Gems of British social history series, 1978–1982

Between 1978 and 1982, Paul Harris published six facsimiles of eighteenth and nineteenth century erotic texts under the series title: "Gems of British social history series".

For the record, these six volumes are:

1. Directory Of the Ladies of Pleasure in Edinburgh [1775] (1978)
2. The Gentleman's Bottle Companion [1768] (1978)
3. The Secret Cabinet of Robert Burns [aka The Merry Muses of Caledonia] (1979)
4. Low Life in Victorian Edinburgh [1851] (1980)
5. Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies Or Man of Pleasure's Kalender for the Year 1793 (1982)
6. Records of the Most Ancient and Puissant Order of the Beggar's Benison and Merryland, Anstruther (1982)

I bought a copy of The Gentleman's Bottle Companion facsimile in 1989, but now have all four of the eighteenth century texts (nos. 1, 2, 3, 5). I have long considered the Beggar's Benison and Merryland volume to be a nineteenth century fabrication, but I am beginning to change my mind on this.

* * * * *

Regarding no.2: in 2000, when Alexander Pettit and I first started work on our five-volume anthology of Eighteenth Century British Erotica (2002), I was tasked with choosing the texts. Since I wanted to include The Gentleman's Bottle Companion, and could find no record of it in any library, I tried to get in touch with Harris.

In early 2001, after spamming a series of publishers that he had work with (Beekhan Publishers in New York, the US distributor for his facsimiles; Werner Shaw Limited, who had published one of his books, etc.), I managed to reach him, in East Timor of all places.

Little did I know what a wild life Harris had been living since he published his facsimile in 1978. His 2009 autobiography is titled More Thrills than Skills: adventures in journalism, war and terrorism, having become a war corresponded, covering eighteen wars between 1991 and 2001 (for basic details, see Wikipedia.)

Astonishingly, it turned out that, no only did he actually own the original, and still the only known, copy of The Gentleman's Bottle Companion, but he had it with him in East Timor! Somehow, I persuaded him to sell it to Monash. I don't have any of the emails from that far back, but from memory it wasn't actually that difficult to persuade him. I think he was probably quite happy to see the book go somewhere safe, or safer than where he was. He must have been feeling the burden of responsibility for preserving, in the middle of a war zone, the only known copy of such a book.

Although he was glad to sell the book, he knew what it was worth, so there was no chance I could buy it myself. He asked something like A$5000, ten to twenty times the amount I usually had in the bank at the time. I am not sure how I managed to persuade the bank to extend my credit that far, but they did, and quickly. I sent the money before he could reconsider, the book was sent, Monash reimbursed me, and by the end of 2001 I was able to supply Pickering and Chatto with a fresh copy of the book for our Eighteenth Century British Erotica, with Monash as the holding library.

Unfortunately, although I once had it in my house, and included it in an exhibition I curated on "Lewd and Scandalous Books" in 2010, I have no photo of it. No image of the book is included in the catalogue, which you can download here. However, there is a facsimile of the title-page and an OCR scan of the text here.

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.

An 1886 review of Bibliotheca Arcana

The rather harsh review of Bibliotheca Arcana seu Catalogus Librorum Penetralium (1885) below seems to have attracted no notice at all. This is not terribly surprising since this erotic bibliography has attracted little comment of any scope beyond its authorship (generally ascribed to Sir William Laird Clowes, see here).

The page-long review appeared in Book-lore: A Magazine Devoted to Old Time Literature, vol. 3 (January 1886): 53 (here). In this review, the reviewer complains that "the compilation"—"it is nothing better"—had been "put together without system or classification," that it "displays neither grasp of the subject, critical acumen, nor bibliographical treatment," and that it has "the appearance of cuttings from a bookseller’s catalogue" rather "than notices by a bibliographer."

The reviewer goes on to note "the influence of two much more important and thoroughly done bibliographies" on Bibliotheca Arcana. The bibliographies are not named, but those with a copy of the book being reviewed could follow the opaque references provided to identify these as two erotic bibliographies by Henry Spencer Ashbee.

In 1982, Patrick Kearney simply echoes these anonymous complaints, when he describes the Bibliotheca Arcana as "heavily cribbed" from Ashbee's erotic bibliographies, and that (an unspecified number of) entries had "been culled from unidentified sale catalogues" (A History of Erotic Literature (1982), 13).

In 2017, Sarah Bull repeated Kearney's observations (without citation) when she states that "The composition of Clowes's Bibliotheca Arcana … is so similar [to the works of Ashbee] that the bibliographer has often been accused of plagiarizing Ashbee's work" ("Reading, Writing, and Publishing an Obscene Canon: The Archival Logic of the Secret Museum, c. 1860–c. 1900," Book History, Vol. 20 (2017), 230 [emphasis added]).

In his Clandestine Erotic Fiction in English, 1800–1930 (1993), Peter Mendes included a "Checklist of Clandestine Catalogues, 1885–c. 1930." This checklist includes a catalogue from January 1899 by Charles Carrington that mirrors the title of Clowes's Bibliotheca Arcana:

To be kept under Lock-and-Key. Bibliotheca Arcana. Being a rough list of rare, curious and uncommon books, pamphlets, prints & engravings that have been Privately Printed, Prohibited by Law, Seized, Anathematized, Burnt or Bowdlerized; more particularly, those relating to the Mysteries of Human Affinities, or dealing with the Attractions and Aversions—Vices and Virtues—Loves and Longings—Hates and Failings—Passions and Peculiarities of Live, Moving, Men and Women—and throwing light upon the Psychology of Sex [Held British Library, Cup.364.g.48].

Bull describes the preface to this catalogue as "plagiarizing liberally" from Clowes's Bibliotheca Arcana (249), but does not say anything of the source of the entries.

All I can add regarding this last question—the non-Ashbee material in the Bibliotheca Arcana—is that at least one of the items cribbed from "unidentified sale catalogues" is not known to survive, is not known from any other source (i.e., it is not cribbed from Ashbee): I discuss this item in my post on "The Australian Fanny Hill" (here).

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Bibliotheca Arcana seu Catalogus Librorum Penetralium: being brief notices of books that have been secretly printed, prohibited by law, seized, anathematized, burnt or Bowdlerized. By SPECULATOR MORUM. London: George Redway, MDCCCLXXXV. Small 4to., pp. xxii. 141 and xxv.

WE are always ready to hail with a cordial welcome every book on bibliography, of which the notices are at first-hand, done conscientiously, and de visu[*]. This seems to be the case with the Bibliotheca Arcana, although we must take exception to it on other grounds. The books noticed, the nature of which is sufficiently explained on the title-page, are of a kind which renders it desirable that they should not be made very generally known. Many hold that every book has a utility of some sort, nullus est liber tarn mains qui non exaliqua parte prosit[†]; others that all books, irrespective of their subjects or tendencies, should be catalogued. It is not for us to argue either point here, and as the Bibliotheca Arcana is an expensive publication, is issued, we believe, to subscribers only, and is well printed on excellent paper, its existence may for these reasons be condoned. But we fear it will be found of little service to the bibliophiles, for whom it is evidently destined: it is put together without system or classification; the entries are undigested, and have more the appearance of cuttings from a bookseller’s catalogue than notices by a bibliographer; neither are the works by the same author or the various editions of the same book brought together, but are dispersed in various articles, and spread over several pages; translations are served up as original works; books issued at different times with different titles are treated as distinct works; there are numerous errors which we cannot in this journal paint out. In fact, the compilation (it is nothing better) displays neither grasp of the subject, critical acumen, nor bibliographical treatment. “The entries,” we are told, “have been arranged (?) without any reference either to subjects or authors. The index which is appended will enable the student to classify for himself.” This is all very well, but it is not for the guest to arrange the entertainment to which he is invited.

