The links below DO NOT open the book
Anonymous Fifteen Plagues of a Maiden-Head
The very first publication in English to be taken to court over obscenity charges. The publisher was tried in 1708 but was found not guilty by the judge who wished that there were better laws to prosecute obscenity. It was not long before there were.
Anonymous Song of Solomon
The most erotic book in the Bible.
Aristophanes Lysistrata
First produced in 411 B.C., and still quite entertaining, this surprisingly erotic anti-war play has the women refusing their husbands sex unless they stop the war. Plutarch condemned it as obscene in 1873, and it was banned under the Comstock Law.
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Honore de Balzac Scenes From a Courtesan’s Life
This is part of Balzac’s massive interlinked collection of 100 stories and novels, including Scenes From a Private Life, Scenes From Parisian Life (to which Courtesan’s Life is linked), etc. 1838 Translation by James Waring. Balzac’s work was some of the first that Comstock attempted to censor when he came to power. Selling Balzac cost a mail order publisher two years in jail.
Giovanni Boccaccio The Decameron
First published in Italy in 1353, this is a collection of 100 stories told by a group of seven young women and three young men over ten days as they flee the plague. It contains many bawdy stories based on popular anecdotes and jokes of the time. It was banned under the Comstock laws, and many Victorian editions had only 99 stories, leaving out Alibech Puts the Devil Back into Hell as too racy. Considered pornography at the time, it was a popular book to print on the early printing presses.
Giovanni Boccaccio Fifteen Questions of Love
A series of fifteen erotic stories first published in 1472. The fourth part of the Filocolo, Boccaccio’s second longest work (after the Decameron), it was translated into English in 1566.
Jeff Booth (Compiled by) Tijuana Bibles
Short erotic comics that parodied well-know figures, they reached their peak of popularity in the 1930’s.
Robert Burns Merry Muses of Caledonia
Although published anonymously in 1800, it was later confirmed that the author was actually Scottish poet Robert Burns. While billed as a collection of popular bawdy Scottish folk songs ancient and modern, the modern ones were written by Burns himself.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 1
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 2
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 3
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 4
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 5
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 6
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 7
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 8
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 9
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translatranslatortion) 1001 Nights Volume 10
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 11
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 12
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 13
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 14
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 15
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) 1001 Nights Volume 16
One of the greatest collections of stories in all of the literature, this 16 volume set was translated by explorer Richard Burton with the first volume published in 1885 after a decade’s worth of work. It contains hundreds of stories, all heavily annotated, and framed within the famous structure of Shahrazad, telling stories each night to save her life. Many of these stories are quite erotic.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) Kalayanamalla The Ananga Ranga
A Sanskrit erotic manual written in the 16th century, this is the 1885 Richard Burton translation originally published by the Kamashastra Society of London and Benares.
Sir Richard Burton (translator) Shaykh Nefwazi The Perfumed Garden
Both a sex manual and a work of erotic literature, it was believed to have been written in Tunis sometime near the beginning of the 16th century. It borrows many of the sexual positions described in earlier Indian texts. This is the 1886 translation by Sir Richard Burton
Edward Carpenter The Intermediate Sex
First published in 1908 from a series of previously published short articles, it looks at what it refers to as “transitional types of men and women” in an attempt to better understand homosexuality. Carpenter was one of the earliest homosexual writers on homosexuality, and one of the few to come out publicly as a self-described Uranian (homosexual).
Edward Carpenter Love’s Coming of Age
A turn of the 20th century gay activist, Carpenter discusses many forward thinking ideas in his 1896 book on marriage and sex, including equality of the sexes, alternatives to traditional marriage such as trial marriage and open relationships, and better sex education. This is from the 1906 edition. He had originally intended to include a section from his Homogenic Love pamphlet, but since the book’s publication coincided with the trial of Oscar Wilde for homosexuality, he thought better of it. He later published what is considered the first English positive look at homosexuality, The Intermediate Sex.
Geoffrey Chaucer The Canterbury Tales
A collection of stories, many of them bawdy, written by Chaucer in the 14th century. He uses the frame of travelers telling each other stories along the road. It was banned for decades under the Comstock laws, and has been more recently banned in many school libraries, despite the difficulty of reading the archaic English making it an unlikely choice for titillation. In 1998, a first edition published by Caxton in 1476 sold for 7.5 million dollars, making it the most expensive book in history.
