Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834 - 1900)
Related: erotic fiction - bibliophile
The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee (2001) - Ian Gibson [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) - Henry Spencer Ashbee
Image sourced here.Index librorum prohibitorum : being notes bio- biblio- icono-graphical and critical, on curious and uncommon books.
Biography
Henry Spencer Ashbee (21 April 1834-29 July 1900) was a writer and bibliographer.
His best known book is Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877), a compendium of writings on sexual matters, not to be confused with the list of banned books published by the Roman Catholics, better known by its informal name "the index".
He is sometimes suspected to be "Walter", the anonymous author of the sexual memoirs My Secret Life.
See also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Spencer_Ashbee
Catena Librorum Tacendorum (1885) - Henry Spencer Ashbee
Thanks to H Spencer Ashbee, one of the most famous of the nineteenth-century bibliophiles, we have a detailed record of many of the obscene works from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Two of Ashbee’s bibliographies of erotic works [...], Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum (1885). They were published under his pseudonym of Pisanus Fraxi, were limited to 250 copies per edition and privately distributed as they were aimed at a niche market – the very rich. Ashbee is also believed to have written the erotic autobiography My Secret Life (1890) [...]. Ashbee’s thoughts on the value of quot;pornography" were evidently mixed. In the "Preliminary Remarks" of Catena Librorum Tacendorum (1885) he felt compelled to declare, "Better were it that such literature did not exist. I consider it pernicious and hurtful to the immature but at the same time I hold that, in certain circumstances, its study is necessary, if not beneficial." -- Sex and Sexuality, 1640-1940 Literary, Medical and Sociological Perspectives, http://www.adam-matthew-publications.co.uk/collect/p678.htm [Jun 2004]
The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee (2001) - Ian Gibson
The life and times of a Victorian gentleman of irrepressible curiosity-and shockingly repressed desire. Henry Spencer Ashb ee (1884-1900) was a prosperous and respectable Victorian gentleman, a family man who counted among his many friends the celebrated adventurer Sir Ric hard Francis Burton. But he was a gentleman with a secret-one so delicious that he rented a separate apartment to contain it. Within the well-appointed chambers of Gray's Inn, Ashbee concealed an astonishingly vast collection of erotica and pornography, thousands of volumes strong. Ian Gibson, the acclaimed biographer of Lorca and Dal, now turns his attention to the hitherto little-known Ashb ee, a man who happily supported his wife and four children but spent his spare time meticulously cat aloguing such risqutitles as Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving and The Marchioness's Amorous Pastimes. And with exclusive access to Ashbee's diaries and his family's archives, Gibson has uncovered evidence that Ashbee may himself have been the author of the notorious My Secret Life-the "true" autobiography of an unnamed Victorian gentleman and his sexual adventures. With his celebrated touch for evoking both his subject and his subject's era, Gibson has created a telling and provocative portrait of a fascinating character and the no less intriguing age that made him possible. --Synopsis via Amazon.com
About the Author
Ian Gibson lives in a village near Granada, Spain. His Federico García Lorca: A Life won numerous awards and was named a best book of the year by the New York Times and the Boston Globe.
The life and times of a Victorian gentleman of irrepressible curiosity-and shockingly repressed desire.
Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834-1900) was a prosperous and respectable Victorian gentleman, a family man who counted among his many friends the celebrated adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton. But he was a gentleman with a secret-one so delicious that he rented a separate apartment to contain it. Within the well-appointed chambers of Gray's Inn, Ashbee concealed an astonishingly vast collection of erotica and pornography, thousands of volumes strong. --Book Description via Amazon.com
Ian Gibson, the acclaimed biographer of Lorca and Dalí, now turns his attention to the hitherto little-known Ashbee, a man who happily supported his wife and four children but spent his spare time meticulously cataloguing such risqué titles as Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving and The Marchioness's Amorous Pastimes. And with exclusive access to Ashbee's diaries and his family's archives, Gibson has uncovered evidence that Ashbee may himself have been the author of the notorious My Secret Life-the "true" autobiography of an unnamed Victorian gentleman and his sexual adventures. With his celebrated touch for evoking both his subject and his subject's era, Gibson has created a telling and provocative portrait of a fascinating character and the no less intriguing age that made him possible
The Erotomaniac is divided in two parts, mirroring 'the double life of considerable deviousness' of Gibson's subject. The first, dealing with Ashbee's life and career, uncovers the open secret that the textile magnate was, in fact, erotic bibliomaniac Pisanus Fraxi, indefatigable compiler of Index Librorum Prohibitorum (1877), Centuria Librorum Absconditorum (1879) and Catena Librorum Tacendorum ('String of Books Worthy of Being Silenced') (1885).--http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,442532,00.html [Sept 2004]
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