Sometime in 1930 they published their last book.
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Three Times a Woman, Grushenka, anonymous [possibly Val Lewton?], illus. "a young Russian residing in Paris, who unfortunately must remain anonymous" (Privately Printed, London [New York], 1933) 9" X 7", 252pp, hardbound no DJ, red boards with gilt title on cover and spine, good condition, minor wear and bumping. Title page reads: "The Story of a Russian Serf Girl Compiled from Contemporary Documents in the Russian Police Files and Private Archives of Russian Libraries" Originally published at New York in 1933 with a false Paris imprint. Val Lewton, the supposed author, was a well known film producer, responsible for a series of good low-budget horror movies in the 1940's by such directors as Robert Wise, Mark Robson and Jacques Tourneur. The book purports to be a flaggelation story written by a Russian living in Paris and then translated to english. The story takes place c. 1728, "shortly after the death of Peter the Great". The main character is Grushenka Pavlovsk. This edition is complete with very explicit illustrations.
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Die Weiberherrschaft in der Geschichte der Menschheit [The Rule of Women in the History of Mankind], Eduard Fuchs, Alfred Kind (Albert Langen, München, 1913) 8.75″ X 11″, complete set, 2 volumes plus supplementary volume, x+1-348pp, 349-711pp, ix+319pp, decorated green cloth boards, decorated cloth endpapers, binding loose by design and very much intact on all volumes (binding is often a problem with this edition), Vol. 1&2 contain 665 illustrations and 90 tipped in illustrations. The supplemental volume contains 317 illustrations and 34 tipped in illustrations. Minor bumping on covers, in excellent condition for age. Compiling 665+317 reproductions of drawings, prints and paintings from the collection of Eduard Fuchs, this edition shows how the image of female domination and male submission was widespread in Europe from the Renaissance to the early 20th century. Edward Fuchs (1870-1940). Fuchs' father was a shopkeeper. Early in his life, the younger Fuchs developed socialist and Marxist political convictions. In 1886, he joined the outlawed political party Sozialistische Arbeiterpartei (the precursor of the modern SPD, Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands). Fuchs received a doctor of law degree and practiced as an attorney. In 1892, he became editor-in-chief of the satiric weekly Süddeutscher Postillon and later co-editor of the Leipziger Volkszeitung. His inflammatory articles in newspapers—one accusing the Kaiser of being a mass murderer—resulted in periodic jail sentences. During his periods of confinement, Fuchs wrote various social histories utilizing images as one of his primary sources. The first of these was his Karikatur der europäischen Völker (Caricatures of European Peoples), 1902. He moved to Berlin that same year where he edited the socialist newspaper Vorwärts. The following year he began his magnum opus, an examination of moral practice, Sittengeschichte, eventually running to six volumes by 1912. While engaged in this series, he followed up his interest in caricatures with one devoted to the representation of women, Die Frau in der Karikatur, 1905 (3 vols). Another book documenting the stereotypical representations of Jews appeared in 1912. Fuchs traveled with the artist Max Slevogt to Egypt in 1914, shortly before the outbreak of World War I. He was a pacifist during the War. Lenin's government put him in charge of prisoner exchange with Germany after the war; he was among the leaders of the German Comintern in Berlin in 1919. His interest in societal concerns in caricature led to a research interest in Daumier. Beginning in 1920, Fuchs published a catalogue raisonné on the artist in three volumes. He resigned from the party in 1929, following the expulsion of several stalwarts. At Hitler's ascension to power in Germany in 1933, Fuchs moved to France.
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The Golden Ass of Apuleius, Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis (124-170 AD), trans. & intro Francis D. Byrne (The Imperial Press[Charles Carrington?], London, n.d. [1904?], #257/650) 7.75" X 5.75", xlix+388pp., 1/4 maroon morrocco over marbled boards with gilt titles and 4 raised bands on spine, top edge gilt The Metamorphoses of Apuleius, which St. Augustine referred to as “The Golden Ass”, is the only Ancient Roman novel in Latin to survive in its entirety. The plot Lucius and his curiosity and insatiable desire to see and practice magic. While trying to perform a spell to transform into a bird, he is accidentally transformed into an ass. This leads to a long journey, literal and metaphorical, filled with in-set tales. He finally finds salvation through the intervention of the goddess Isis, whose cult he joins. The date of the original work is uncertain. Scholars are not sure if he wrote it in his youth or at the end of his life. He adapted the story from a Greek story written by Lucius of Patrae, however his original Greek text has long been lost.