John Cleland Fanny Hill
Also known as Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, it was first published in 1749. Since then, it has been a frequent target of censors, and is considered the first “erotic” novel. The Church of England demanded that authorities “stop the progress of this vile Book, which is an open insult upon Religion and good manners.” As a result, Cleland was arrested. It was first officially banned in the United States in 1821. The 1963 Putnam edition was also banned, but a legal challenge before the Supreme Court freed the book in 1966. The book recounts the adventures of Fanny Hill, who turns to prostitution to make her living.
Ida Craddock Wedding Night
This is the short marriage manual over which Anthony Comstock literally hounded Ida Craddock to death. Her death in 1902 led to the beginning of the end of Comstock’s viscous reign as official U.S. censor. This eBook includes her suicide letter, which is a powerful and remarkably moving indictment of Comstock, as well as the complete text from the Wedding Night and her Right Marital Living booklet.
Daniel Defoe Moll Flanders
This certainly wins the prize for longest official title: The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums. Defoe, best known for Robinson Crusoe, is considered one of the greatest novelists in the English language. It was his political writings, though, not Moll Flanders, that got him put in prison. Moll Flanders was published in 1722. It was banned for decades in the U.S. under the Comstock law.
Havelock Ellis On Life and Sex
Ellis was a British doctor who became one of the leading sexual psychologists. He had fairly liberal attitudes about sexuality and homosexuality (he was one of the earliest to consider it genetic and not a disease). He felt that the diversity of sexual expression was one of the things that set us apart from the animal kingdom. He coined the terms ” narcissistic” and “autoerotic”. He had an emotionally satisfying marriage with Edith Lees, which, as she was a self avowed lesbian, was not very sexually satisfying. He was both mentor and periodic lover to birth control advocate Margaret Sanger. In this book, he champions the “love-rights” of women. This is the 1937 edition, first published in 1921 as Little Essays of Love and Virtue.
Colonel Fanin The Royal Museum at Naples
This 1871 illustrated text covers the erotic artifacts hidden away in what was known as the “secret cabinet” in the Naples museum. Many of these artifacts came from the excavations of Pompeii, and were not on display to the general public. This is a translation of the original 1836 limited edition written by French antiquarian César Famin, who wrote under the initials C.M.F. French authorities confiscated and destroyed most of the copies. “Colonel Fanin” based his edition on one of the few remaining copies, and limited his edition to a small press run. It is considered one of the rarest of erotic books. This edition is from a 1969 paperback that sold originally for $15.00. It includes the sixty lithographs from that edition (which were not very high quality). This is from the edition that includes the erotic illustrations by Wilde’s friend and controversial artist Aubrey Beardsly.
W. C. Firebaugh (translator) Petronius The Satyricon
Written somewhere around 60 C.E., it details the adventures in prose and poetry of the narrator, Encolpius, his friend Ascyltus, and Gito, their attendant. The primary theme is the debauchery of Nero’s time, with orgies, bisexuality, rape, and secret phallic rites. It is believed that it was originally a series of some 20 books, but all that remains are 46 chapters from books 15 and 16. These were first published in 1664. In 1934, the police court of Westminster, England, ordered the first English translation of The Satyricon destroyed. As was common in many books of the time, the 1913 Loeb Classical Library left entire sections in Latin that they felt too debauched for less educated readers. This is from the complete and unexpurgated translation by W. C. Firebaugh, which incorporates the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena, and the readings introduced into the text by De Slas. This edition is illustrated.
Gustave Flaubert Madame Bovary
First published in 1857, it is considered the first modern novel. Originally published as a series of excerpts, Flaubert went on trial for obscenity immediately after its publication in book form, although he managed to escape conviction. Part of the controversy was the book’s depiction of a woman driven by sexual desire. Emma, married to a small town doctor, takes a rich landowner and then a law clerk as lovers. In 1954 it was placed on the black list of the National Organization of Decent Literature.
