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 seeks to make available a broad range of rare printed texts describing changing attitudes towards sex and the body.  Parts 3 & 4 are based on the incomparable Private Case collection at the British Library. Our Consultant Editor, Professor Brad Mudge, from the Department of English at the University of Denver has selected 164 key works which will be of interest to scholars of literature, history, art, medicine and sexuality.  Part 4 includes:

• My Secret Life (11 vols, 1890), reputed to be the autobiographical adventures of H Spencer Ashbee.
• The Pearl.  A Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading (3 vols, 1879-80).
• Confessions of Madame Vestris (1891).
• The Powers of Mesmerism (1891).
• Gynecocracy. A narrative of the adventures of Julian Robinson (3 vols, 1894).
• The memoirs of Jacques Casanova (12 vols, 1894).
• Lady Gay Spanker's Tales of Fun and Flagellation (1896).
• The Lysistrata of Aristophanesillustrated by Beardsley (1896).
• Forbidden Fruit (1898) and Private Letters from Phyllis to Marie (1898).
• My Married Life (1900)
• Les 120 Journées de Sodome (1904).

As can be seen, this part concentrates exclusively on the period from 1890 to 1908 and will be of great interest to all those studying the Fin de Siècle and the new sexual freedoms that this ushered in.  These titles only hint at the richness of this collection, which will be welcomed by all serious students of sexuality.