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The Monk | A Romance, M.G. Lewis, etchings by R.C. Armour (Gibbings & Company, London, 1913) 8" X 5.5", 3 vol. xlvi+144pp, 192pp, 221pp, red cloth boards, gilt titles on spine fading, fore- and bottom-edge deckled, good condition. The Monk: A Romance is a Gothic novel by Matthew Gregory Lewis, published in 1796. A quickly written book from early in Lewis's career (in one letter he claimed to have written it in ten weeks, but other correspondence suggests that he had at least started it, or something similar, a couple of years earlier), it was published before he turned twenty. It is a prime example of the Gothic horror. Its convoluted and scandalous plot has made it one of the most important Gothic novels of its time, often imitated and adapted for the stage and the screen. Matthew Gregory Lewis (1775 - 1818) was an English novelist and dramatist, whose writings are often classified as "Gothic horror". He was frequently referred to as "Monk" Lewis, because of the success of his 1796 Gothic novel The Monk. He also worked as a diplomat, politician and an estate owner in Jamaica.
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The Life and Adventures of Father Silas | written by himself and now first translated from the original French edition (dated 1742), anonymous [attributed to Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche], (np [Charles Hirsch?], London, 1907) 7" X 4.5", 185pp, beautifully bound full red morocco with gilt border on boards, gilt decorations and title on spine, 5 raised bands, deckled edges, illustrations not present, good+ condition, slight internal foxing, a beautiful copy of a rare book. Originally published in French, Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier des Chartreux is a French novel from 1741. Allegedly the anonymous author was Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche. Histoire de Dom Bougre is one of the most celebrated French erotic novels of the 18th century, and one of the most frequently reprinted. The novel was published under a variety of titles in French: Histoire de Dom B... (1741), Histoire de Gouberdom (1772), Mémoires de Saturnin (1787), Le Portier des chartreux (1784) and Histoire de Saturnin (1908). Translations into English have appeared under a similar variety of titles, such as The History of Don [sic] B. (1743), The Life and Adventures of Silas Shovewell (1801) and The History of Father Saturnin alias Don B*** alias Gouberdom – Porter of the Charterhouse at Paris (ca. 1827). The novel tells from the first-person perspective the life story of the monk B... (the acronym stands for Bougre, a French vulgar expression for pederast), whose real name is Saturnin. Saturnin's first sexual intercourse is with his sister Suzon and his mother. Even if it turns out later that in reality there is no blood relationship, the text heralds an incessant series of taboo breaking with this alleged incest. In the further course of numerous humorously designed scenes, Saturnin will experience all varieties of sexual disinhibition, whereby ruthless criticism of church and society is also practiced in constant alternation. Finally, Saturnin meets the syphilis sister in a brothel. He loves her sincerely and spends the night with her, although she warns him about the risk of infection. The two are torn apart the next day; Saturnin falls ill and is forcibly castrated to save his life, Suzon dies. In the end, Saturnin finds refuge in a Carthusian monastery, where, freed from all passions, he can await death, which he neither fears nor longs for. He would like the words: Hic situs est Dom Bougre, fututus, futuit (Here lies Dom Bougre, he fucked, and was fucked), to be inscribed on his grave. Jean-Charles Gervaise de Latouche (1715 - 1782), was a French writer. He was a lawyer at the Parlement de Paris of the Ancien Régime. The authorship of the licentious books Mémoires de Mademoiselle de Bonneval (1738), Histoire de Dom Bougre, Portier des Chartreux (1741), and possibly also Lyndamine, ou, L'optimisme des pays chauds (1778) has been attributed to him. Charles Hirsch was a French bookseller in Victorian London who sold French literature and ran a clandestine trade in expensive pornography. Hirsch's bookshop Librairie Parisienne was at Coventry Street, London. He also published in Paris and translated pornographic works from French to English and vice versa. Hirsch knew Oscar Wilde, and claimed to have sold him various works of erotica, including The Sins of the Cities of the Plain in 1890. Hirsch describes how Wilde brought the manuscript of Teleny to his bookshop in 1890 instructing that it be held until a friend, who would be carrying Wilde's card, came to retrieve it. "A few days later one of the young gentlemen I had seen with [Wilde] came to collect the package. He kept it for a while and then brought it back saying in turn: 'Would you kindly give this to one of our friends who will come to fetch it in the same person's name'". Hirsch recounts three further repetitions of this "identical ceremony" before the package made its way back to Wilde. Hirsch defied the strict instructions not to open the package while it was in his care, and claims that it was written in several different hands, which lends further support to his supposition that it was authored in "round robin" style by a small group of Wilde's intimate associates.