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Eliza Burt Gamble Sex in Religion
The complete title is God Ideas of the Ancients or Sex in Religion. It was written in 1899, and looks at the development of religions under both patriarchal and matriarchal rule. It includes chapters on phallic worship and the efforts to purify sensualized faiths. The sex in the title refers primarily, though, to gender roles, as the author developed this work while writing the Evolution of Woman, a classic text on sex specialization inspired by Darwin’s Descent of Man.
Elinor Glyn Three Weeks
One of the Boston Watch and Ward Society’s first successes was banning this British novel, which sold 50,000 copies within the first three weeks of its U.S. release in 1907. The ruling influenced the interpretation of obscenity laws in Massachusetts for decades, and made the Watch and Ward Society a powerful force for censorship that expanded across the country. Three Weeks’ scenes of sexuality kept it popular for years. In Ohio, a 1930 cartoon of Disney’s Clarabelle the Cow was banned because the cow was reading a copy of the book.
Emma Goldman Anarchism and Other Essays
First published in 1917, this covers Goldman’s views on anarchism as well as her views on Puritanism, marriage, and sexual freedom. She was a strong and early advocate of free love and birth control. Often overlooked, she is an important figure in history. She was the first person in the U.S. to be imprisoned for a political offense, and she was birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger’s mentor, bringing her into the campaign against the 1873 Comstock Law which prohibited the distribution of birth control literature.
The Rev. A. Herbert Gray, D. D. Men, Women and God
Subtitled A Discussion of Sex Questions from the Christian Point of View, it was written in 1922. It is remarkably progressive, advocating sex education for children (and telling them the truth about sex), the fundamental equality of men and women, the importance of female orgasm, and the use of birth control. He strongly condemns prostitution but has some sympathy for the prostitute.
Captain Grose Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
Compiled in 1811, it includes some 4220 entries, with lots of naughty slang words you never heard before.
Bernard Gulbert Guerney (translator) Alexandra Kurpin Yama
Yama means “The Pit”, in this story of Russian prostitution. It first appeared in print in three parts: the first part in 1909; the second part in 1914; the third in 1915. This is from the 1922 translation by Bernard Gulbert Guerney.
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Thomas Hardy Jude the Obscure
So upset was Hardy over the banning for indecency and the public burning of his novel, that he never wrote another. He spent the rest of his working life writing poetry. Jude the Obscure is the story of Jude Fawley, a poor stone carver who begins a relationship with his free-spirited cousin. It was first published in 1896. Hardy was also the author of Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
Nathaniel Hawthorne Scarlet Letter
This 1850 novel concerns a 17th century Salem woman who has a baby by her lover and is forced to wear a scarlet letter A for adulterer. The fact that the author sympathizes with Hester Pryne, and that the man who got her pregnant was the town minister, incensed a lot of people, and has led to the book being banned repeatedly since its publication.
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Henry James Turn of the Screw
A gothic Victorian novel published in 1898, it has strong sexual overtones, mostly open to interpretation. This was intentional, making it possible to find sexual connotations in everything. In this way, it is a brilliant but subtle parody of Victorian sexual anxiety. There is also an undercurrent of homosexuality (James was a homosexual himself). What can be inferred is that the chaos produced may not be ghosts at all, but sexual repression.
James Joyce Ulysses
First published in 1922 in Paris, Ulysses was barred from the United States as obscene for 11 years. The lifting of the ban in 1933 came only after advocates fought for the right to publish the book. In the landmark 1933 case United States v. One Book Called “Ulysses,” federal judge John Woolsey declared Ulysses not obscene and rejected the Hicklin “bad tendency” test in favor of a test that focused on the author’s pornographic intent and the effect on the average reader of the work taken as whole. This set a major precedent for future obscenity cases. Ulysses was actually prosecuted by John Sumner (Comstock’s slightly less evil successor) even before it was published in book form. It was serialized in The Little Review, and in 1920, the publishers were put on trial for obscenity for publishing it and fined $100 each. While one of the most censored books, it is also one of the most difficult in which to get to the “good parts.” Weighing in at 732 pages, many consider the book itself a very challenging read, with endless wordplay, paragraphs that run on for pages, and stream of consciousness mixed in with few sexual scenes and obscenities. The entire novel takes place on June 16th, 1904.
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Kalayanamalla The Ananga Ranga
A Sanskrit erotic manual written in the 16th century, this is the 1885 Richard Burton translation originally published by the Kamashastra Society of London and Benares.
