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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. -
The Rahnghild Edition of: Venus in Furs, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, illustrated by Rahnghild [Susan Inez Aguerra?] (William Faro, Inc [Samuel Roth, New York], 1932) 6.5"x9.25", 240pp, brown cloth boards with pasted title on spine, some soiling on front paste-down but overall a clean copy, beautiful art-deco illustrations throughout. 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. Samuel Roth (1893-1974) was an infamous American publisher and writer. He had a bookstore, Poetry Shop in the West Village section of Greenwich Villiage. He was the plaintiff in Roth v. United States (1957), which was a key Supreme Court ruling on freedom of sexual expression. He was also repeatedly convicted for publishing and distributing obscene material.
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Ex Libris Mario de Filippis (signed) 5 x 4", signed on the front and back in pencil, presumably by artist Woman, man on horseback in front of Italian architecture and a silhouette of Michelangelo's David One of the most important (and largest) collections of ex libris in the world belongs to Mario De Filippis, the owner of Buca di San Francesco restaurant in Arezzo Italy. He has over 130,000 ex libris in his collection, approximately 13,000 are personal ex libris plates he's commissioned from artists all over the world using a multitude of printing techniques. His website describes Mario as "a passionate lover of small graphics". -
Ex Libris Nagi Arpad Daniel - Tartu 3.5 x 4.75", signed on the back, presumably by and for the Estonian artist, Arpad Daniel Nagy, Tartu is a city in Estonia nude woman sitting on rock in the water, behind her a bridge. Arpad Daniel Nagy was a creative visual artist. Arpad Daniel Nagy was born in 1922 and died in 1985. Arpad Daniel Nagy was largely inspired by the 1930s growing up. The period of the 1930s is characterised by the conflict between a number of political ideologies, including Marxist Socialism, Capitalist Democracy, and the Totalitarianism of both Communism and Fascism. Artistic output in the United States was heavily impacted at the time by the Great Depression, and a number of artists took to focusing on ideas of humility and the ordinary man. For the first time in US history, artists began to explore into political subjects and attempted to use their art to impact society. Themes such as poverty, lack of affordable housing, anti-lynching, anti-fascism, and workers' strikes were prevalent in many artists’ work. In the Soviet Union, Stalin’s government required urgent funds to implement the rapid industrialisation demanded by the first Five Year Plan. It initiated a secret plan to sell off treasures from the State Hermitage Museum in Leningrad (St. Petersburg), including a primary list of two hundred and fifty rare paintings by the Old Masters, many which found their way to the collection of Andrew Mellon via the New York based art dealing company, Knoedler. Surrealism continued to dominate in Europe, and had influence on an international scale. Artists such as Frida Kahlo and Diego Riviera in Mexico, worked to incorporate the ideas posed by Surrealism into their radical political ideologies, developing a new kind of magic realism. The decade took a ominous turn with the birth of National Socialism in Germany, followed by Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933. By the end of the 1930s, the Second World War had begun; which preoccupied both artists and the global population. -
Ex Libris Sergei 3.5 x 4.75", signed on the back nude woman with books -
Ex Libris Sergei Brehhov 4.5 x 5.5", signed on the back Adam and Eve -
Ex Libris B Lück 3 x 4.25", black ink on paper naked woman tree -
Ex Libris Brehhov S. A. 3 x 4", black ink on paper, presumably Sergio A. Brehhov naked woman holding a book -
Ex Libris V. Krumpky (signed) 4.75 x 6.75", black ink on paper signed by artist on the front in pencil -
Ex Libris (beast, woman, child) 3 x 4", black ink on paper writing (presumably the artist's name) on the back -
Ex Libris Rethy Istvan 3.25 x 5.75", affixed to black paper Pan worshiping a naked women holding a pitcher -
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Ex Libris MG 2.75 x 5", unknown origin naked women with pitcher -
Ex Libris (signed) 4 x 5.5", unknown origin, purchased from a collection in Italy, signed by the artist naked women with books -
Ex Libris (name in Cyrillic) 4 x 3", unknown origin, purchased from a collection in Italy naked woman lying on her back, legs up, with bottle. Artist name written on back in pencil (unintelligible). -
Ex Libris H.E. McD, by Franz von Bayros 4 x 4.5" red ink, previously pasted as evident by top part of back naked girl, animals, and child, presumably Ex libris for Horace E. McDonald 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. -
Ex Libris H.E. McD, by Franz von Bayros 4 x 4.5" brown/black ink, previously pasted as evident by top part of back naked girl, animals, and child, presumably Ex libris for Horace E. McDonald 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. -
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 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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Nell in Bridewell (Lenchen im Zuchthause): Description of the System of Corporal Punishment (Flagellation) in the Female Prisons of South Germany up to the year 1848; a contribution to the history of manners., W. Reinhard, trans. W.C. Costello Ph. D. and A. R. Allinson M. A. (Psych Press [New York], 1932) 9 5/8" X 6 1/2", 326pp, hardbound, black cloth spine over orange cloth boards, gilt lettering and bands on spine, fore and bottom edge deckle, just good condition, soiling and rubbing on front cover, interior clean, some pages unopened, ex libris Joe H. and Bertha M. Shryock Although the title suggests that this is a "study", it goes beyond the facts and delves into the minds of those who are doing the punishing and those who are being humiliated and punished. Publishers of these "flagellation novels" would often lesson their liability by representing their books as academic studies. Often they would go unnoticed by the larger community unaware of the erotic nature of such a book to a certain segment of the public. In this book, Nell describes in graphic terms the merciless floggings she witnessed of girls and young women, as well as of boys and men and confesses to disturbingly confusing emotions that such sights occasioned in her. She recalls the lustful expressions on the faces of the onlookers, records the fervent words of gratitude to the skillful flogger from the lips of grand ladies who "were only too delighted to see such girls whipped", and tells of the evidently sensual appetites such cruelties incited in the torturers. This edition is a facsimile reprint of Carrington's 1900 translation. Added to it are very nice illustrations [woodcuts?] by an unknown artist. -
La poésie priapique dans l'antiquité et au moyen age [Priapic poetry in antiquity and the middle ages], ed. Marcel Coulon, 1 original wood engraving by V. Le Campion, 2 original brass engravings by P. Dubreuil (Éditions du Trianon, Paris, 1932, printed by Les Presses de Massoul, #119 of 750) 7.75"x6.25", 166pp+index, 3/4 bound red calf over marbled boards, gilt title on cover and spine, original french wraps bound in, marbled end papers, near fine condition, ribbon intact, pages clean. A history of priapic literature covering folklore, poetry, Priapus, mythology, homosexuality in the ancient world.
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