The preface is the best part of the book. “It would be an interesting task,” writes Speculator Morum, “for an essayist to describe the progress and fortunes of the erotic in art and literature from the earliest times down to the present day, to show how eroticism was in some mysterious way at the root of all ancient religions; and to point out how, instead of being looked askance upon, it was actually favoured and patronized by priests, poets, sculptors, dramatists, and philosophers in the classic ages, which have handed down to us not only literature, but also pictures, statues, and gems, tinged with the most extreme eroticism, and yet truly lovely in their design and workmanship.” Interesting as such a task might be, we doubt whether the author is to be found, at any rate in England, likely to undertake it. We cannot but think that we trace, both in the preface and in the general idea and form of the book itself, the influence of two much more important and thoroughly done bibliographies of the same description of books, lately privately printed, and which are noted in arts. 6 and 7 of the Bibliotheca Arcana [§]. As in the Bibliographic des Ouvrages relatifs a I’Amour of Gay, many books have been introduced which are foreign to the scope of the work; so in Mr. Redway’s compilation there are several articles, among which we may instance Nos. 323, 330, 435, 437, 556, 595, of which we fail to see the raison d’être.

[* from sight]
[† "There is no book so bad that some good cannot be got out of it," a paraphrase of Pliny the Elder]
[§ i.e., Ashbee's Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) and Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (1879); Catena Librorum Tacendorum was not published until 1885, and is not included in the Bibliotheca Arcana]

The myth of a Vatican porn collection

The myth of a vast Vatican collection of erotica or pornography was established sixty years ago, by Ralph Ginzburg.

In his Unhurried View of Erotica (1958), after one hundred pages of broad-brush history, Ginzburg turns to the question of “the whereabouts of the world’s … great collections of erotica”—public and private—which he ranks, according to the size of the collection.

At the top of Ginzburg’s list is the Vatican library, with “25,000 volumes and some 100,000 prints” of erotica, a collection of “hush-hush volumes” significantly larger than that in the Private Case of the British Museum Library (which he estimates to be 20,000 volumes—it is actually more like 2000), and the Enfer of the Bibliothèque Nationale (2,500 volumes).

It is unclear how Ginzburg arrived at this crazy estimate, but most of his figures are inflated. Rather than “25,000 volumes,” the Vatican actually held only fifty-one items in 1936. This figure is the exact number of items recorded by Alfred Rose, compiler of the Registrum Librorum Eroticorum (1936), during his personal investigation of the Vatican’s collection in August 1934.

To put this pip-squeak collection into context, Rose lists over five thousand titles in the Register of Erotic Books. None of the items in the Vatican collection are particularly important—and almost all of them are in Latin, held in a collection of books on the culture of classical antiquity. The only book in English is Hodder Westropp and C. Wake’s Ancient Symbol Worship. Influence of the Phallic idea in the Religions of Antiquity, 2nd ed. (1875). Not exactly a classic of erotic literature.

No writer before Ginzburg appears to have claimed that the Vatican has such a large collection of erotic books, and so I it seems likely that Ginzburg is, in fact, responsible for the myth that the world’s “foremost collection of erotica is in The Vatican Library.”

Prior to Ginzburg, the only scholar to discuss the Vatican collection, commented that the “Enfer” at the Bibliothèque Nationale may have been modelled on a “similar institution [at] the Vatican Library” (Alec Craig, Above all Liberties (1942), 145). The comparison is a little misleading since the Vatican’s collection is limited to blasphemous or heterodox works, whereas those in the Bibliothèque Nationale’s “Enfer” are often indecent, obscene, or pornographic.

After Ginzburg, however, the absurd conspiracy theory, that the Vatican has a “vast,” “comprehensive,” or even “complete” collection of pornography has been endlessly repeated—and endlessly debunked. There are many examples of the ignorant repetition of this myth, which indicate the continuing influence of Ginzburg.

In the 1990s, Julie Peakman revealed the basic misunderstanding that supports Ginzburg’s claim, by conflating the Index Librorum Prohibitorum—the bibliography (published by the Vatican) of books that Catholics were prohibited from owning or reading—with the collection that the Vatican itself held.

(This is like assuming that, just because I compile a bibliography of every work by Eliza Haywood, that I own copies of all of these works. If only that were true! Excuse me while I make a list of the world’s largest diamonds!)

Anyway, Peakman states: “The Vatican’s Index Librorum Prohibitorum, allegedly with the largest collection of books (around 25,000 volumes and 100,000 prints) is ‘forbidden’ to Catholics, and not open to the general public” (Peakman, Mighty Lewd Books (2003), 195).

In the early 2000s, David Isaacson elaborated on this misunderstanding when he cautioned that “only libraries with a special purpose like the Vatican Library’s famous collection of prohibited books, or the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research Library at Indiana University, have the need for comprehensive collections of pornography” (Isaacson, in Selecting Materials for Library Collections (2004), 6).”

My favourite example of this mad conspiracy theory comes from a “Distinguished Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture” at Amherst College—seemingly, one of the top Liberal Arts colleges in America—in a 2005 essay on censorship. In a lovely example of alliterative, hyperbolic over-reach, of grandiloquent ignorance, Prof. Ilan Stavans, refers (here), without irony, to the Vatican’s “very vast holdings on erotica, blasphemy, and freemasonry, among other risqué topics.” Nice.

As I pointed out in my Foxcroft lecture, recently published (and from which the above is an excerpt of sorts), the edition of Westropp and Wake’s Ancient Symbol Worship—held by the Vatican—is also held by the State Library of Victoria. There are also three copies of the first edition of this book in libraries throughout Australia, and there are over twenty more copies available on ABE.

What this means is that, for as little as USD14.50, you can have a Private Case collection that equals the Vatican’s “very vast holdings on erotica” in English.

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Readers will find a link to a YouTube video of my 2016 Foxcroft lecture here. To buy a copy of the (short) book that I based on this lecture, published by the Ancora Press in 2018 in an edition of one hundred copies, contact Kay Craddock - Antiquarian Bookseller.

On Dust Jackets and Literary Damnation in 1785

Below is a short, satiric and amusing account of the often-ironic fate of books and pamphlets in the late eighteenth century. (Remnant, “On Literary Damnation,” The Rambler’s Magazine, 3, no. 10 (October 1785): 383a–b.) Since waste paper had a myriad of uses, any piece of paper not valued for what was printed or written on it was likely to end up as being reused: as pie-bases, wrapping paper or even toilet-paper.

The ignominious fate of the works of unpopular writers was a critical commonplace, as was the destruction of books by the unlettered and ignorant (see, for example, William Blades, The Enemies of Books (1880), here), but two things make this contribution to The Rambler’s Magazine unusual: [1] it mentions scandalous, risqué and erotic works; and [2] it mentions the distribution of unbound books, wrapped in printed wastepaper.

[1]

The Adventures of an Irish Smock (1782), is a particularly-interesting erotic work: it was discussed by me in posts in July and November 2017 (here and here); and is also now the subject of an article I have co-written with Tania Marlowe for Notes and Queries, which is due to be published in July of this year. (Tania was the one who found the present article, and sent it to me for this reason. Thanks Tania.) The Adventures of an Irish Smock was not often mentioned in print (probably because no copy survives in the English-speaking world, and no copy was known until I located one last year), so it is nice to be able to add a contemporary reference, indicating its currency … in certain circles.