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The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde, Latimer J. Wilson illus. (F.M. Buckles & Company, New York, 1907) 6.5”x9.75″, 55pp, grey/violet cloth with gilt and black and white decorations and titles, top-edge gilt others deckled, corners bumped, binding and internal pages are in excellent condition. The Ballad of Reading Gaol is a poem by Oscar Wilde, written in exile in Berneval-le-Grand, after his release from Reading Gaol on 19 May 1897. Wilde had been incarcerated in Reading after being convicted of gross indecency with other men in 1895 and sentenced to two years' hard labour in prison. During his imprisonment, a hanging took place. Charles Thomas Wooldridge had been a trooper in the Royal Horse Guards. He was convicted of cutting the throat of his wife earlier that year at Clewer, near Windsor. He was aged 30 when executed. Wilde wrote the poem in mid-1897 while staying with Robert Ross in Berneval-le-Grand. The poem narrates the execution of Wooldridge; it moves from an objective storytelling to symbolic identification with the prisoners as a whole. No attempt is made to assess the justice of the laws which convicted them, but rather the poem highlights the brutalization of the punishment that all convicts share. Wilde juxtaposes the executed man and himself with the line "Yet each man kills the thing he loves". Wilde too was separated from his wife and sons. He adopted the proletarian ballad form, and suggested it be published in Reynold's Magazine, "because it circulates widely among the criminal classes – to which I now belong – for once I will be read by my peers – a new experience for me". The finished poem was published by Leonard Smithers in 1898 under the name "C.3.3.", which stood for cell block C, landing 3, cell 3. This ensured that Wilde's name – by then notorious – did not appear on the poem's front cover. It was not commonly known, until the 7th printing in June 1899, that C.3.3. was actually Wilde. The poem brought him a small income for the rest of his life. This edition, beautifully decorated by Latimer J. Wilson and published by F.M. Buckles & Company appears to be a very rare. There are no other copies of this edition currently on sale. I have found a few in private collections and libraries using WorldCat database but no copies appear to be in circulation.
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Fanny Hill's Cook Book, Lionel H. Braun & William Adams, illustrations by Brian Forbes (Taplinger Publishing Co., Inc., New York, 1971 [first edition]) 9 3/8" X 6 1/8", 137pp, hardbound with DJ, good condition, binding tight, some soiling to front boards, few tears in dust jacket Rare and raunchy 70's cookbook. Highlights include "Whores d'oeuvres and snacks" featuring "Dildoughs with Warts in Hot Lips", "Pickled Peckers" and Marquise d'Salade with Crafty Ebbing Undressing". In the "Meat Dishes" section there is "Suc d'Meat", "Rump Roast or Backside Entree", and "Fellatio Mignon". There is a whole section "On Stuffing." The pasta section features "Cunnilinguini with Pietro's Tongue" and the dessert features among others "Jock's Strap", "The Nutcracker Sweet" and "Virgin's pushups with a few bawdy stories thrown in between the recipes. The illustrations are very fun. Very 70's. A good copy of a rare book.
