The Australian Fanny Hill

Apparently, "one of the few objectionable productions of the Australian press" (*) appeared in 1878: The Life of Emily Duncan; an Autobiography; with Introduction by Robert Coles (Sydney, N.S.W., 1878).

Information about this Aussie Fanny Hill appears as item 521 in Bibliotheca Arcana seu Catalogus Librorum Penetralium (London: George Redway, 1885), a bibliography of erotica that appeared under the authorship of "Speculator Morum," but which is generally ascribed to Sir William Laird Clowes (see here).

Bibliotheca Arcana seems to have been based on a mix of entries taken from two erotic bibliographies by Henry Spencer Ashbee, and cuttings from contemporary, unidentified booksellers' catalogues. (I discuss this item in my post on "An 1886 review of Bibliotheca Arcana" here.)

Sadly, The Life of Emily Duncan is not known to survive, and is not known from any other source (i.e., it is not cribbed from Ashbee, and does not appear in any surviving bookseller's catalogue, bibliography etc.)

Clowes, however, reproduces more than the just the title of this volume. From him, we learn that it was published in Sydney in twelve octavo sheets (192pp: xxiv, 168).

The text is characterised as follows by Clowes:

One of the few objectionable productions of the Australian press. Emily Duncan, a woman of some personal attractions, kept a house of ill-fame in Sydney, some years ago; and, after her retirement, wrote this life of herself her paramour, Robert Coles, contributing a preface, in which the authoress's charms are very minutely described.

Alfred Rose simplifies this characterisation as follows (Registrum Librorum Eroticorum (1936), 1.197 (no.2645), citing Bibliotheca Arcana 521): "An Australian work similar to 'Fanny Hill'.”

I have been unable to identify either the Sydney Madam Emily Duncan (active, I would guess, in the 1870s) or her paramour, Robert Coles. It would not be very surprising that both the names and the place of publication are fictitious. But it would be nice to examine the book itself for further clues, to identify either the printer, or Ms Duncan.

* !! I imagine there were citizens of Sydney who, in 1885, would have thought that there were a great many productions of the Australian press that were "objectionable." However, the only other item printed in Sydney in either Clowes's or Rose's bibliographies is the 1925, Fanfrolico Press edition of Lysistrata illustrated by Norman Lindsay (Registrum Librorum Eroticorum (1936), 1.204; no.2743).

Melbourne appears twice in Rose (but not in Clowes), once for W. J. Chidley's The Answer (1.64; no. 838) and once for Tales of the Villa Brigitte, translated from the French by M.A. Oxon (London [and] Melbourne: H. J. Vicar, Sons [and] Co., 1910), 2 vols (2.329; no. 4444)—but this is something to explore on another day.