Of course, The Rambler’s Magazine was—as the full title suggests—a periodical written for rakes and midnight ramblers (The Rambler’s Magazine; or, The Annals of Gallantry, Glee, Pleasure, and the Bon Tot: Calculated for the Entertainment of the Polite World and to furnish the Man of Pleasure with a Most delicious banquet of Amorous, Baccanalian, Whimsical, Humourous, theatrical and Polite Entertainment).

This magazine was published by the same person who published The Adventures of an Irish Smock: G. Lister. Lister also published The Rover’s magazine, the crim. con. trials of Lady Maria Bayntun, Mrs. Ann Nisbett, Lady Ann Foley and Mrs. Elizabeth Williams, Dr Graham’s Eccentric Lecture On The Art Of Propagating The Human Species, and an edition of The History of Fanny Hill. And so, it is not very surprising that Lister, or his contributor, included a reference to an erotic work he had recently published, and such a well-known risqué title from the 1720s as Callipædia: or, the art of getting beautiful children. A poem, in four books. Written in Latin by Claudius Quillet. Made English by N. Rowe, Esq;.

[2]

The second thing that makes this contribution to The Rambler’s Magazine unusual, is the following: “Remnant” writes, that “on sending to my bookseller for the two volumes of the Irish Smock, I received them inclosed in a sheet of Hints on the Existence of a middle State; and I know a lady who has Fordyce’s Sermons to a Young Woman sent to her in some leaves of begetting Beautiful Children”. Very droll.

In his Nineteenth-Century Dust-Jackets, Mark R. Godburn explains that the unbound sheets of books and pamphlets were (sometimes? often?) wrapped in waste-paper by the printer or binder, and that these ad hoc “enclosures” or "envelopes" were a precursor of the earliest dust-jackets now known: i.e., the enclosure-style jackets found on annuals in the 1820s. The Wikipedia entry on “Dust jacket” suggests only that “Some collections of loose prints were issued at this period in printed paper wrappings” (emphasis added; see here).

Godburn provides details of only one surviving example of these ad hoc, proto-dust-jackets, which dates from the eighteenth-century, but does not quote any contemporary descriptions or accounts of them. The one he mentions (25) is a wrapping made up of two (folio) bifolia from the Rev. T. Johnson's History of Adam and Eve (1740) which are wrapped around "a set of sheets" for the second volume of John Taylor's Hebrew-English Concordance (1757), which survives in the library at Bickling-Hall, Norfolk. (Neither are recorded on ESTC under N8856 (the wrapper; only 3 copies recorded) and T148434 (the concordance; 90 copies)). The wrapping is hand-labeled in ink: "Taylors Hebrew [and] English Concordance Vol.2 Sheets".

Godburn mentions two more-formal wrappings (27), one is a sheet, with a printed, 115-word presentation letter, dated 1791 and signed by the author, which survives wrapped around a set of stab-sewn sheets for John de Brahm's Time: An Apparition of Eternity (1791); the other, "printed on its front with the title, author, publisher, illustrator and other information" survives on a set of sheets for Daniel Chodowiecki's Clarissens Schiksale (1796).

This 1785 reference to ad hoc, precursor dust-jackets is later than Godburn's surviving exemplar from 1757, and pre-dates the formal wrappers of the 1790s, allowing us to narrow somewhat the change in practice from ad-hoc to more formal wrappers for sheets. I don’t recall seeing any other reference similar to this one in The Rambler’s Magazine; and I have had no luck finding any others using the key words in this passage, so I am guessing that such references are very uncommon. It would be nice to see more; but even if other references are not located, the combination of Godburn’s examples of survivers and this satire establishes the practice.

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For the Rambler’s Magazine. On Literary Damnation.

It may be a pleasing and whimsical consideration to such of your female readers as are acquainted with the manufacture of paper, that their old linen may at some future period return to their fair hands in the shape of an amorous epistle, and that their lovers may have had the honour of taking up their shifts, without being one degree nearer the point of happiness.
 But how very different must be the state of an unlucky author, who finds the offspring of his brain, (which had cost him paternal throes to bring forth) after passing through the purgatory of a pasty cook’s shop, returned to him at the bottom of a raspberry-tart, or a mutton-pie? To what strange uses may things come at last! Many a well-printed sheet of poetry have I seen containing a pound of butter; and twelfth-cake supported by abridgements of the statutes;—I have met with a stitch of bacon covered snugly over with the works of a Jew rabbi; and a pound of snuff wrapped in a Defence against Popery; I once received a dose of physick in Considerations upon our later End; and on sending to my bookseller for the two volumes of the Irish Smock, I received them inclosed in a sheet of Hints on the Existence of a middle State; and I know a lady who has Fordyce’s Sermons to a Young Woman sent to her in some leaves of begetting Beautiful Children. Many pieces of works of merit have I rescued from my hair-dresser, when he was trying the heat of his curling irons; and I seldom go into the necessary without redeeming some favourite performance from an untimely end.
 To enumerate all the instances of this kind would be endless, and too much for my tender nerves, who am uncertain when I next ask for tobacco, whether I may not have this very paper given me to light my pipe.—But there is no helping it.

Let Hercules himself do what he may,
The cat will mew, the dog will have his day.
        Remnant.

Representing Little Merlin’s Cave, 1737 to 1741

I have a pretty limited knowledge of incunabula and post-incunabula printing, but it seems that woodblock images were often copied, re-purposed and re-used. And it seems a quite a lot of book-historical and art-historical research goes into tracing the histories of particular images and tropes, and the work of particular artists. A good example of this sort of scholarship is Charles Zika’s, The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe (London: Routledge, 2007), which traces a myriad of witchy-themed woodblocks between unrelated texts.

Although woodblock printer’s ornaments were copied and frequently re-used in the eighteenth century—I have written a few articles and blog posts on this subject—illustrative artwork, often engraved, appears to have been less frequently copied, or has less often been the subject of book-historical studies. (And here I am excluding commonplace and expected duplication: the copying of engravings between editions or when a work was translated.) Of this type of copying, I can only think of three examples. I mentioned the first of these in a footnote in my article “Imagining Eliza Haywood,” (Eighteenth-Century Fiction, 29, no. 3 (2017): 360n45), as follows:

Although engraved plates could be “transposed from book to book” … this practice appears to have been uncommon. See Thomas Stretser, Merryland Displayed (London: J. Leake, 1741), 16: “after he [Curll] found the Pamphlet pirated, to make his differ from the pirated Editions, he adds a Frontispiece ... This Plate I find was engraved so long ago as the Year 1712, for the use of Mr Rowe’s Translation of Quillet’s Callipædia, then published by Mr. Curll, and has served for several Books since, particularly the Altar of Love, and Mrs. Singer’s Poems.”

The second example I have noticed is the close-copying of the frontispiece from the first volume of The Ladies Library. Written by a Lady. Published by Mr. Steele, 3 vol. (London: Jacob Tonson, 1714), which appears in the third volume of Eliza Haywood’s La Belle Assemblee (London: D. Browne [et al.], 1731). I did a blog post about this almost seven years ago now (here). Although I have two copies of the Haywood volume, I still haven’t picked up a cheap copy of The Ladies Library, so I haven’t been able to update that post with better images. Meh.

The third example I have noticed of this sort of re-use, set out below, is far more interesting in many ways, since it involves erotic artwork and a more varied form of re-use.