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The Old Man Young Again, or Age-Rejuvenescence in the Power of Concupiscence, [Ibn-I Kemal Pasa] "literally translated from the arabic by an English Bohemian" (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1898 [first edition]) 9" X 5.5", xi 265pp, original soft covers, unread copy (most pages uncut on top, some uncut fore edge). Protective wraps. A very rare translation of an arabic how-to sex manual with much emphasis on aphrodisiacs with a forward by Carrington. Very few copies of this Carrington publication still exist. This is particularly unique because many pages remain uncut. I know of no other copies in this unread condition!
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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."
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The Old Man Young Again, or Age-Rejuvenescence in the Power of Concupiscence, [Ibn-I Kemal Pasa] "literally translated from the arabic by an English Bohemian" (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1898 [first edition]) 5.25"x8.5", xi 265pp, hard bound in brown boards with gilt titles over red on spine, pages uniformly yellowed, good condition for age, binding good A very rare translation of an arabic how-to sex manual with much emphasis on aphrodisiacs with a forward by Carrington. Very few copies of this Carrington publication still exist.
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Documents on Medical Anthropology | Untrodden Fields of Anthropology | observations on the esoteric Manners and Customs of Semi-Civilized Peoples; being a record of thirty years' experience in asia, africa, america, and oceana., "By a French Army-Surgeon [in later books identified as "Jacobus X.."] (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1898, "second enlarged and revised edition [was there a first?]", #52/150, "printed on papier de chine") 7"x10" 2 vol., xl+ 341pp, xiv+502pp, Hardbound with paper wrappers inside, 1/2-bound in vellum over marbled boards, gilt lettering on spine, top edge gilt, other edges deckle/uncut, fine hand-laid paper, marlbled endpapers, binding tight, color frontispiece and numerous B&W full page engravings with descriptive tissue guards, very rare copy, bookplates of Frederic Roa This work of ''anthropology'' seems in fact intended to serve the purposes of titillation with its detailed descriptions of exotic sexual practices. Also present in this edition (to be presumably studied) are illustrations of naked women from all over the world. This is a rare book, often mentioned but not seen.
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Confessions of a Lady's Waiting Maid: being a true record of her marvelous adventures in both hemispheres, Fanny Beresford [Charles Paul de Kock (probably pseudonyms of George Thompson)] (J. H. Farrell, New York, nd [1848]) 9.5" X 5.75", 340pp, original soft covers, back cover missing, front cover and original orange paper front illustration page detached. Top and bottom edges untrimmed. Poor condition but for the age in good shape for a cheaply made and well read paperback. A museum piece. This is a very rare surviving paperback from the publisher Jeremiah H. Farrell. One of three main publishers of erotica of the time, According to Comstock (famous New York prosecutor of obscenity) "Farrell published about 109 different books. He had been at it about sixteen years, at the time of his death in 1873." The story was written by George Thompson who was the most prolific author of American erotica of the mid-nineteenth century, who got his start in Boston and later relocated to New York. Thompson wrote under numerous pseudonyms. The name of Charles Paul de Kock (a popular French novelist of the time) was a popular pseudonym of erotic work in America for obvious reasons.
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Tableau de l’amour conjugal, ou l'Histoire complète de la génération de l’homme, Nicolas Venette (Claude Joly, Cologne 1712) 3.75"x6", 22+384pp +4, full calf, 5 raised bands, gilt titles and decorations on spine, front boards loose, good condition for age. Illustrated throughout. Nicolas Venette (1633–1698) was a physician, sexologist and French writer. Born in La Rochelle, he studied medicine at Bordeaux where he received his doctorate in 1656. He then went to Paris where he studied under Guy Patin and Pierre Petit, before travelling to Spain, Portugal and Italy. He then returned to La Rochelle, where he became Regius Professor of Anatomy and Surgery in 1668. First published in Amsterdam in 1686 as Tableau de l'amour humain considéré dans l'état du mariage (Table of human love considered in the state of marriage) under the pseudonym Salocini Venetian (anagram of Nicolas Venette), this book, more properly titled Table of conjugal love, or the complete history of the generation of man, is considered to be the first treatise on sexology in West. It proved to be a bestseller and was translated into English, Spanish, German and Dutch. There were 33 editions published sporadically until 1903. This is a rare earlier version, published in 1712. The author discusses four sub-topics with respect to sex: anatomy, reproduction, desire, and impotence/infertility. For each topic, he reviews ancient and medieval authors, adding his own observations or those of later authors, and comments where common sense prevails. The resulting composition has an ambiguous mixture of seriousness and light-heartedness bordering upon erotic literature.
