Eighteenth-Century Erotic Texts Online

Facsimile Texts and Downloadable pdfs

Below are links to eighteenth-century editions of works I include in my Checklist of Eighteenth-Century Erotica (2004) that are on Google Books, The Internet Archive, etc. There are very few online, but I'll add items as I find them.

[UPDATE: 14 July 2013 There has been a significant increase in the number of these texts online, largely due to the appearance of texts from the Remota collection at the Bavarian State Library in 2011, which I am now discovering. This collection includes most of the most significant works of eighteenth-century erotica known to survive. It also includes a few of the of the few most important late seventeenth-century works, translations of European erotica which constituted the hard core of pornographic texts available in the eighteenth-century. Despite the incongruity of including seventeenth-century works here, I am including them anyway because of their significance.

UPDATE: 12 May 2017 A further increase has occured to this list as works from the British Library's Private Case are appearing on Google Books; I have also recently updated a series of dead links, including the URL for John Wilkes, An Essay on Woman—one of the most pornographic pieces of from the period—which has changed three times since I added it!]

Michel Millot, The School of Venus, Or The Ladies Delight Reduced into Rules of Practice. Being the Translation of the French L’Escoles des filles. In Two Dialogues (1680)

The Dutch Riddle: Or, a Character of a Hairy Monster, Often Found in Holland, Etc. (n.d. [1706?]).

Ned Ward, The Pleasures of a Single Life: or, The miseries of Matrimony (1709)

Wit and Mirth; Or, Pills to Purge Melancholy. Vol. 1, 4th ed. (1714)
Wit and Mirth; Or, Pills to Purge Melancholy. Vol. 2, 3rd ed. (1712)
Wit and Mirth; Or, Pills to Purge Melancholy. Vol. 3, 3rd ed. (1712)
Wit and Mirth; Or, Pills to Purge Melancholy. Vol. 4, 2nd ed. (1709)

The Life Of the late Celebrated Mrs. Elizabeth Wisebourn, Vulgarly call’d Mother Wybourn ([1721]; rpt. 1885)

The Benefits and Privileges of Cuckolds (1728)

The Merry-Thought: Or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1, 3rd ed. (1731)
The Merry-Thought: Or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 2. (1733)
The Merry-Thought: Or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 3. (1734)
The Merry-Thought: Or, The Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 4. (1735)

The Ladies Delight (1740)

A Merry Allegorico-Botanico-Badinical Piece; Or, The Natural History of the Arbor Vitæ: Or the Tree of Life (1740)

["The Cabinet of Love" (5 poems)] in The Works Of the Earls of Rochester etc. (1718), vol.2, 193–223.
["The Cabinet of Love" (10 poems)] in The Works Of the Earls of Rochester etc. (1739), vol.2, 178–216. [Bavarian State Library copy]
["The Cabinet of Love" (10 poems)] in The Works Of the Earls of Rochester etc. (1739), vol.2, 178–216. [Lyon Public Library copy]
["The Cabinet of Love" (10 poems)] in The Works Of the Earls of Rochester etc. (1752), vol.2, 137–67. [National Library of the Netherlands copy]
["The Cabinet of Love" (10 poems)] in The Works Of the Earls of Rochester etc. (1752), vol.2, 137–67. [Ghent University copy]

The School of Venus: Or, The Lady's Miscellany, 2nd. ed. (1739)

The Tryal of a Cause for Criminal Conversation, Between Theophilus Cibber … and William Sloper (1739)

Nicolas Chorier, A Dialogue Between A Married Lady And A Maid (1740)

The Secret History Of Betty Ireland. Who was trepann’d into marriage at the age of fourteen (1740; rpt. ca. 1788)

The Secret History Of Betty Ireland. Who was trepann’d into marriage at the age of fourteen (1740; rpt. ca. 1790)

William Hatchett, A Chinese Tale (1740)
William Hatchett, A Court Lady's Curiosity … A Chinese Novel (1741) NEW

The Potent Ally; Or, Succours from Merryland, 2nd ed. (1741). ¶ Contains three poems in praise of condoms.

A Voyage to Lethe (1741; rpt. 1885) [University of Michigan copy]
A Voyage to Lethe (1741; rpt. 1885) [Jack Horntip copy; OCR text and PDF]

Thomas Stretser, A New Description of Merryland, 8th ed. (1741?)
Thomas Stretser, A New Description of Merryland, 10th ed. (1742).