John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. Plain Facts For Young and Old
A classic of crank medical science, in which the author (also the man behind Kellogg’s Corn Flakes, which were created to reduce the sex drive) attempts to blame all disease on masturbation. Kellogg believed that any sex was debilitating, and never consummated his own marriage. It was a very popular book in the late 1800’s. Originally published in 1877, this is the 1891 edition.
Hubert Kennedy Sex and Math in Harvard Yard
A fictional and erotic biography of mathematician James Mill Pierce and his homosexual exploits. The author, looking for a gay role model in his chosen profession of mathematics, followed up on the belief that Mills was Professor X, who wrote a letter to John Addington Symonds that appeared in the co-authored with Havelock Ellis Sexual Inversion. His research found additional evidence, which is included here from various magazine articles the author published.
A. S. Kline (translator) Ovid Art of Love
The Ars Amatoria (Art of Love) consists of three books written by Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, the first two written about 1 BCE to 1 CE and the third somewhat later. He was banished by Augustus, some believe for writing the Ars Amatoria. In it, Ovid instructs women in the art of seduction and men in skills of sexual conquest. It has been banned as obscene periodically throughout history, as recently as the 1920’s in the U.S. This text is from the 2001 ion.
Richard Payne Knight A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus
Written in 1786, it is a history of phallic worship in the classical period. This is based on the 1865 edition, which also includes Thomas Wright’s The Worship of the Generative Powers.
Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger Malleus Maleficarum
One of the most evil texts ever published. Also known as the Hammer of Witches, it is a handbook of primarily sexual torture techniques used against accused witches by the Inquisition. It tells us more about the sexual pathology of the inquisitors than it does about witches. It was first published in 1847, and although it became the standard handbook for witch hunters, it was never officially endorsed by the Church. The text is from the 1948 edition of Montague Summers 1928 translation.
Alexandra Kurpin Yama
Yama means “The Pit”, in this story of Russian prostitution. It first appeared in print in three parts: the first part in 1909; the second part in 1914; the third in 1915. This is from the 1922 translation by Bernard Gulbert Guerney.
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D. H. Lawrence Lady Chatterly’s Lover
The best known and last of Lawrence’s novels, it was published in 1928 and immediately became the object of numerous obscenity trials, including a landmark 1959 case in the U.S. It concerns the affair of the sexually unfulfilled Lady Chatterly with the game keeper of her husband’s estate. Part of what made it so controversial was that the sex took place between two very different classes, that the affair was sympathetically portrayed, and one one paid a tragic price for their “sins”. It was inspired by the affair of Lawrence’s Wife Frieda with an Italian peasant. Considered outright pornography when first published, it was initially only printed privately in Florence.
D. H. Lawrence The Rainbow
The Rainbow, published in 1915, was the beginning of Lawrence’s long battle with censors. A story of two sisters growing up in the north of England, critics were scandalized by its frank descriptions of sexuality and use of swear words (they would later have apoplexy with his publication of Lady Chatterly’s Lover). A magistrate ordered the burning of 1,000 copies, he had difficulty getting anything else published, and 13 of his paintings were seized on the grounds of obscenity from the Warren Gallery in London by Scotland Yard. He saved them from being destroyed only by promising never to show them again. It would be five years before he published another book- the sequel, Women in Love (the second half of what was originally to be one long book).
D. H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers
This 1913 autobiographical novel dealt with sexual topics more modestly than his later works, and received a lot less criticism. It’s use of the Oedipus complex and the sexual confusion of its protagonist, Paul Morel, is a precursor to the much stronger sexual content of Lawrence’s later novels.
D. H. Lawrence Women in Love
This 1920 sequel to The Rainbow is widely regarded as Lawrence’s greatest novel. He had great difficulty finding a publisher and finally had it privately published in New York. Many believe that the story has a homosexual undercurrent and that school inspector Rupert Birkin, is homosexual. This is especially significant since Rupert represents Lawrence, and questions of his sexual identity continue to remain. Lawrence left out a prologue he had written which seems to help make the case, specifically lines such as “It was for men that he felt the hot, flushing roused attraction which a man is supposed to feel for the other sex.” Other scholars believe that Lawrence is referring to a non-sexual form of passion between men.