* * * * *

An engraved vignette headpiece, with a somatopic design, appears [1] at the start of the text of Little Merlin’s Cave. As it was lately discover’d, by a Gentleman’s Gardener, in Maidenhead-Thicket (London: T. Read, 1737). The design was copied twice and modified to represent “Merryland,” early and late 1741: as [2] the frontispiece to Arbor Vitæ: Or, The Natural History Of The Tree Of Life (London: E. Hill, 1741) and, reversed, as [3] a folding, engraved plate (above) in A New Description of Merryland, “Eight [sic] Edition” (Bath: J. Leake and E. Curll, [1741]).

A few explanations: a somatopia is a literary conceit, in which a utopian landscape is comprised of a human body—almost always a woman’s body. The term was coined by Darby Lewes in 2000. A New Description of Merryland was a hugely popular somatopia written by Thomas Stretser, which I have often mentioned on this blog, and which has its own Wikipedia page (here).

Below are the engraved vignette, frontispiece and folding plate, cropped and reversed (where necessary) to make the comparison easier.

Note how in [1] the recumbent female landscape exists, in 1737, in isolation; later, in [2] early 1741, an erect penis is added in the foreground; later still, in [3] considerable detail is added when the engraving was enlarged, but the view remains unchanged. Below are [1] and [2] with the changed section in a red box for ease of comparison.

At some point in the future I will do a post on Merlin’s Cave in the Royal Gardens at Richmond, created under the direction of Queen Caroline, the elaboration of grottos as sexual metaphors, and the construction of somatopic gardens more generally. For now it is enough to say that “Merlin’s Cave”—an above-ground “grotto”—was the talk of the town in London in the late 1730s. There is an excellent post on this subject, with lots of pictures, here. Omitted from the discussion is the fact that Caroline’s “grotto” was the inspiration for Little Merlin’s Cave. As it was lately discover’d, by a Gentleman’s Gardener, in Maidenhead-Thicket—and the rather naughty series of images above.

Books I never considered indecent, 1836

On 24 October 1836, Selim Cohen was again indicted for stealing at least a dozen books from William Holmes. During his cross-examination, Holmes (who been a bookseller for twenty-six years, and had two shops) reveals his thoughts concerning books which he considered indecent, or not: mostly not.

It seems that Holmes was familiar with a great many books that were usually concidered obscene at the time, and had twice been imprisoned for seditious libels, which may be why Cohen was found not guilty, though it is clear that he stole the books. Since each dash indicates an omitted question, it is quite difficult to understand exactly what was going on in the Old Bailey Proceedings, and how deep a hole Holmes was digging for himself by lying about his past, his activites, being corrected in questioning etc. But I am guessing that, in the same that the copyright laws at the time would not protect you from piracy, if the work concerned was judged to be obscene (which is what happened with Byron's Cain), property laws did not protect you from theft of books judged to be obscene, and the judge may have let Cohen off for this reason.

* * * * *

Testimony of WILLIAM HOLMES: The house I live in and rent is in Holywell-street—the other shop is in Princess-street … memorandum-books are sold in the shop in Princess-street, but no indecent publications—there are not more than one or two engravings there [Princess-street]—in the Holywell-street shop there are some engravings, decent ones, such as may be shown in any window with perfect safety to the morals of the community—that I swear—I dare say the Adventures of an Irish Smock has been sold—I do not know whether I have it for sale—there may be books in that shop that I do not know of—I know a book called Fanny Hill—I believe there is a copy of it in the shop—I have seen a more indecent publication than that, it is a book called Frisky Songs—I bought a copy of that from the prisoner for 1s., to sell again—I cannot mention a more indecent book, and that I sold, but it was not in the shop—it was in my pocket, and not in the shop—I have sold about two or three dozen copies of Fanny Hill—the one I sell is not the most indecent book next to the one I mentioned—I sold the Frisky Songs because I did not with to keep it—I bought it to sell to another bookseller—I know a book called the Female Husband—it is not an immoral book—it is a woman who personated a man, and married several woman—a narrative of what she did is given in it—I should call it her amours—I do not think they are indecent—I do not consider that or the Fanny Hill I sell, are indecent works—I sell Aristotle's Masterpiece—that is considered a medical book—I never considered it indecent—it treats of the differences of the sexes, and of the operations in the womb—I think it does not treat of the operation of getting children—I have read it—I do not think it more indecent than any other medical book—I sell a work called The Poet—I think there are some in the shop—I think it is not an indecent book—it treats of the amours of a Frenchman and woman—there is a frontispiece to the Female Husband—it is a male and female in bed, covered up, and person entering the room.

In sum:

Frisky Songs—"I cannot mention a more indecent book"; it is "more indecent" than Fanny Hill

Fanny Hill—"I do not think [it is] indecent"

Female Husband—"not an immoral book"; "I do not think [it is] indecent"

Aristotle's Masterpiece—"I never considered it indecent", no more "indecent than any other medical book"

The Poet—"I think it is not an indecent book"

Adventures of an Irish Smock—[not characterised]

A few notes: Fanny Hill requires no explanation; The Female Husband is Henry Fielding's account of a notorious 18th-century case of lesbian cross-dressing; Aristotle's Masterpiece is a popular sex manual and midwifery book; I am not familiar with The Poet, and it is the sort of title that defies Google-searching!

Frisky Songs could be any one of a number of similarly-titled (and now, mostly lost) songsters of the variety included in my Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period (2011). The closest title-match is one we did not include: Wilson's frisky songster: the most spicy collections of all the new double entendre, flash and spreeish songs, now singing at the cidar cellars, Coal Hole, Evans's, and all convivial parties (London: John Wilson, n.d. [ca.1830]), which is held in the library at Bateman's, a 17th-century house in East Sussex where Rudyard Kipling lived, and which was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1939.

Adventures of an Irish Smock (1782) is a mysterious erotic work, which I have recently located a copy of in an obscure German library. The full title given in the following advertisement gives a better idea of its contents:

The Adventures of an Irish Smock. Interspersed with ludicrous Anecdotes of a Nankeen Pair of Breeches. Containing, among a great variety of curious connections between the most celebrated Demi-reps and Beaux Garçons upon the Ton. private Intrigues of Lady W—y and Mrs. N—n, never before published; with the whimsical Frolicks of Boarding School Misses, and the Christmas and other Gambols of Maids of Honour. Being a proper companion, particularly at this season, for all men of taste and gallantry, and all females of spirit and intrigue.

And this is what the reviewers had to say:

The Critical Review: One of those pernicious incentives to vice that are a scandal to decency. A common pander, who confines his infamous occupation to the service of the stews, is less injurious to society than such prostituted miscreants as devote their time and attention to corrupt the imaginations of youth. The most ignominious punishment prescribed by our laws is infinitely too slight for offences of so heinous a nature; The English Review: The volume is an indecent and impure farrago; and it would be of service to the community, could a summary method be invented to suppress publications calculated to inflame the youth of both sexes and encourage vice, sensuality, and licentiousness; The Monthly Review: This publication is equally remarkable for its stupidity and obscenity.

It is enough to make you want to read the book, no?

* * * * *

The following section of testimony provides some details of Holmes's scrapes with the law; if you want to read more, see here for the full Old Bailey Proceedings.