Eliza Haywood, Ab.56.3 The Sopha: A Moral Tale, vol.1 (1742; rprt. 1787) NEW
Eliza Haywood, Ab.56.3 The Sopha: A Moral Tale, vol.2 ("1783" [=1787]) NEW

The Machine: Or, Love's Preservative (1744)

John Cleland, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749), vol. 1., vol. 2. [1st ed. at EuGMu]
Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749; rpt. 1888) [Jack Horntip copy; OCR text and PDF]
John Cleland, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1749) [Project Gutenberg EBook]
John Cleland, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure ("1749") [a reprint edition], vol. 1. [EuGMu]
John Cleland, Nouvelle traduction de woman of pleasure, ou fille de joie … Avec figures (1793) [illustrated translation], vol. 1., vol. 2. [EuGMu]

Les Bijoux Indiscrets. Or, The Indiscreet Toys (1749), vol.1, vol.2. [Oxford University copy]
Les Bijoux Indiscrets. Or, The Indiscreet Toys (1749), vol.1 only. [Bavarian State Library copy]

The Harlot's Progress: Being the Life of the Noted Moll Hackabout. In Six Hudibrastick Canto's, 6th ed. (1753).

A New Atalantis, for the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Sixty (1760) [pdf file of text]

John Henry Meibomius, The Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs (1761; rpt. 1872) [University of Toronto copy; temporarily(?) unavailable]
John Henry Meibomius, The Use of Flogging in Venereal Affairs (1761; rpt. 1872) [New York Public Library copy]

John Wilkes, An Essay on Woman (1772; ca. 1763). ¶ two copies bound together; the first is a spurious edition, printed in red; the second is genuine, and the earliest known.

Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1765)
Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1783)
Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1786)
Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1787) [Bavarian State Library; Wellcome Library]
Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1788) [Project Gutenberg ebook]
Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1789)
Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1793) [transcript]
Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies (1794)

The Gentleman's Bottle-Companion (1768)

The Pleasures of a Single Life; Or, The Miseries of Matrimony ([1770?])

The Covent-Garden magazine; or, Amorous repository, vol.1 (1772), vol.2 (1773), vol.3 (1774), vol.4 (1775)

Ranger’s Impartial List of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh (1775) [transcript]

The Frisky Songster (1776)

Trials for Adultery, or, The History of Divorces, vol. 1 (1779)
Trials for Adultery, or, The History of Divorces, vol. 2 (1779)
Trials for Adultery, or, The History of Divorces, vol. 3 (1779)
Trials for Adultery, or, The History of Divorces, vol. 4 (1780)
Trials for Adultery, or, The History of Divorces, vol. 5 (1780)
Trials for Adultery, or, The History of Divorces, vol. 6 (1780)
Trials for Adultery, or, The History of Divorces, vol. 7 (1780)

"Ned Ward Junior", The Comforts of Matrimony; or Love's Last Shift (1780)

The new Covent-Garden Register; being Secret Memoirs of some celebrated Ladies of P******e of the present Time ([1783])

Madame Birchini's Dance (1783; rpt. 1872) [University of Toronto copy; temporarily(?) unavailable]

Exhibition of Female Flagellants, part 1. (1784; rpt. 1872) [University of Toronto copy; temporarily(?) unavailable]
Exhibition of Female Flagellants, part 2. (1785; rpt. 1872) [University of Toronto copy; temporarily(?) unavailable]

The Nightly Sports Of Venus; Or, The Pleasures of Coition. With The Humourous Tale Of The Three Monks ([1785?])

Lady Bumtickler's Revels (1786; rpt. 1872) [University of Toronto copy; temporarily(?) unavailable]

Sublime of Flagellation (1787; rpt. 1872) [University of Toronto copy; temporarily(?) unavailable]

Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, [1st ed.] (1785)
Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd ed. (1788)
Francis Grose, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 3rd ed. (1796)

The Festival of Love; Or, A Collection Of Cytherean Poems, 3rd ed. ([1791])
The Festival of Love; Or, A Collection Of Cytherean Poems, 4th ed. ([1793])

Robert Burns, Merry Muses of Caledonia (1799; rpt. 1965)

[UPDATED 4 February 2018]