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Out of stockDr. Julius Rosenbaum, trans. (from German) by "An Oxford M.A." (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1901) 9" X 5.5" 2 vol., xxxvi 297pp. (3 pages of ads), v. 342pp. Hardbound 1/2-bound in vellum over decorated boards, gilt lettering on spine, top edge gilt, other edges deckle. Marlbled endpapers. Very good condition, binding tight #84/500
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Etude Sur La Bestialite Au Point de Vue Historique, Medical et Juridique, G. Dubois-Desaulle (Charles Carrington, Paris, 1905, #437/500, printed Felix Guy et Cie, Aleçon) 10"x7.25", 2 volumes, xii+443pp, Holland paper , modern binding half-calf over red boards, gilt title and decorations on spine, original paper covers bound inside, fore and bottom edges deckled, some pages uncut, very good condition for age, clean. Study of bestiality from the historical, medical and legal point of view. A very nice copy of a VERY rare book.
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Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure or The Life of Fanny Hill, John Cleland (Hoboken, np, 1929 [Philadelphia?] limited edition #621/700 first edition) 5 3/4″ X 8 1/4″, 211pp, quarter-bound red cloth over decorated boards, white label affixed to spine, color illustrations (rare) in an “art deco” style in similar to Aubrey Beardsley [or Elliot Dodd], excellent condition for age. Written while the author was in debtor’s prison in London and first published in 1749, Fanny Hill is considered the first original English prose pornography, and the first pornography to use the form of the novel. One of the most prosecuted and banned books in history, it has become a synonym for obscenity. The Hoboken copies of Fanny Hill are quite rare. This is the first edition original published c. 1929 with color illustrations and is extremely rare. An other edition appeared c. 1932 with the illustrations in black and white. It is unknown who the artist is but the illustrations are quite detailed and good.
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The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio, Giovanni Boccaccio, trans. John Payne, illust. Louis Chalon (Lawrence and Bullen, London, 1893, #32/1000 hand numbered, first edition thus) 11.25" X 7.5", 325pp 383pp, hardcover, half red morocco over red pebbled boards, gilt titles and decorations on spine, five raised bands, laid paper, top-edge gilt, marbled end papers, 15 full-page B&W Illustrations with tissue guards, good condition for age, some bumping to corners and slight wear, front endpapers on vol. 2 becoming detached but holding, a rare leather-bound copy of an low numbered limited edition. This is a beautifully leather-bound, nicely illustrated late nineteenth century edition of The Decameron from Lawrence and Bullen. The Decameron, (subtitled Prencipe Galeotto or Prince Galehaut), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. To make their exile more pleasant each of the ten tells the others one story every day. The Decameron records the narratives of ten days -- 100 stories. Boccaccio probably conceived of The Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. These tales run the entire range of human emotion: grief, love, humor, anger, revenge. Many are based on oral folklore. Boccaccio's ten narrators thus retell already familiar stories about errant priests, rascally husbands, and mischievous wives. Variants of these stories are known in many cultures, but no one formulates them more cleverly or relates them more eloquently than does Boccaccio. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence, it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose. Arthur Henry Bullen, often known as A. H. Bullen, (1857-1920) was an English editor and publisher, and a specialist in 16th and 17th century literature. His father George Bullen was librarian at the British Museum. A. H. Bullen's interest in Elizabethan dramatists and poets started at the City of London School, before he went to Worcester College, Oxford to study classics. His publishing career began with a scholarly edition of the Works of John Day in 1881 and continued with series of English Dramatists and a seven-volume set of Old English Plays, some of which he had discovered in manuscript and published for the first time. Bullen wrote more than 150 articles for the Dictionary of National Biography, lectured on Elizabethan dramatists at Oxford University and taught at Toynbee Hall. In 1891 he and H. W. Lawrence went into partnership as the publishers Lawrence & Bullen. This lasted until 1900 when Bullen moved on to publish as A. H. Bullen. With Frank Sidgwick as partner, he then formed the Shakespeare Head Press for which he is most known.
