Les dessous de la pudibonderie anglaise expliqués dans les divorces anglais (The Basics of English Prudishness Explained in English Divorces)

Description

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 (Conversation is an old expression for sexual intercourse that is obsolete except as part of this term.)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.