Related Research Articles
Theresa Berkley or Berkeley was a 19th-century English dominatrix who ran a brothel in Hallam Street, just to the east of Portland Place, Marylebone, London, specialising in flagellation. She is notable as the inventor of the "chevalet" or "Berkley Horse", a BDSM apparatus.
The Berkley Horse is a BDSM apparatus, designed for, and by, Theresa Berkley in 1828. She referred to it as a "chevalet".
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of eros – passionate, romantic or sexual relationships – intended to arouse similar feelings in readers, in contrast to 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.
Impact play is a human sexual practice in which one person is struck by another person for the gratification of either or both parties which may or may not be sexual in nature. It is considered a form of BDSM.
Rosa Coote is a fictional dominatrix appearing as a stock character in a number of works of Victorian erotica, including The Convent School, or Early Experiences of A Young Flagellant by William Dugdale and "Letters to a Lady Friend" or "Miss Coote's Confession" in The Pearl. Henry Spencer Ashbee writes of The Convent School that "The book is not altogether badly written; no part of the narrative however is attractive".
William Simpson Potter was a 19th-century English author. From available information, 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.
The Naughtiest Girl is a series of novels written by Enid Blyton in the 1940s–1950s. Unusually, they are set at a progressive boarding school rather than a traditional one. The school, Whyteleafe, bears a striking resemblance to the independent Suffolk boarding school, Summerhill. Anne Digby, author of the Trebizon series, has written some additional books in the series.
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 Sins of the Cities of the Plain; or, The Recollections of a Mary-Ann, with Short Essays on Sodomy and Tribadism, by the pseudonymous "Jack Saul", is one of the first exclusively homosexual works of pornographic literature published in English. The book was first published in 1881 by William Lazenby, who printed 250 copies. A second edition was published by Leonard Smithers in 1902. It sold for an expensive four guineas.
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 Romance of Chastisement is a Victorian pornographic collection on the theme of flagellation by St George Stock and published by John Camden Hotten in 1866. It was reprinted by William Lazenby in 1883 and again by Charles Carrington in 1902 as The Magnetism of the Rod or the Revelations of Miss Darcy.
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 Birchen Bouquet is a work of pornography first published around 1770, reprinted in 1826 by George Cannon, in 1860 by William Dugdale and again in 1881 by William Lazenby. It consists of a compilation of flagellation stories, mainly of women by women, some taken from The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine. Henry Spencer Ashbee described it as "very ordinary and insipid", expressing surprise at its frequent reprinting.
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.
Fashionable Lectures: Composed and Delivered with Birch Discipline was a pornographic book originally published in the 18th century and republished by John Camden Hotten as volume 7 of his series The Library Illustrative of Social Progress around 1872. Hotten claimed to have found them in the library of Henry Thomas Buckle (1821–1862) but Henry Spencer Ashbee claimed that they were in fact from his collection. The first edition was published around 1750 and again with illustrations by William Holland in the 1780s.
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.
Victorian erotica is a genre of sexual art and literature which emerged in the Victorian era of 19th-century Britain. Victorian erotica emerged as a product of a Victorian sexual culture. The Victorian era was characterised by paradox of rigid morality and anti-sensualism, but also by an obsession with sex. Sex was a main social topic, with progressive and enlightened thought pushing for sexual restriction and repression. Overpopulation was a societal concern for the Victorians, thought to be the cause of famine, disease, and war. To curb the threats of overpopulation, sex was socially regulated and controlled. New sexual categories emerged as a response, defining normal and abnormal sex. Heterosexual sex between married couples became the only form of sex socially and morally permissible. Sexual pleasure and desire beyond heterosexual marriage was labelled as deviant, considered to be sinful and sinister. Such deviant forms included masturbation, homosexuality, prostitution and pornography. Procreation was the primary goal of sex, removing it from the public, and placing it in the domestic. Yet, Victorian anti-sexual attitudes were contradictory of genuine Victorian life, with sex underlying much of the cultural practice. Sex was simultaneously repressed and proliferated. Sex was featured in medical manuals such as The Sexual Impulse by Havelock Ellis and Functions and Disorders of Reproductive Organs by William Acton, and in cultural magazines like The Penny Magazine and The Rambler. Sex was popular in entertainment, with much of Victorian theatre, art and literature including and expressing sexual and sensual themes.
References
- Henry Spencer Ashbee, Bibliography of Forbidden Books, Volume 3, Cosimo, 2007, ISBN 1-60206-971-9, pp. 261–264
- Walter M. Kendrick, The Secret Museum: pornography in modern culture, University of California Press, 1996, ISBN 0-520-20729-7, p. 77
- Steven Marcus, The Other Victorians: a study of sexuality and pornography in mid-nineteenth-century England, Transaction Publishers, 2008, ISBN 1-4128-0819-7, p. 264
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