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The Decameron, Giovanni Boccaccio, trans. John Payne, illus. Clara Tice (Boni & Liveright, New York, 1925, signed and hand numbered by “Boni and Liveright” #908/2000) 7.25″x10.5″, 2 vol., xxix+374pp, x+355pp, original black blind-stamped cloth boards with gilt titles on spine and decorations on front, boards have a front flap covering the fore-edge, printed on hand-laid paper with frontispiece and illustrations throughout, a beautifully executed edition. The Decameron, (subtitled Prencipe Galeotto or Prince Galehaut), is a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio (1313–1375). The book is structured as a frame story containing 100 tales told by a group of seven young women and three young men sheltering in a secluded villa just outside Florence to escape the Black Death, which was afflicting the city. To make their exile more pleasant each of the ten tells the others one story every day. The Decameron records the narratives of ten days — 100 stories. Boccaccio probably conceived of The Decameron after the epidemic of 1348, and completed it by 1353. These tales run the entire range of human emotion: grief, love, humor, anger, revenge. Many are based on oral folklore. Boccaccio’s ten narrators thus retell already familiar stories about errant priests, rascally husbands, and mischievous wives. Variants of these stories are known in many cultures, but no one formulates them more cleverly or relates them more eloquently than does Boccaccio. In addition to its literary value and widespread influence, it provides a document of life at the time. Written in the vernacular of the Florentine language, it is considered a masterpiece of classical early Italian prose. “This edition of the Decameron has been printed from the Caslon Old Face type set up by the Quinn and Boden Company, Rahway, N.J., on paper specially made by the Reading Paper Mills. The plates for the illustrations were made by the Wilbar Photo-Engraving Company, New York. Printed and bound by the Quinn and Boden Company. The whole plan of the book was made by T. R. Smith and executed by Manuel Komroff. Printed and bound, June, 1925”
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Metamorphoseon libri XV cum notis Th. Farnabii, P. Ovid Nasinis, (Paris, Pierre Esclassan, printed for Joan Blaeu, Amsterdam, 1763) 3.5″x5.75″, 380pp+2, full leather with gilt decorations, 5 raised bands,gilt titles on spine, marbled boards, very good condition for age, frontispiece presumably engraved by Joan Blaeu, some are fold-outs, text in Latin with numerous notes. Joan [Johannes] Blaeu (1596 - 1673) was a Dutch cartographer born in Alkmaar, the son of tne noted cartographer Willem Blaeu. Pierre Esclassan (1643?-1718) was a bookseller and printer. He was born in Garans, Toulouse, France and apprenticed with Claude Thiboust, eventually becoming a partner. He was imprisoned in 1674-75 for the printing and trade in prohibited books along with his brother and fellow printer Dominique Esclassan and accomplice Louis Prussurot. He was sentenced to a fine and a 9 banishment but then the same year pardoned by the court. He continued to work in association with Claude Thiboust and then 1694 Caude’s son, Claude-Louis Thiboust, until his death in 1718. Decorations on the front and back covers say "IESVS MARIA" which could possibly indicate that it is from Congrégation des Religeuses de Jésus-Marie (founded in 1815, in France by Claudina Thévenet) or possibly bound for Francisco de Jesus Maria Sarmento (1713-1790), (author, jurist, theologian) or someone from the Jesus Maria family originally from Coimbra, Portugal. More research would need to be done to determine the true meaning of the decoration. Ovid (Pūblius Ovidius Nāsō, 43BC – 17/18AD) was a Roman poet who lived during the reign of Augustus. He was a contemporary of the older Virgil and Horace, with whom he is often ranked as one of the three canonical poets of Latin literature. Although Ovid enjoyed enormous popularity during his lifetime, in 8AD the emperor Augustus banished him to a remote province on the Black Sea, where he remained until his death. The first major Roman poet to begin his career during the reign of Augustus, Ovid is today best known for the Metamorphoses, a 15-book continuous mythological narrative written in the meter of epic, and for works in elegiac couplets such as Ars Amatoria ("The Art of Love") and Fasti. His poetry was much imitated during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and greatly influenced Western art and literature. The Metamorphoses remains one of the most important