Hidden and secret libraries
Related: hidden - secret - secret museum - library
Introduction
Many European libraries possess a collection of erotic and pornographic literature. During the best part of the 20th century, these collections were kept in a private room, away from the general public. In France this collection was called L'Enfer and in Great Britain it was called The Private Case. Guillaume Apollinaire in France and Patrick J. Kearney in Great Britain were the first to catalogue these collections.In German, these collections are called Giftschrank or Remota.
The Private Case Collection at the British Library
[FR] [DE] [UK]The Private Case Collection at the British Library has only recently been open to researchers. As 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. --http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/collect/p679.htm [Jan 2005]
L'Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale (1913) - Guillaume Apollinaire
Les livres de l'Enfer: Bibliographie critique des ouvrages érotiques dans leurs différentes éditions du XVIe siècle à nos jours (1978) - Pascal Pia [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The Les livres de l'Enfer: bibliographie critique des ouvrages érotiques dans leurs différentes éditions du XVIe siècle à nos jours [The Books of the "Enfer:" Critical Bibliography of Erotic Works in their Different Editions from the Sixteenth Century to the Present] is a catalogue of all the erotic works in the Parisian Bibliothèque Nationale de France. It was edited by Guillaume Apollinaire, Fernan Fleuret and Louis Perceau.
This and Patrick J. Kearney's Private Case listing of erotica have served as reliable catalogs with a bibliographic function, different from other relevant bibliographies in that these two have been compiled using works in hand.
L'Enfer
Les livres de l'Enfer: bibliographie critique des ouvrages érotiques dans leurs différentes éditions du XVIe siècle à nos jours [The Books of the "Enfer:" Critical Bibliography of Erotic Works in their Different Editions from the Sixteenth Century to the Present].Les livres de l'Enfer: Bibliographie critique des ouvrages érotiques dans leurs différentes éditions du XVIe siècle à nos jours (1978) - Pascal Pia [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
The first, two-volume, edition (1978) of this work replaced the earlier "classic" catalog of books with predominantly erotic contents secreted away in the so-called "Enfer" of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (L'Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale, ed. Guillaume Apollinaire, Fernan Fleuret, Louis Perceau, 1913). This and the British Library's Private Case listing of erotica (The Private Case: An Annotated Bibliography of the Private Case Erotica Collection in the British (Museum) Library, ed. Patrick J. Kearney, 1981) have served as reliable catalogs with a bibliographic function, different from other relevant bibliographies in that these two have been compiled using works in hand. All the more welcome is the second, expanded (and more affordable) edition, which its compiler, the bohemian journalist and man of letters Pascal Pia (1913-1979), had conceived of before his death.
The second edition, unfortunately, repeats unchanged the first edition's long essay about the history of the collection, although its theses have been corrected in an article by Jeanne Veyrin-Forrer, "L'Enfer vu d'ici" (Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale 14/1984, p. 22-41).
The catalog, arranged alphabetically by title, contains all the entries from the first edition, with revisions especially to some of the already extensive annotations, and with 200 new titles added. Both kinds of supplements are typographically marked, and are based in large part on the catalogs of two 1977 auctions: the Lyon auction of the Michel Simon collection and the Paris auction of novelist Roger Peyrefitte's important collection.
The appendix contains the updated location catalog of the "Enfer" in call-number order, including titles transferred from there to other collections. The 1913 catalog ended with number 930; the latest catalog ends with number 1,730. These additional 800 titles include older materials as well as more recent works of pornography. The index lists the names of authors and other persons, such as illustrators, publishers, and printers. [sh/ga] --http://www.rre.casalini.com/1999/ak.html [Sept 2004]
Les livres de l'Enfer: Bibliographie critique des ouvrages érotiques dans leurs différentes éditions du XVIe siècle à nos jours (1978) - Pascal Pia [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Patrick J. Kearney [...]
[FR] [DE] [UK]Giftschrank and Remota (German)
Der Giftschrank hält gesetzlich eingestufte Gifte (T+ und T in Deutschland, Gifte der Klasse 1 und 2 in der Schweiz) in Apotheken, Schulen und chemischen Laboratorien unter Verschluss.
Mit "Giftschrank" wird umgangssprachlich auch allgemein ein Ort bezeichnet, an dem Dinge aufbewahrt werden, die nicht für jedermann zugänglich sein sollen, weil sie auf eine gewisse Art gefährlich oder unerlaubt sind.
In Museen, Bibliotheken und Archiven werden auch inhaltlich heikle oder (zeitlich) gesperrte Objekte (Aktensperre) in dem s.g. Giftschrank (im Fall inhaltlich heikler Werke auch Remota genannt) aufbewahrt, weniger um diese Objekte zu schützen, sondern, weil die Information nicht jedermann zugänglich gemacht werden darf oder soll, aus welchen Grund auch immer; so zum Beispiel viele Dokumente, Bücher, Objekte und "Kunstwerke" aus der Nazizeit. Während der Zeit des Nationalsozialismus war seinerseits "linken" und "entarteten" Werken das gleiche Schicksal widerfahren.
Der Inhalt der Giftschränke wird immer wieder ergänzt und überprüft, nach Änderungen von politischen Gegebenheiten oder nach Ablauf von Sperrfristen werden bestimmte Objekte aus der Sperre entlassen. So zeigte zum Beispiel die Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in München vom 2. Oktober bis 17. Dezember 2002 in einer Sonderausstellung: "Der Giftschrank. Remota: Die weggesperrten Bücher der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek" einige Objekte, die im dortigen Hause bisher der Öffentlichkeit vorenthalten wurden. --http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giftschrank [Sept 2005]
Remember the British Private case and the French L'Enfer? It appears that in German, the equivalent term is Giftschrank or Remota.
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