Testimony of WILLIAM HOLMES: I have not been all that time [23yrs] in London—I travel in the country—I go to Lincoln sometimes … I have always lived in my own house, or my mother's or my master's, at Lincoln—I was once taken, and slept in jail, but a thing may slip one's memory—that slipped my memory—it was so trifling—I was in jail about a fortnight, till I could procure a sum of money—I was sent there for deserting my wife—I was in jail in town for publishing seditious libels—the first was a letter to Lord Castlereagh, published by Griffiths, in Holborn—I went to jail for six months for that—the second was a letter to the Reformers of England, published by Carlile—I staid in jail two years for that—I think there is no other time—I will swear I have never been in any other jail, or on any other charges than those you have mentioned—nor taken up for any thing else—I am not one of Mr. Carlile's disciples—I believe the Scriptures, and read them in jail the first time I was there—I got into jail again for selling in Mr. Carlile's shop—I always said it was my wife's fault that I got into jail the first time—the Magistrates were kind enough not to commit me, but not gave me time to raise the money—they sent me to Lincoln jail—I did pay the money—because I was too poor—I know perfectly well my wife could procure nutriment from my friends at Lincoln.

In sum: Holmes was in gaol for

"about a fortnight" six months in Lincoln gaol for "for deserting my wife" publishing "a letter to Lord Castlereagh, published by Griffiths, in Holborn"

two years for selling, in Mr. Carlile's shop, "a letter to the Reformers of England, published by Carlile"

Private Case items not on ECCO

While reviewing Patrick Kearney’s two bibliographies of the British Library’s Private Case holdings—his Private Case (1981), which lists items now in the Private Case, and his Supplement (2016), which lists items known to have once been in it—it occurred to me that I could use the data he provides to see whether the Private Case holdings continue to be systematically withheld from ECCO.

I have been curious concerning the presence of Private Case items on ECCO for a while. In my 2011 article “‘The New Machine’: Discovering the limits of ECCO” I mentioned that little of the Private Case material was on ECCO and that the material that had been included at the time of writing had only recently been added (ibid., 441). The main evidence I had to go on was that no Private Case items appear in the first eight thousand reels of the Eighteenth Century microfilm series (the basis of ECCO), and few had appeared thereafter (ibid., 451–52n37). (The first one appears to have been Thomas Stretser's New Description of Merryland, 4th ed. (1741); ESTC: t139065, which appeared on reel 8284 in 1986.)

I recently updated all the information in my Bibliography of Eliza Haywood about items on the Eighteenth Century microfilm series for a forthcoming essay (“The availability of Haywood’s works, editing and issues of bibliography”). And I have also now updated my Checklist of Eighteenth-Century Erotica, using the information from Kearney. I used the updated information about the Haywood corpus as a benchmark for the eighteenth-century works in English either in, or previously in, the Private Case.

My (long) experience using ECCO suggests that Haywood is pretty representative of British Library holdings in general: i.e., that close to three-quarters of all Haywood items on ECCO are sourced from the British Library, and almost everything at the British Library is on ECCO. These proportions seem to be true generally of British Library holdings on ESTC and ECCO.

As I explain below, when I compared the British Library’s holdings of Haywood items with past and present Private Case items, I discovered that, while a similar percentage of Haywood items are on ESTC as are, or were, in the Private Case, it is still the case that, whereas 95% of all Haywood items held in the British Library are on ECCO, less than half of all material that is or was in the Private Case has now been reproduced on ECCO.

That there is little difference between the presence on ECCO of items presently in, versus those once in, the Private Case, suggests that items are not being withheld from ECCO due to access restrictions on the Private Case pressmark. I doubt very much that the material once or now in the Private Case is in significantly worse condition that the many heavily-worn Haywood items I have examined. Consequently, it would seem that the previous and present Private Case items are only being withheld because of the nature of their contents; i.e., because they are works of erotica.

* * * * *

Of the 149 eighteenth-century works in English, recorded by Kearney as being, or having been, held in the British Library’s Private Case, ten are not recorded on ESTC at all (6.7%), a dozen more are not listed as holdings in the relevant ESTC entry (15%), a further forty-nine that are on ESTC, are not reproduced on ECCO and another eleven, which are on ECCO, reproduce copies other than that in the Private Case. Of the seventy-eight items on ECCO (52%), thirty-four are definitely, and thirty-three are probably, sourced from the British Library (45%); “probably” because these items are not identifiable on ECCO by visible pressmarks.

Looking just at the fifty-four eighteenth-century works in English presently in the British Library’s Private Case, three are not recorded on ESTC at all (5.6%), twenty-five that are on ESTC are not reproduced on ECCO (46%) and another four, which are on ECCO, reproduce copies other than that in the Private Case. Of the twenty-nine items on ECCO (54%), seventeen are definitely, and eight are probably, sourced from the British Library.

The data I have on Haywood items is not in a form that facilitates detailed comparison. However, fifteen of the 273 eighteenth-century works in English, which I record in my Bibliography of Eliza Haywood, are not recorded on ESTC at all (5.5%); and of the 180 Haywood items that are reproduced on ECCO, 128 (or 71%) are sourced from the British Library. Fifty-two Haywood items on ECCO are sourced from other libraries (29%), but in only seven of these cases does the British Library also hold the item concerned (5%).

What this means is that a similar percentage of either present (5.6%), or present and previous, Private Case items (6.7%), than Haywood items (5.5%), are missing from ESTC completely; a somewhat lower percentage of present and previous (45%), or present Private Case items (54%), that Haywood items (66%) are on ECCO; but a hugely-higher percentage of either present (54%), or present and previous, Private Case (55%), than Haywood items (5%), which are held by the British Library, are not on ECCO. An item once in, or presently in, the Private Case is over ten times as likely to not appear on ECCO, as a Haywood item.

* * * * *

I will save my data on Kearney for another time, but regarding the Haywood items on the Eighteenth Century microfilm series—and, therefore, on ECCO—128 items are British Library copies. The remaining are from the following libraries: the Bodleian (16), Houghton (9), Huntington (6), National Library of Ireland (6), Clark (5), Boston Public (4), Cambridge (3), and one each from the National Library of Wales, National Library of Scotland, and the Spencer Library.

A Cultural History of the Songster

While Paul Watt and I were working on our four-volume collection Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period (2011), with Derek B. Scott, David Gregory and Ed Cray, we discussed the possibility of continuing our collaboration, and directing scholarly attention to the songsters that were at the heart of the collection, by holding a conference and/or editing a collection of essays. In the end (i.e., over the last six years), we did/have done both.

Although our book, edited by Derek, Paul and I for Cambridge University Press, is not officially in print until 23 March, it has appeared on Google Books here, today, so I thought I'd use this excuse to post the very cool cover art and thank my brilliant co-editors for making this collection possible.

I also wanted to repeat something I have had reason to say many times before (such as here), Government bodies (I am looking at you ARC), and Universities, are obsessed with "Evidence of Impact." I can trace the prompt for two collaborative enterprises, an essay ("Fanny Hill, Lord Fanny, and the Myth of Metonymy") and an edited collection (Bawdy Songbooks of the Romantic Period), both of which were published in 2011, to August 2000. And I can trace the prompt for the present collaborative enterprise to those 2011 publications. The second time-frame is shorter (six years instead of ten), which I can probably credit to Paul and Derek, but they are still long. Likewise, the time-frame for other scholars using our publications is almost as long and so, only now, are citations for these publications beginning to accumulate and multiply.

In November 2010 I wrote:

When it can take a decade … between the prompt for an article and its publication, and when it can take three years between the submission of an article and it being printed, there seems little chance that an ARC final report, submitted on the day your funding stops, will capture even a fraction of your "Research outputs" and, as for "Evidence of Impact," it could be years again before any of the arguments [you] have presented gain any traction.