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Arthur Machen (translator) Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 1
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Arthur Machen (translator) Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 2
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Arthur Machen (translator) Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 3
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Arthur Machen (translator) Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 4
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Arthur Machen (translator) Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 5
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Arthur Machen (translator) Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 6
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Edwin Meese The Meese Commission Report on Pornography
Hoping to avoid the conclusions of the embarrassingly neutral pornography report by a commission created by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1968, Reagan and his Attorney General Edwin Meese wanted a slam-dunk indictment of obscenity. By stacking the deck with anti-pornography advocates and using distorted research, they got the results they wanted, at the expensive of any scientific credibility. It was completed in 1986, and is a classic of junk social science, paid for with tax dollars.
Dr. Albert Moll Sexual Life of the Child
Sexuality and children continues to be a controversial subject. This is the first comprehensive study of the subject, and Moll rejected Freud’s now discredited theories on childhood sexuality. Moll was considered one of the top four names in the history of early sexology (along with Magnus Hirschfeld, Max Marcuse, and Iwan Bloch, the father of sexology). This is from the 1929 Macmillan reproduction of the original 1912 edition. It was translated by Eden Paul from the original German edition of 1909.
Hugh Morris Art of Kissing
This little booklet on kissing techniques was first sold in the 1930’s.
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Shaykh Nefwazi The Perfumed Garden
Both a sex manual and a work of erotic literature, it was believed to have been written in Tunis sometime near the beginning of the 16th century. It borrows many of the sexual positions described in earlier Indian texts. This is the 1886 translation by Sir Richard Burton
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Ovid Art of Love
The Ars Amatoria (Art of Love) consists of three books written by Roman poet Publius Ovidius Naso, the first two written about 1 BCE to 1 CE and the third somewhat later. He was banished by Augustus, some believe for writing the Ars Amatoria. In it, Ovid instructs women in the art of seduction and men in skills of sexual conquest. It has been banned as obscene periodically throughout history, as recently as the 1920’s in the U.S. This text is from the 2001 A. S. Kline translation.
Eden and Cedar Paul (translator) Mathilde and Mathias Vaerting The Dominant Sex
Covering the sociology of sexual differentiation, this is from the 1923 English translation Eden and Cedar Paul of the original German. It is a classic work on sex roles.
Eden Paul (translator) Dr. Albert Moll Sexual Life of the Child
Sexuality and children continues to be a controversial subject. This is the first comprehensive study of the subject, and Moll rejected Freud’s now discredited theories on childhood sexuality. Moll was considered one of the top four names in the history of early sexology (along with Magnus Hirschfeld, Max Marcuse, and Iwan Bloch, the father of sexology). This is from the 1929 Macmillan reproduction of the original 1912 edition. It was translated by Eden Paul from the original German edition of 1909.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 1
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 2
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 3
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 4
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 5
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 6
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 7
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 8
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 9
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Samuel Pepys Diary of Samuel Pepys Volume 10
The Diary of a 17th century English civil servant, it covers ten years of his life and key events of the time, including the restoration of the monarchy, the Great Plague of 1665, and the Great Fire of London of 1666. He was a notorious womanizer, and it unstintingly recounts his many affairs. It was written in long hand in code, and first deciphered between 1819 and 1822 by John Smith. The complete multi-volume 3800 page edition was first published in 1893.
Petronius The Satyricon
Written somewhere around 60 C.E., it details the adventures in prose and poetry of the narrator, Encolpius, his friend Ascyltus, and Gito, their attendant. The primary theme is the debauchery of Nero’s time, with orgies, bisexuality, rape, and secret phallic rites. It is believed that it was originally a series of some 20 books, but all that remains are 46 chapters from books 15 and 16. These were first published in 1664. In 1934, the police court of Westminster, England, ordered the first English translation of The Satyricon destroyed. As was common in many books of the time, the 1913 Loeb Classical Library left entire sections in Latin that they felt too debauched for less educated readers. This is from the complete and unexpurgated translation by W. C. Firebaugh, which incorporates the forgeries of Nodot and Marchena, and the readings introduced into the text by De Slas. This edition is illustrated.