sources of classical mythology. The Metamorphoses (from Ancient Greek: μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations") is an 8 AD Latin narrative poem by the Roman poet Ovid, considered his magnum opus. Comprising 11,995 lines, 15 books and over 250 myths, the Metamorphoses is comprehensive in its chronology, recounting the creation of the world to the death of Julius Caesar, which had occurred only a year before Ovid's birth; it has been compared to works of universal history, which became important in the 1st century BC. In spite of its apparently unbroken chronology, scholar Brooks Otis has identified four divisions in the narrative: Book I – Book II (end, line 875): The Divine Comedy Book III – Book VI, 400: The Avenging Gods Book VI, 401 – Book XI (end, line 795): The Pathos of Love Book XII – Book XV (end, line 879): Rome and the Deified Ruler Ovid works his way through his subject matter, often in an apparently arbitrary fashion, by jumping from one transformation tale to another, sometimes retelling what had come to be seen as central events in the world of Greek mythology and sometimes straying in odd directions. It begins with the ritual "invocation of the muse", and makes use of traditional epithets and circumlocutions. But instead of following and extolling the deeds of a human hero, it leaps from story to story with little connection. The recurring theme, as with nearly all of Ovid's work, is love—be it personal love or love personified in the figure of Amor (Cupid). Indeed, the other Roman gods are repeatedly perplexed, humiliated, and made ridiculous by Amor, an otherwise relatively minor god of the pantheon, who is the closest thing this putative mock-epic has to a hero. Apollo comes in for particular ridicule as Ovid shows how irrational love can confound the god out of reason. The work as a whole inverts the accepted order, elevating humans and human passions while making the gods and their desires and conquests objects of low humor. The Metamorphoses ends with an epilogue (Book XV.871–9), one of only two surviving Latin epics to do so. The ending acts as a declaration that everything except his poetry—even Rome—must give way to change: Now stands my task accomplished, such a work As not the wrath of Jove, nor fire nor sword Nor the devouring ages can destroy. One of the most influential works in Western culture, the Metamorphoses has inspired such authors as Dante Alighieri, Giovanni Boccaccio, Geoffrey Chaucer, and William Shakespeare. Numerous episodes from the poem have been depicted in acclaimed works of sculpture, painting, and music.
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Nouvelles de Jean Boccace, Giovanni Boccaccio, trans. Mirabeau, illus. Marillier, engraved by Ponce [according to the Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, "Illustrated by Clément Pierre Marillier, Engraved by Wilbrode-Magloire-Nicolas Courbe, Engraved by Remi Henri Joseph Delvaux, Engraved by Nicholas Ponce, Etched by Devilliers, Author Giovanni Boccaccio, Publisher L. Duprat, Letellier et Cie, Printer A. Egron"] (Chez L. Duprat, Paris, 1802) 8" X 5.25", 4 vol. xx 304pp, 273pp, 243pp, 293pp, leather bound with gilt decorations on spine and around edges of boards, marbled end papers, armorial bookplate of the Earl of Normanton on all vols. gilt edges (mostly soiled). Owner's signature on front pages "A. Baillu 1819" Ribbons intact. Numerous beautifuly and detailed plates throughout. Good condition for age. Honoré Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau (1749-1791) was a French writer, popular orator and statesman (who communicated with Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin). He is remembered for his books Erotica biblion, Ma conversion, and his love letters to Sophie which written during his imprisonment at the donjon de Vincennes between 1777-1780 (while another prisoner, the Marquis de Sade was also incarcerated there. Yes, they met... No, they didn't like each other.) This book was also written in the Vincennes prison. According to Mirabeau's biography this was a "collection presented as a translation of Boccaccio, but which, as the author himself confesses in his introduction, is nothing more than simple sketches of some of the tales in the Decameron.... Mirabeau imitated some of the licentious tales which alone are known to the general reader, but took no notice of the other articles which abound in the Decameron, because they neither suited his views nor the public taste." A beautiful and rare book with exquisite engravings. This book is in the collection at the MFA-Boston and other museums.