While we wait for "evidence of impact" to accumulate for today's publication, we will each keep ourselves busy with our next projects. Meanwhile, here is the cool cover art I mentioned:

BTW: The first title for our book was The Nineteenth-Century Songster: A Cultural History; our second A Cultural History of the Songster: Cheap Print and Popular Song in the Nineteenth Century, but we got rolled. CUP didn't want "Songster" in the main title at all, and I note that the sub-title is missing from the "About this book" page on Google (here). As you may have guessed, I didn't agree with CUP's arguments for changing the title, and that is why I am using the sub-title here!

Iwan Bloch on the erotic engravings of Fanny Hill

Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834–1900) (aka Pisanus Fraxi) claims, in his Catena Librorum Tacendorum (1885), 83, that "Few works have been more frequently illustrated than the Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure." He goes on to describe five mezzotints, "designed probably by George Morland, and engraved by his brother-in-law, William Ward, or by John Raphael Smith" (ibid.). (The whole of this book is available on the Internet Archive here.)

Ashbee cites La Bibliophile Fantaisiste (Geneva, 1869), 48, for the five plates he discusses, "with eight others." This information was repeated, in turn, by Iwan Bloch (aka Eugen Duehren; 1872–1922), who translated it into German in his Das Geschlechtsleben in England, mit besonderer Beziehung auf London, 3 Teile in 3 Bänden (Berlin, 1901-3) [Sex life in England, with special reference to London, 3 parts in 3 volumes]. This work was revised and shortened as Englische Sittengeschichte, 2 vols. (Berlin, 1912) [The history of English customs].

Bloch's earlier, longer work was twice translated (much abridged): first in America by Richard Deniston as Ethnological and cultural studies of the sex life in England: illustrated, as revealed in its erotic and obscene literature and art; with nine private cabinets of illustrations by the greatest English masters of erotic art, Translated and Edited by Richard Deniston (New York: Falstaff Press, 1934) and second in England by William H. Forstern as Sexual Life in England: Past and Present (London: Alfred Aldor, 1938; repr. London: Arco Publications, in association with the Rodney Book Service, 1958). The whole of Ethnological and cultural studies of the sex life in England is on the Internet Archive here; but Sexual Life in England: Past and Present is not online.

Given how horribly complicated it is trying to unravel the relationship between the above books, I thought it might be worth using the passage concerning the mezzotints by Morland (1763-1804) in Das Geschlechtsleben in England (vol.2 of which is online here) to show the differences between the three texts. I have put the British translation first, since it sticks closer to the German.

The Bloch passage is Das Geschlechtsleben in England, mit besonderer Beziehung auf London, 2.296–97; translated as Sexual Life in England: Past and Present (1958), 650; Ethnological and cultural studies of the sex life in England, 350–51:

Auch Zeichnungen zu eigentlichen obscönen und erotischen Schriften hat George Morland in Verbindung mit Ward und J. R Smith geliefert, vor allem die fünf folgenden vortreffllichen Mezzotintos zu John Cleland's „Memoire of a woman of pleasure"

No. 1. Fanny Hill and Phoebe. Phoebe berührt Fanny in indecenter Weise. Rechts ein Tisch mit einer brennenden Kerze.
No. 2. Mrs. Brown, the Horse Grenadier, and Fanny Hill. Fanny beobachtet durch eine Glasthür die fette Mrs. Brown in einer Liebesszene mit einem Soldaten.
No. 3. Fanny Hill, Louisa, and the Nosegay Boy. Der Junge und die zwei Freudenmädchen. Im Vordergründe ein Korb mit Blumen. Rechte auf dem Stuhl eine Rate.
No. 4. Harriet ravish'd in the Summer House (Harriet wird in dem Sommerhäuschen genotzüchtigt).
No. 4a. Dieselbe Szene ohne Titel, mit leichten Differenzen in Haartracht und Kleidung der Frau, der Ausstattung des Raumes u.s.w. Ist wohl die ältere-Zeichnung, und No. 4 eine spätere Kopie.
No. 5. Harriet and the Barronet (sie). Ein Paar auf einer Ottomane, während zwei andere Paare hinter demselben stehen und sie beobachten.
No. 5a. Dieselbe Scene mit leichten Aenderungen. Sopha, Haarfarbe und Haartrachten sind verschieden, rechts ist ein Lehnstuhl, links im Vordergründe Männerlut und Stiefel.

Forstern [the bracketed bits below are the bits of the German text omitted from his translation]

George Morland, in association with Ward and J. R. Smith, also supplied illustratons to obscene books. The following five excellent mezzotintos were for "Memoir of a Woman of Pleasure"

1. Fanny Hill and Phoebe. Phoebe touching Fanny in an indecent manner. [To the right, a table with a burning candle.]
2. Mrs. Brown, the Horse Grenadier, and Fanny Hill. Fanny watching through a glass door a love scene between the stout Mrs. Brown and a soldier.
3. Fanny Hill, Louisa, and the Nosegay Boy. Youth and two prostitutes. Basket of flowers and rod.
4. Harriet ravish'd in the Summerhouse. [Harriet is raped in the summer cottage]
[4a. The same scene without title, with slight differences in the hair and clothes of the woman, and the equipment in the room etc. This is probably the older drawing, and no. 4 a later copy.]
5. Harriet and the Barronet (sic). A couple on a setee, with two other watching them.
[5a. The same scene with slight changes. Sopha, hair colour and style are different. On the right is an arm-chair, on the left in the foreground men's boots and boots.]

Deniston

Morland also illustrated the real erotic works. His best known are the five superb mezzotints to John Cleland's Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure:

No. 1. Fanny Hill and Phoebe. Phoebe is initiating Fanny into tribadic practices.
[No.2] and Fanny Hill. Fanny secretly observes the fat Mrs. Brown being engaged by a lusty soldier.
No. 3. Fanny Hill, Louisa, and the Nosegay Boy. The youth is engaged with the two prostitutes. In the foreground a basket with flowers. At the right, a rod on a stool.
No. 4. Harriet ravish'd in the Summer House. A powerful drawing of a forcible rape.
No. 5. Harriet and the Barronet (sic). A couple engaged on the ottoman, while two other couples stand behind and watch them.

As you can see above, both Forstern and Deniston shorten Bloch's text, thought they do it is slightlly different ways. Both omit any mention of the "table with a burning candle" in no.1; but sometimes Fortern includes more detail (explaining, in no.2, that Fanny is "watching through a glass door") and somethimes Deniston includes more (describing no. 4 as "A powerful drawing of a forcible rape"). In general, Deniston is more informal ("the stout Mrs. Brown and a soldier" vs "the fat Mrs. Brown being engaged by a lusty soldier"), and is inclined to explain more ("Phoebe touching Fanny in an indecent manner" vs "Phoebe is initiating Fanny into tribadic practices"). What this means is that neither Forstern nor Deniston can be relied on.

* * * * *

The five Mezzotints described by Ashbee and Bloch are below. Where I could find both coloured and uncoloured versions, I include both.

BTW: if you'd like to buy a set of these engravings, be prepared to pay a lot! See here for a set which sold for Euro 15,600 in 2006.

A View of the Private Case, 1962

I first read Peter Fryer’s Private Case—Public Scandal: Secrets of the British Museum Revealed (London: Secker and Warburg, 1966) in 1999. The opening pages of the book are memorable for the way in which Fryer teases the reader with a lengthy meditation on a photo that appears in a 1962 guide to the BM. The photo, Fryer informs the reader, affords the reader an unexpected view of The Private Case. Fryer neither names the guide, nor reproduces the plate, leaving the reader in the dark concerning the image, despite his lengthy description, at the same time as he is complaining that the reader is left nin the dark by the BM concerning the existence of the Private Case itself.