Plato Symposium
A discussion of love between Socrates, Aristophanes, Alcibiades, Phaedrus, Pausanias, and Diotima, at a drinking party. It deals with spiritual and physical love of both the heterosexual and homosexual kind (although they did not have specific terms for homosexuality at the time). It includes Aristophanes’ famous discussion of bisexuality involving humanity splitting into three types. It was written around 360 B.C.E.
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Sha Rocco The Masculine Cross and Ancient Sex Worship
Published in 1874 and authored by Abisha S. Hudson, who wrote under the pseudonym Sha Rocco. It deals with Phallic Worship and the role of sexuality in ancient religions.
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Leopold von Sacher-Masoch Venus in Furs
His most famous novel, it tells the story of Severin and Wanda, his cruel Venus in Furs whom he desires to be whipped and dominated by. This parallels Sacher-Masoch’s interests in real life. At the end of the story, Severin loses his desire for submission, stating that men should dominate women until the time when women are equal to men in education and rights. The writings of Sacher-Masoch inspired Krafft-Ebing to coin the term “masochist.”
Marquis de Sade 120 Days of Sodom
A classic of erotic fiction that goes to the edge and beyond. Written in the 1780’s while de Sade was in prison, the manuscript was long thought lost until it was discovered in the early 1900’s. It is considered his best work, and includes almost every form of sexual perversion imaginable. The term sadism is derived from de Sade’s name.
Marquis de Sade Justine
Justine, a believer in virtue, continues to be thwarted by vice, in the form of all manner of perversions in this philosophical tale of good versus evil where evil repeatedly triumphs. This is a 1791 version of his earlier 1787 Les Infortunes de la vertu. Although written anonymously, Napolean Bonaparte ordered the author arrested in 1801, where he was sentenced without trial. The term sadism is derived from de Sade’s name.
Margaret Sanger Family Limitation
Sanger opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S., and many years later was responsible for securing funding that led directly to the development of the birth control pill. One of the key figures in the birth control movement, this is the birth control booklet that got her husband arrested by Anthony Comstock while she was out of the country to avoid arrest herself. The text is from a rare 1914 edition.
Margaret Sanger The Pivot of Civilization
Sanger believed this 1922 book best described her beliefs and what brought her to the birth control movement. It includes her controversial beliefs on eugenics that continue to be used by birth control critics to attack her (usually with significant distortion and misrepresentation), although at the time they were common ideas with many intellectual thinkers. Sanger was the pivotal figure in the birth control movement in the United States. It includes an introduction by H.G. Wells, with whom she carried on a love affair which is thinly disguised in his novel, The Secret Places of the Heart.
Margaret Sanger Woman and the New Race
This 1920 book with an introduction by her mentor and lover Havelock Ellis encourages women to not depend upon men but to believe in themselves. It also argued for the importance of birth control. Her first book, the hardcover edition sold out immediately.
Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 1
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 2
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 3
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 4
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 5
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
Giacomo Casanova de Seingalt Memoirs of Casanova Volume 6
Written in old age, they were first published posthumously as a 12 volume set in Germany in 1823. Casanova died in 1798. They recount his amorous adventures from boyhood to late in life, spanning across Europe. This eBook is from the rare unabridged London edition of 1894, translated by Arthur Machen. It also includes chapters discovered by Arthur Symons.
George Bernard Shaw Mrs. Warrens Profession
The play was written in 1893, first published in 1898, but was not performed until 1902. Government censorship delayed its opening. It is the story of a well-educated young woman who learns that her mother’s wealth comes from the string of brothels that she runs. The play was vigorously attacked by official government censor Anthony Comstock, which inspired Shaw to coin the term “Comstockery”. This edition includes the Author’s Apology of 1902.
Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer Malleus Maleficarum
One of the most evil texts ever published. Also known as the Hammer of Witches, it is a handbook of primarily sexual torture techniques used against accused witches by the Inquisition. It tells us more about the sexual pathology of the inquisitors than it does about witches. It was first published in 1847, and although it became the standard handbook for witch hunters, it was never officially endorsed by the Church. The text is from the 1948 edition of Montague Summers 1928 translation.
Sylvanus Stall, D.D. What Every Young Boy Ought to Know
Another Victorian sex manual that teaches that masturbation leads to a variety of evils, the collapse of the nervous system, insanity, and inevitable death. One interesting aspect is that it was also one of the first audio books. It could be purchased as a set of 24 Edison cylinders. It was originally published 1897; this is the 1905 edition.
