SEX & SEXUALITY, 1640-1940
Literary, Medical and Sociological Perspectives

Part 4: Erotica, 1650-1900, from the Private Case Collection at the British Library, London

Sex and Sexuality, Parts 3 and 4: Erotica, 1657-1908, from the Private Case Collection at the British Library continues our series Sex and Sexuality, 1640-1940 Literary, Medical and Sociological Perspectives.

Part 1 of the series covers sources from the Bodleian Library, Oxford and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London and is divided into sections covering
sexual habits, advice books, moral guidance, medical works, literary treatments, prostitution and the sociology of sex. Part 2 from the Bodleian Library covers romantic friendships and lesbian relationships in literature and history.

Parts 3 and 4 comprise erotic and pornographic literature from the Private Case Collection at the British Library, London. The material is divided chronologically, Part 3 covering 1657-1889 and Part 4 1890-1908.

The Private Case Collection at the British Library has only recently been open to researchers. As our editor, Brad Mudge, Professor in the Department of English at the University of Colorado Denver notes, "It is one of the largest and most representative collections of erotic and pornographic literature in the world." It consists of two major bequests, one by H Spencer Ashbee, the famous nineteenth century erotic bibliographer, in 1900 and the other by C R Dawes in 1964.

Included in the collection are almost two thousand erotic publications. They range over four centuries and appear in French, German, Italian and Latin as well as in English.

Part 4 of our series from the Private Case Collection, covering the years 1890-1908, contains a mixture of prose, magazines, poems and songs together with two important autobiographies: My Secret Life (1890) reputed to be the adventures of H Spencer Ashbee and The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova (1894).

The erotic adventures of Giacomo Casanova, as recounted in The Memoirs of Jacques Casanova (1894), are rightly famous. All twelve volumes are included in which he gives a well written and detailed account of all the loves of his life, his adventures all over Europe and his encounters with prominent figures of the period. As the translator’s preface notes:

A series of adventures wilder and more fantastic than the wildest of romances, written down with the exactitude of a business diary; a view of men and cities from Naples to Berlin, from Madrid and London to Constantinople and St Petersburg; the "vie intime" of the eighteenth century depicted by a man, who to-day sat with cardinals and saluted crowned heads, and to-morrow lurked in dens of profligacy and crime….

...He who opens these wonderful pages is as one who sits in a theatre and looks across the gloom, not on a stage-play, but on another and a vanished world. The
curtain draws up, and suddenly … in bright light stands out before us the whole life of the past; the gay dresses, the polished wit, the careless morals, and all the revel and dancing of those merry years before the mighty deluge of the Revolution….

It is indeed a new experience to read the history of a man who, refraining from nothing, has concealed nothing….the friend of popes and kings and noblemen, and of all the male and female ruffians and vagabonds of Europe, abbé, soldier, charlatan, gamester, financier, diplomatist, "viveur", philosopher, virtuoso, "chemist, fiddler, and buffoon", each of these, and all of these was Giacomo Casanova, Seingalt, Knight of the Golden Spur….

The adventures described in the eleven volumes of the autobiography My Secret Life (1890) are less well known but are in some ways much more erotic that those of Casanova. They are written in a simpler style and are very earthy and vivid. They are reputed to be the love adventures of H Spencer Ashbee, the well known nineteenth century bibliographer. In the preface the author explains how he came to write and publish his memoirs:

So I determined to write my private life freely as to fact, and in the spirit of the lustful acts done by me, or witnessed; it is written therefore with absolute truth, and without any regard whatever for what the world calls decency. Decency and voluptuousness in its fullest acceptance, cannot exist together, one would kill the other; the poetry of copulation I have only experienced with a few women, which however neither prevented them, nor me from calling a spade, a spade….

Among other erotic adventures included in Part 4 are: The Seducing Cardinal’s Amours (c1890) published by Auguste Brancart and containing a priest’s seduction of young girls; Confessions of Madame Vestris (1891) in which she describes vividly her love adventures; Gynecocracy. A Narrative of the Adventures...of Julian Robinson (1893); The Loves of a Musical Student (1897) published by Charles Carrington; Crissie (1899) published by The Alhambra in which a student tells of his adventures in a music hall; Moslem Eroticism, or Adventures of an American Woman in Constantinople (1900).

The erotic magazines The Pearl. A Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading (1890) and The Chameleon (1894) contain a wide range of material; erotic serials, love adventures, songs, poems, descriptions of sexual practices such as flagellation and accounts of trials of men accused of rape and sodomy.

Many short stories are included in this part several of which concern incest such as Laura Middleton, Her Brother and Her Lover (1890), The Power of Mesmerism (1891) in which a boy manages to commit incest with his sister by hypnotising her, Forbidden Fruit (1898) which gives details of a boy’s incest with his aunt and mother.