I recently re-read Fryer’s Private Case while I was preparing my Foxcroft lecture and went searching online for the image he describes. I had no success, so I worked out the name of the guide (it is The British Museum: A Guide to its Public Services (London: British Museum, 1962), 72 pp., 9 plates, issued at 6s.) to see if any copies were available locally. They weren’t; so I have bought a copy (from Canada!), transcribed the relevant section of Fryer’s text (pages 9–13), and posted the photo he describes—including an enlargement of the section of the image he focusses on—below. I hope it will be useful to anyone else reading this fifty-year old exposé, who has gone looking online for the image.

In 1962 the trustees of the British Museum published, after 203 years, the first comprehensive guide to the public services offered by that institution. In seventy-two pages this booklet told the seeker after knowledge how to find … [10] The innocent reader of this booklet, as he glanced at the picture facing page 33, could have had no inkling that the photographer was standing hard by a collection of books which have never been available in toto to the public; a collection in which no student, least of all a ‘humble’ one, can ever ‘rely’ on finding the material he needs, even when [11] it is there; a collection in which the checking of references is attended with endless difficulties and frustrations; a collection which, by decision of the trustees, found no place at that time in the general catalogue and is not even now, and is not to be, represented in the subject indexes based on the general catalogue. The caption to the picture in question reads: ‘The Arch Room housing incunabula.’ … the arch room, to which only members of the staff are admitted, does house a great many such books, no doubt in ideal conditions of temperature and humidity. It also houses about five thousand erotic and sexological works in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Dutch, and Latin, including what might be called the cream of the world's pornography.

 So far as I am able to judge, the Ministry of Works photographer must have positioned his camera pretty closely to the locker press known as ‘P.C. 25’, where The Confessional Unmasked (1851) rubs joints, as it were, with Ten Tales from the islands of Alu, Mono, Fauru (Leipzig, 1912-13) by Gerald Camden Wheeler, and where Human Gorillas: a study of rape with violence (Paris, 1901) by 'Count Roscaud' squeezes up against the original French edition (1883) of Padlocks and Girdles of Chastity (Paris, 1892) by Alcide Bonneau (1836-1904). The picture shows, in the next bay along, a jacket thrown nonchalantly over the back of a chair by some ardent labourer in this vineyard, and behind it are visible one empty press and about half of a second. The first of these presses, which I fancy is now numbered 'P.G 13', is being filled, as cataloguing proceeds, by the magnificent Dawes collection, willed to the British Museum by this country's last great collector of erotica, the late Charles Reginald Dawes. … [12] …

 If, as I imagine, the half-visible empty press in the photograph is now 'P.C. 14', it is partly filled with the collection of a friend of the late Stephen Ward. He is said to have decided, some time during the Profumo affair, that his collection of erotica might cause him some embarrassment if police discovered them on his premises. The British Museum officials accepted his gift with mixed feelings … [13]
 It is not untypical, again, of the department of printed books that the arch room is described in the caption as housing only incunabula when, throughout the entire department, its principal claim to fame is that it houses erotica. But to advertise this fact in a guide to public services would have been to violate one of the museum's strongest taboos. The BM collection of erotica is without doubt the most comprehensive in the world. The Kinsey collection, at any rate so far as the classics and other older examples of this genre are concerned, does not hold a candle to it. … [however] At the time when the guide to the museum's public services was published, in 1962, not a word was ever said to readers, either orally or in any printed or duplicated guide, to suggest that the library possessed a good many important books which were not to be found in the general catalogue — unless a reader happened to ask about a particular book and was persistent. And even then he might be told, in error, that the BM did not have a copy when in fact it had. This has been my experience several times.

For scatological woodcut, apply to Mr. Furnivall

The Fyrst boke of the introduction of knowledge made by Andrew Borde, an anthology about beards edited by F. J. Furnivall, was published by the Early English Text Society in 1870 as Extra Series, volume 10 (i.e., EETS ES10). I first saw this volume in 1987 or 1988, when I was browsing the library shelves at the University of Tasmania. I noticed something about the volume, which amused me greatly, something which I have thought of many times over the nearly 30-years since. Furnivall's volume contains A treatyse answerynge the boke of berdes (i.e., a treatise attacking Andrew Borde's satire on beards) with some lovely woodcuts from the original 1541 publication (STC 1465; ESTC: S109177).

Since one of the illustrations was "a scatological image drawn in a homely style" (Ruth Luborsky and Elizabeth Ingram, A Guide to English Illustrated Books, 1536–1603, Volume 1 (Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1998), 55–56 [no. 1465]), Furnivall (or the EETS editors or publishers) omitted the image. But, rather than pretend that the omitted image simply did not exist in the original text, a rectangle was printed with the following caption inside it: "Coarse woodcut of a man stooping down and exposing himself, with the legend Testiculos Habet. Any member wanting the cut must apply to Mr. Furnivall."

I assume that—had any member "applied to Mr. Furnivall" and been supplied with the omitted image—it would have been pasted over the caption, within the rectangular border printed on page 306. (A form of post-press cancellation.) I have never seen a copy of ES10 containing this image. The University of Tasmania copy lacks it, as do the six copies on Google Books and the Internet Archive, and the five copies presently for sale online.** The omited image is below, reproduced from the poor-quality scan (on EBBO) of a poor-quality microfilm, of a poor-quality printing held by the British Library—the only copy known.

** The libraries are: Bavarian State Library, National Library of the Netherlands, Pennsylvania State University Library, Stanford University Library, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Santa Cruz. Thank you to all of the booksellers who replied to my query about this!

* * * * *

The caption reads from left to bottom "TESTICVLOS HABET" (He has testicles), an allusion to the Latin phrase "Habet duos testiculos et bene pendentes" [He has two testicles, they hang well]. Apparently, from the ninth century until at least the fifteenth—and possibly longer—the "final test" of a prospective Pope was an examination of his testicles: to make sure that he was neither a woman nor a eunuch. (The biblical injunctions against eunuchs are not as well known as those against women, so I reproduce a few below.) The fear of a woman becoming Pope is evident in the popular legend of Pope John VII aka Pope Joan.

The testicular test involved a type of commode (a chair that holds a chamber-pot), which was designed in such a way that when the newly-elected Pope sat on it, his testicles would descend through a specially placed hole, where their existence could be verified by a cardinal specially chosen for the task. (A collegue informs me that "testiculos" also means witness, so the balls in question—and the cardinal holding them—are witnesses to the Pope's manhood.) There are two such chairs extant, it seems, one each in the Vatican and the Louvre, carved from the same block of red marble, with woodwork dating to the ninth century.

* * * * *

There is no obvious link between the scatological image, which appears on the verso of the title leaf of "A treatyse answerynge the boke of berdes," and the text of the poem. But the folk connection is clearly represented in Chaucer's The Miller's Tale—the story of a carpenter, his lovely wife (Alisoun), and the two university students who are eager to have sex with her. Alisoun and "hende" [handy, noble] Nicholas play a trick on Absolon, who is singing love songs under her window. Absolon begs for a kiss, Alisoun agrees, but sticks her backside out the window:

Derk was the nyght as pich, or as a cole,
And at the wyndow out she putte hir hole,
And Absolon, hym fil no bet ne wers,
But with his mouth he kiste hir naked ers
Ful savorly, er he were war of this.
Abak he stirte, and thoughte it was amys,
For wel he wiste a womman hath no berd.
He felte a thyng al rough and long yherd.