Kenneth Starr Starr Report
The Starr Report on the sex life of President Clinton represents the most expensive porn book ever produced- all at taxpayer’s expense. Since the crux of the investigation was Clinton’s lying about an extramarital affair in a court case which was dropped, his lie was never crucial to the heart of the case and would never have been normally prosecuted for perjury. Starr’s investigation, which turned up little more than explicit information about Clinton’s sex life, cost taxpayer’s over $40 million.
Dr. Marie Stopes Married Love
First published in England in March 1918, it was the first modern marriage manual. Marie had never consummated her first marriage and was still a virgin at the time this was written. Her sexual problems with her husband (who was probably impotent) led her to research sexuality. As a successful paleobotanist, a very unusual career choice for a woman at the time, she was no stranger to research. The book was wildly popular, selling over 750,000 copies by 1931. It was the first book to note that women’s sexual desire coincides with ovulation and the period right before menstruation. Her assertion that semen was a mood elevator for women was largely considered unscientific until recent studies confirmed it. It also advocated the importance of women receiving sexual pleasure and having orgasms. The book was banned in the U.S. until 1931. Marie founded the first birth control clinic in the U.K.
Montague Summers (translator) Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger Malleus Maleficarum
One of the most evil texts ever published. Also known as the Hammer of Witches, it is a handbook of primarily sexual torture techniques used against accused witches by the Inquisition. It tells us more about the sexual pathology of the inquisitors than it does about witches. It was first published in 1847, and although it became the standard handbook for witch hunters, it was never officially endorsed by the Church. The text is from the 1948 edition of Montague Summers 1928 translation.
John Addington Symonds A Problem in Greek Ethics
An ethical reconsideration of homosexuality and pederasty in Greece and the modern age. Subtitled Being an Inquiry into the Phenomenon of Sexual Inversion Addressed Especially to Medical Psychologists and Jurists, the main intent was to show that homosexuality was common in Greece and that it should no longer be considered an aberration, an illness or a criminal offense. It is the first extended historical and literary study of homosexuality in English. Just 10 copies were printed in 1883 This is from an unauthorized 1901 edition published by Leonard Smithers. Part of the material later appeared in the first edition of Sexual Inversion, which Havelock Ellis co-wrote with Symonds. The next edition, Studies in the Psychology of Sex. Vol. I. Sexual Inversion, saw Symonds name removed as well as much of the material from the Greek book, even though about a third of the book was still Symonds work. His name was also left off of all future editions.
John Addington Symonds A Problem in Modern Ethics
While the term “homosexuality” was coined in 1868 by the German Sexologist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, this is the first book in English in which the term appears. The more common term at the time was “invert”. It was originally printed in a limited edition of fifty copies in 1891. Part of the material appeared in a book co-authored with Havelock Ellis which appeared in print after Symonds death (and from which Symonds name was removed in later editions). In 1896, another edition of 100 copies was printed. This is from the 1896 edition.
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Mark Twain 1601
A rare humorous work by Twain originally published anonymously in 1880. It is quite ribald, and as Twain stated years later, “if there is a decent word findable in it, it is because I overlooked it”. The full title is “Conversation, as it was by the Social Fireside, in the Time of the Tudors”. Also included in this eBook is a copy of a little-known humorous Twain speech on masturbation.
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Mathilde and Mathias Vaerting The Dominant Sex
Covering the sociology of sexual differentiation, this is from the 1923 English translation Eden and Cedar Paul of the original German. It is a classic work on sex roles.
Vatsyayana Kama Sutra
The classic Indian text on sacred sexuality. Also titled Aphorisms on Love, it was written sometime between the 1st and 6th century AD. It is probably best known for its classification and description of 64 sexual positions, and the view of sex as an art form, although it also has advice on relationships and good citizenship. This is the classic Richard Burton translation from 1883.
Voltaire Candide
Because of its controversial nature, Candide was written by François-Marie Arouetin (who normally used the pen name Voltaire) in 1759 under the pseudonym “Monsieur le docteur Ralph.” It has a long history of censorship, including In 1930, when U.S. Customs confiscated copies bound for Harvard University, declaring it obscene. In 1944, the U.S. Post Office sought to have it removed from a Concord Books catalog that was sent through the mail. This satire is more euphemistic than explicit, but it managed to offend on sexual, political and religious grounds.
