The Fruit-Shop, a Tale is an anonymous work of satire with erotic themes printed at London by C. Moran in 1765. [1] A second edition was printed in 1766 for J. Harrison, near Covent Garden. [2] The text is, for the most part, an allegorical and discursive disquisition on the "Fruit-Shop", as the author calls woman, or rather on those parts of her which are more particularly connected with fruit-bearing. [3]
To the first volume there is a curious, roughly engraved frontispiece, signed C. Trim fect., representing a garden scene; before a temple of oriental design stands a yew tree shaped like a phallus, above which two Cupids hold a wreath in form of the female organ; a man, dressed in academic robes, and leaning on an ass, points to the phallic tree, while a boy squirts at him with a syringe. [4] The chief figure in this frontispiece is intended for the "distinguished personage" to whom the volume is dedicated: Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy (the book on which the ass treads in the frontispiece). [5]
The work is divided into four parts. [3] The first treats of the Garden of Eden, its probable position on the globe, etc. [3] The second part relates to what happened after the Fall, the invention of the Fig-leaf, etc., and goes on to treat of Love, Marriage, Cuckoldom, and "The Unnaturalists, or Deserters of the Fruit-Shop". [3] Part III consists of a review of the "unwearied passion for the Fruit-Shop" among the Romans, beginning with Jupiter and ending with Julius Caesar. [3] In the fourth part are chapters on "Odd Conceptions", Celibacy, and Flagellation as a "Bye-Way to Heaven". [3] Other matters discoursed upon are Macerations, "Mahomet no Fool", Platonism, Eunuchism, and the "Philo-gonists, the truly Orthodox". [6]
The Appendix and Notes close the second volume. [6] In them is described "The Fruit-Shop of St. James' Street", where "matters never proceed further in this chaste domain than to a kiss or a feel, transiently and with the greatest decorum"; the object, title, etc., of the work are explained; and, finally various quotations, in different languages, upon women's breasts. [7]
According to Henry Spencer Ashbee, "The manner and humour of Swift and Sterne seem to have been aimed at; sarcasms and covert inuendos[ sic ] on living personages are frequent; and digressions are freely indulged in; but the wit and true satire of these writers are never attained." [3]
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of eros intended to arouse similar feelings in readers. This contrasts erotica, which focuses more specifically on sexual feelings. Other common elements are satire and social criticism. Much erotic literature features erotic art, illustrating the text.
Henry Spencer Ashbee was a book collector, writer and bibliographer. He is notable for his massive, clandestine three-volume bibliography of erotic literature published under the pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi.
William Simpson Potter was a 19th-century English author. Potter was a friend of Henry Spencer Ashbee, a merchant, bibliographer, bibliophile, authority on the life and works of Miguel de Cervantes, and collector of erotic materials. Ashbee describes Potter as a "shrewd business man, the ardent collector, and the enthusiastic traveller".
The Romance of Lust, or Early Experiences is a Victorian erotic novel written anonymously in four volumes during the years 1873–1876 and published by William Lazenby. Henry Spencer Ashbee discusses this novel in one of his bibliographies of erotic literature. In addition the compilers of British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books list this book.
My Secret Life, by "Walter", is the memoir of a gentleman describing the author's sexual development and experiences in Victorian England. It was first published in a private edition of eleven volumes, at the expense of the author, including an imperfect index, which appeared over seven years beginning around 1888.
The Tragedy of Tragedies, also known as The Tragedy of Tragedies; or, The Life and Death of Tom Thumb the Great, is a play by Henry Fielding. It is an expanded and reworked version of one of his earlier plays, Tom Thumb, and tells the story of a character who is small in stature and status, yet is granted the hand of a princess in marriage; the infuriated queen and another member of the court subsequently attempt to destroy the marriage.
Edward Sellon (1818–1866) was an English writer, translator, and illustrator of erotic literature.
James Campbell Reddie was a 19th-century collector and author of pornography, who, writing as "James Campbell", worked for the publisher William Dugdale. According to Henry Spencer Ashbee, Reddie was self-taught and viewed his works from a philosophical point of view.
The Private Case is a collection of erotica and pornography held initially by the British Museum and then, from 1973, by the British Library. The collection began between 1836 and 1870 and grew from the receipt of books from legal deposit, from the acquisition of bequests and, in some cases, from requests made to the police following their seizures of obscene material.
The New Epicurean: The Delights of Sex, Facetiously and Philosophically Considered, in Graphic Letters Addressed to Young Ladies of Quality is a Victorian erotic novel published by William Dugdale in 1865 and attributed to Edward Sellon. The novel is falsely dated "1740", and is written as an eighteenth-century pastiche, composed of a series of letters addressed to various young ladies.
The Library Illustrative of Social Progress was a series of pornographic books published by John Camden Hotten around 1872. They were mainly reprints of eighteenth-century pornographic works on flagellation. Hotten claimed to have found them in the library of Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–1862) but Henry Spencer Ashbee counterclaimed that they were in fact from his collection.
The Rodiad is a pornographic poem on the subject of flagellation published by John Camden Hotten in 1871, although falsely dated to 1810. It was falsely ascribed when printed to George Colman the Younger. Its author was Richard Monckton Milnes. Henderson places it in The Library Illustrative of Social Progress published around 1872 but it is not in the list of Henry Spencer Ashbee.
Mary Cooper was an English publisher and bookseller based in London who flourished between 1743 and 1761. With Thomas Boreman, she is the earliest publisher of children's books in English, predating John Newbery.
A Secret History of Pandora's Box is an English erotic novel published anonymously in 1742 by the London publishers Mary Cooper and her husband. Its focus on the female genitalia proceeds with reference to Greek and Roman mythology, a common trope of the time. Another common and more specific trope in much erotic fiction of the time is allegorizing "the parts of the female sex" as a cave. The trope of Pandora's box was already associated with the female body in the previous decade, in Jonathan Swift's "The Lady's Dressing Room", and A Secret History proposes that the female parts "may well have been the original Pandora's box". The connection is found in subsequent erotic fiction as well.
The Victim of Lust, or Scenes in the Life of Rosa Fielding is an anonymously written Victorian pornographic novel published by William Dugdale in 1867.
Reasons humbly offer'd for a Law to enact the Castration of Popish Ecclesiastic[k]s is an anonymous anti-Catholic quarto pamphlet published in London in 1700. The work has been disputedly attributed to Daniel Defoe.
The Modern Rake is an anonymous erotic novel with nine coloured illustrations which was printed at London by J. Sudbury in 1824. The title page describes the plot: The Modern Rake; or, the Life and Adventures of Sir Edward Walford: Containing a Curious and Voluptuous History of his luscious intrigues, with numerous women of fashion, his laughable faux pas, feats of gallantry, debauchery, dissipation, and concubinism! His numerous rapes, seductions, and amatory scrapes. Memoirs of the Beautiful Courtezans with whom he lived; with some Ticklish Songs, Anecdotes, Poetry, &c. Enriched with many Curious Plates.
The Seducing Cardinal, or, Isabella Peto is an anonymous erotic novel printed at London in 1830. The title page reads: "The Seducing Cardinal, or, Isabella Peto. A Tale founded on Facts. London: Published as the Act directs, By Madame Le Duck, Mortimer Street; and to be had of all Respectable Booksellers. 1830".
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