[Dark was the night as pitch, aye dark as coal,
And through the window she put out her hole.
And Absalom no better felt nor worse,
But with his mouth he kissed her naked arse
Right greedily, before he knew of this.
Aback he leapt—it seemed somehow amiss,
For well he knew a woman has no beard;
He'd felt a thing all rough and longish haired.]

So, it seems, that the character in this image is showing off his nether-beard ("al rough and long yherd"), proving his manhood and mooning Andrew Borde.

* * * * *

Deuteronomy 23:1 explains that "He that is wounded in the stones [=testicles], or hath his privy member [=penis] cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord"; Leviticus 21:16–20 has a wider scope: "And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying … that [Whosoever] hath any blemish, let him not approach to offer the bread of his God. For whatsoever man he be that hath a blemish, he shall not approach: a blind man, or a lame, or he that hath a flat nose, or any thing superfluous, Or a man that is brokenfooted, or brokenhanded, Or crookbackt, or a dwarf, or that hath a blemish in his eye, or be scurvy, or scabbed, or hath his stones broken."

More Eighteenth-Century Dildos

On 15 April this year The Mirror reported that the dildo (above and below) had been discovered by archaeologists excavating an eighteenth-century toilet in Gdansk, Poland (see here).

Someone from the Regional Office for the Protection of Monuments, noted that cleaning revealed (as can be seen below) the dildo to be well-preserved and “in excellent condition” (see here): it is eight-inches long, with a pair of balls. It is covered in high-quality leather, filled with bristles, and has a carved wooden tip. Such an object—described by Herodas in the 3rd century BCE—would have been “certainly expensive.”

The History blog picked up the story (here), adding a few details: that the latrine is in the Podwalu suburb of Gdansk, and the dildo dates from the second half of the 18th century. The latrine is believed to have once belonged to a school of swordsmanship, since old swords were previously discovered at the site.

Marcin Tymiński, suggested—according to the History Blog— that the dildo was “probably dropped in the toilet, either deliberately or in a tragic slippery-fingers accident”; elsewhere this is stated more politely: “According to the archaeologists, it was mistakenly dropped in the toilet by the person who was using it.”

Oddly, it seems to have occurred to only one reporter (here) that, since fencing schools were occupied almost exclusively by males, there is a reasonably good chance that “the person who was using it” was a male. (Such luxury items almost certainly being beyond the reach of female staff or servants.)

For my April 2010 post on Eighteenth-Century Dildos, see here.

Merryland in French, not 1805

In January 2010 I posted images of an "1815" (actually, 1872) edition of a French translation of Thomas Stretzer’s A New Description of Merryland (1740) that I had recently bought, but which is now in the Monash University rare books collection (here), having appeared in a Monash exhibition: Lewd and Scandalous Books (July–September 2010), item 58 (here).

I recently acquired another copy of Description Topographique, Historique, Critique et Nouvelle du pays et des Environs de la Forêt Noire Situés dans la Province du Merryland (above), which also has a false imprint and date (below): “A Boutentativos, chez les veuves Sulamites, aux petits appartements de Salomon. L'an du monde 100,800,000,500.” [Boutentativos: among the widows of the Sulamites, in the small apartments of Solomon. The year of world 1805]

“Boutentativos” is, seemingly, an invented adjectival, and plural masculine form of bouter (to push, pin or enter, from Middle French bouter, from Old French bouter)—so, somewhere that men enter the small apartments of the widows of Solomon. Hysterical.

This is one of a number of falsely dated French reprints of Merryland. In this case, the title-page is 1805, but the paper is clearly watermarked with the date 1863. Catalogue entries for this edition usually give the date as “1863?” without offering any explanation for how the date was arrived at (as here—citing the British Library, citing Gay). Below, you can see the evidence.

I see no real justification for the question mark, but librarians frequently add them without the slightest provocation. Tens, hundreds (?) of thousands of new books, issued with a date on the verso of the title-page, are catalogued every year with one of these question marks when there is do doubt whatever that the new book concerned was published in the year indicated. In this case, it would be a strange, costly and elaborate deception to publish Merryland with a falsely-dated imprint, and a falsely-dated watermark.

Unfortunately, this copy lacks the rather odd, but eye-catching frontispiece (below). It was also miscataloged as a copy of the first edition of 1770. That is didn’t have the frontispiece and it wasn’t correctly catalogued was probably for the best, since a copy of this edition with the frontispiece sold for four hundred Euro six years ago (see here) in the Karl Ludwig Leonhardt sale (Un Enfer Privé: Collection Sieglinde et Karl Ludwig Leonhardt (3 December 2009), no. 279), a discount on the copy in the Gérard Nordmann sale (pt.2: 15 December 2006, no. 505), which sold for 720 Euros.

The frontispiece in the Leonhardt and Nordmann copies is copied from the sepia version (above, right) in the first edition (1770) held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France and available on Gallica (here), along with a second plate (here), very similar, but on a smaller page, which appears to have been tipped in. Unlike the wonderful frontispiece to the eighth edition of the English text, neither image contributes anything to the somatopic text.

BTW: Another copy of my edition (sans frontis) is presently available from Madoc Books here, for GBP400.

Not The Only Copy

The Wellcome Library has acquired copies of the 1787 and 1788 editions of Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies. Which is great, and certainly to be celebrated. It is also, apparently, big news, since quite a few people have read Hallie Rubenhold's sensational, well-promoted and insubstantial books on the subject (which, for reasons that will become clear, I will neither name nor link to).

According to The Guardian (here) and The Independent (here) the Wellcome Library bought "the book" or "a copy" (NB singular) from a London dealer for "a low five-figure sum"—which I take to mean about twenty to thirty thousand pounds for the two editions.

Another thing that The Guardian and The Independent agree on is that the 1787 edition is unique, claiming: it is "the only surviving 1787 guide" and is "a unique surviving … copy"—a claim that is repeated in every newspaper to reprint the story, such as The Sunshine Coast Daily (here), The Mackay Daily Mercury (here) and The Toowoomba Chronicle (here).

Dr Richard Aspin, Head of Research and Scholarship at the Wellcome Library, is more cautious than The Guardian and The Independent: stating in his blog entry about the purchase (here) that the 1787 edition "appears to be the only one in existence."

Unfortunately for Aspin (and the reporters at The Guardian and The Independent), the Wellcome copy of Harris's 1787 List is not unique. A simple Google search for "Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies" and "1787" locates the Bavarian State Library copy immediately. It has been available online since 14 December 2011 and has appeared in my list of Eighteenth-Century Erotic Texts Online since 14 July 2013.

Although the Bavarian State Library has had their copy since the eighteenth century, have published it online, and it has appeared in major bibliographies of erotica since 1889, it is not surprising that it was overlooked. Rubenhold appears only to known of eight editions/years of Harris's List of Covent Garden Ladies: 1761, 1764, 1773, 1774, 1779, 1788, 1789 and 1793. She gives the impression that these are the only survivors. Obviously, she is wrong.

During my research into eighteenth century erotica, I located seventeen editions/years of Harris's List. Some were easier to locate than others, appearing in major bibliographies and collections, and some are easier to locate now, than they were a decade ago. However, the fact that Rubenhold located only seven of at least seventeen copies, while preparing a series of books on the subject, suggests that her research was pretty shallow. Woeful, in fact.

I can't help wondering if the Wellcome Library paid a premium for the 1787 edition on the basis that it was "unknown to Rubenhold". (Since the claim that the 1787 edition is "unique," crops up in every article I can only assume that this claim is important to the Library because the did pay a premium.) If so, they probably won't be pleased to discover that they are wrong.