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C. Staniland Wake and Hodder M. Westropp Influence of the Phallic Idea
Written in 1875, it looks at Phallic Worship in Phoenician, Egyptian, Phrygian, Greek, and Hindu cultures.
Walter My Secret Life
While the author is anonymous, biographer Ian Gibson believes he has discovered the true author in noted erotica collector Henry Spencer Ashbee. Probably fiction, it chronicles the explicit sexual exploits of a Victorian London gentleman who claims to have slept with some 1,200 working-class women over 40 years. The complete My Secret Life, which ran in total to 11 volumes, is now exceedingly rare. A limited edition of 20 to 25 sets was published between 1888-1894. This eBook is only a partial edition. In 1932, a New York publisher issued 3 volumes of My Secret Life before being arrested. In 1969, a British printer, Arthur Dobson, was sentenced to two years in prison for attempting to publish the book. It appeared for the first time in the U.S. in a Grove Press edition in 1966.
T. G. Wayne Morals and Marriage
Published in 1936, it provides a Catholic perspective on sex. It strongly condemns birth control but does advocate using the “safe period”, without really describing what that is specifically.
H.G. Wells Secret Places of the Heart
A thinly disguised novel based on his affair with birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger. It covers the conflicts within his own life of a satisfying emotional marriage but the need for sexual satisfaction outside of marriage. The sex is implied rather than implicit, primarily because, as Wells’ grandson has noted, he never felt himself any good at writing such scenes.
Hodder M. Westropp and C. Staniland Wake Influence of the Phallic Idea
Written in 1875, it looks at Phallic Worship in Phoenician, Egyptian, Phrygian, Greek, and Hindu cultures.
Walt Whitman Leaves of Grass
It first saw print in 1855 and went through numerous versions as Whitman continued to modify and add to it. Threatened with prosecution for obscenity in 1882, the publicity actually helped to increase sales. The Boston District Attorney, acting on behalf of the Society for the Suppression of Vice, wrote Whitman’s publisher that it considered Leaves of Grass “obscene literature,” specifically objecting to representations of women in the “Children of Adam” poems and to the poem “To a Common Prostitute.” Whitman denied that there was a homosexual subtext to his famous Calamus poems. This text is from the 1881 (7th) edition.
Oscar Wilde Salome
This Oscar Wilde play was written originally in French and published in 1893. It was first presented in 1896 in Paris. Much happened between those times. The English version was translated by Lord Alfred Douglas, who was Wilde’s younger lover. John Sholto Douglas, the Marquees of Queensberry (who promoted the Queensbury rules in boxing) did not like Wilde’s association with his son, and decided to attempt to “out” Wilde. Wilde sued for libel, and the trial went badly. He withdrew the charges when it appeared that the defense had many young men who would testify that they had sex with him. Unfortunately, the defense turned their evidence over to the police, who then arrested WIlde for gross indecency under the Criminal Law Amendment Act. Wilde’s name was removed from playbills of the popular “Importance of Being Earnest.” It took two trials to convict him, and he spent two years in prison under very harsh conditions. Salome is based on the biblical story of the beheading of John the Baptist, his cruel fate due to Salome’s unrequited lust for him. This English edition includes erotic illustrations by controversial artists and longtime Wilde friend Aubrey Beardsley.
Mary Wollstonecraft Maria
The final and unfinished novel by Mary Wollstonecraft (whose daughter, Mary Shelley, would write the Frankenstein novel). Subtitled The Wrongs of Woman, it is the fictional sequel to Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women. It depicts the sexual, economic, physical, and legal abuse of all classes of late eighteenth century women. This is from the 1798 edition.
Mary Wollstonecraft Vindication of the Rights of Women
Published in 1792 and one of the earliest feminist works, it had a great influence on feminism in 19th century America. Her idea that that women enjoy natural rights and should have the same political rights as men was one of the major topics at the 1848 Seneca Falls convention in New York. In the book, she identifies male erotic desire as the cause of women’s sexualized identity and social oppression.
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