Other topics covered are flagellation in Lady Gay Spanker’s Tales of Fun & Flagellation (1896) and in The Petticoat Dominant, or Woman’s Revenge (1898); paedophilia in Private Letters from Phyllis to Marie; or, The Art of Child Love (1898), Green Girls (1899) and Flossie, A Venus of Fifteen (1900). Also included are stories about lesbianism, necrophilia, transvestites and sodomy.

Examples of foreign erotic literature, which will give researchers the opportunity to compare and contrast "pornography" in a different culture, include: Therese Philosophe, ou Memoires pour servir a l’histoire de P Dirrag (1900) and Les 120 Journées de Sodome (1904) by the Marquis de Sade, The Lysistrata of Aristophanes (1896) translated and illustrated by Aubrey Beardsley and The Dialogues of Luisa Sigea (1890) translated from the Latin by Nicolas Chorier.

Other interesting items are The Memoirs of Dolly Morton (1899) describing her experiences in helping slaves before the American Civil War giving vivid details on the whipping and rape of slaves and Love and Safety (1908), advice to women on the skill of lovemaking and on contraception.

The following extracts will give an idea of the type of material to be found in Part 4.

Laura Middleton, Her Brother and Her Lover (1890)

While Frank and I were thus agreeably occupied in a minute investigation of each others charms, I reverted to what had fallen from him the previous evening, and asked if he really meant to say that his sister was in the habit of visiting him after he had gone to bed. "Not now," he replied, "I only wish she did, and I would soon repay her the lessons she used to give me. Do you know it was she who first taught me how to do anything in this way"….

Gynecocracy. A Narrative of the Adventures… of Julian Robinson (1893)

But though I have been a home-staying youth, I have had experiences; experiences of the world, that is to say, of woman, whom I regard as a complete epitome of the world, - and if anyone, home-stayer or otherwise, has had experience of her in all her moods and whims, and has passed though all the psychological and physical gymnastics by which her varying caprices and lusts can conduct his soul, his passions, and his senses, and still preserves a homely wit, he must be an arrogant duffer!

The Loves of a Musical Student being the History of the Adventures and Amorous Intrigues of a Young Rake…. (1897) (Extract from the Preface)

There is no more pleasant relaxation as a relief to care and worry than the perusal of an amusing book; and still more gratifying to our jaded spirit, when the author
discourses of love’s power and passion’s sway. But how difficult it is for the amateur of erotic literature to put his hand upon a work that he can really read through from the
title-page to the end without feeling tired and disgusted….

What is really required is for the reader to feel that the author has set down nothing but the plain truth, and that we can appreciate the scenes depicted with the greatest
enjoyment, as we feel that the personages whose kisses are described and whose embraces are pictured in glowing terms, are really creatures of human interest…. There are few rich, truthful novels of erotic realism, but "The Loves of a Musical Student" is undoubtedly one of them. Its pages seem to breathe an air of truth, and we must not forget that truth is always represented naked….

The Petticoat Dominant or Woman’s Revenge (1898)

As I lay under this perfumed girl, I really did not know how to contain myself. I experienced such sensations as I had never before had. There I lay on her bed on my back face uppermost, my arms fixed as if in a vice while she sprawled on the top of me her breath occasionally flaming her face harrowing my tenderest feelings and recollections mercilessly.

The idea of my bottom which was not safely hidden being exposed, and exposed to her! To her a girl. Just think of all that she would see. Consider the shame. And consider her whipping it. The most shameful, most animal part of me flogged by a girl. What degradation….

The Memoirs of Dolly Morton (1899)

Rosa, still wailing, slunk out of the room with her hand pressed to her smarting bottom; the other two women followed, and Randolph and I were left alone.

He put away the switch, then turning to me, said "I don’t think she’ll give you any more trouble, but if she does let me know."

"Oh, George!" I said "How could you bring yourself to whip the girl so severely. She is a pretty creature and I know you have often "had" her."

He laughed; "Yes. I have often "had" her and will "have" her again if ever I feel inclined to do so, and I will also whip her again whenever she requires punishment….

Flossie A Venus of Fifteen (1900)

The violet eyes laughed up at me, and the red lips parted in a merry smile. A dimple appeared at the corner of the mouth. I was done for! Yes; at thirty-five years of age, with more than my share of experiences in every phase of love, I went down before this lovely girl with her childish face smiling at me above the budding womanhood of her rounded breasts, and confessed myself defeated!....

Love and Safety (1908)

….we shall discuss those amusements with men that are absolutely safe and do not lead to pregnancy under circumstances.

This section will be short, as some of these pleasures have already been discussed, under frigging, gamahuching and the dildoe, which can always be, as we have seen, performed with absolute safety, as well by men as by women, for it is equally obvious, ladies, that a man’s hand, or his tongue, or a dildoe, cannot get a woman into the family way….

Sex and Sexuality Parts 3 and 4 makes available a broad range of historic "pornographic" material to scholars examining the history of sexuality and the relation of "pornography" to literature, medicine, history and art. Much of the material is extremely rare: indeed up until recently the very existence of some titles was denied.