Lille: GKC (1994). Soft cover. Reprint of the rare limited edition published in 1937 of these 'idylles d'amour grec en Angleterre." Fine in wrappers. More

Buneo Aires: Bajolaluna (2011). 218pp. Biography of the secretary/confidant/love of the French aesthete Robert de Montesquiou. Iturri (occasionally spelled Yturri) was an important part of Montesquiou's life during Belle Epoque Paris and died in 1905. Fine in wrappers, numerous illustrations. More

Buenos Aires: Maucci Hermanos (1903). 288pp. Guide to sexual hygiene, as well as various mental and psychological problems. Good in marbled boards, a bit of spotting throughout, endpaper has closed tear. Uncommon. More

Paris Modern-Bibliothèque [1909?] 155p. The first illustrated edition of this novel, which caused a scandal when it appeared. because of its 'indelicate and unpatriotic' novel about military life, it includes one character, Laprévotte, a sodomite, who is cuaght in Le Havre with a group of seven boys. It was prodeeded against for indecency ('outrage aux moeurs'), and the defendants were acquitted in March 1890." - - Patrick Pollard, André Gide: Homosexual Moralist, Yale University Press, 1991). More

New York: April (1937). This short-lived magazine "mirroring the varied interests of the discerning cosmopolite" had more than a whiff of homosexuality in its perspective on taste and fashion. Edited by Fanchon Devoe, the magazine was published in Philadelphia and existed for only 8 issues. Photographs of Cocteau, Lynes (by Beaton), Jerome Zerbe, Fred Perry, etc. Very good, slight wear to spine and edgewear. Of the specialized publications that served sectors of 1930s society, Bachelor magazine was one of the most distinctive. Launched by Robert Crisswell and his wife, Betty (who adopted the gender-neutral moniker "Fanchon Devoe" as editor), the magazine ran for just over a year and focused on the needs and wants of well-to-do-men-about-town. Jerome Zerbe served as Photograph Editor, and his snapshots and portraits were featured in most issues, along with images by George Platt Lynes, who was also profiled in an issue alongside Jean Cocteau. Articles and humorous essays extolled the benefits of remaining single, while communicating a gay sensibility that was likely more intentional than accidental. Life of the Party: Jerome Zerbe and the Social Photograph. More

London, J.W. Parker and Son (1858) 8vo., 128 pp. A rare volume on the conduct of young men given to the eccentric teenage poet and Etonian, Digby Mackworth Dolben at age 14. Dolben caused considerable scandal at Eton with his exhibitionist behaviour and homosexual eccentricities He wrote homosexual verses to his contemporaries and scandalized his tutors with his behaviour. Dolben drowned at 19 and was mourned by the great Victorian poet, Gerard Manley Hopkins: “there can very seldom have happened the loss of so much beauty (in body and mind and life) ... Inscribed in 1862 to Dolben by Edward Daniel Stone, classical scholar and a schoolmaster at Eton during Dolben's tenure there. Armorial ex-libris of George Digby Scott, rector of Bray Quite rare- the first book of Dolben's library of which we are aware. Full crushed brown morocco and gilt, some wear, evidence of old tape strip removal, all edges gilt. More

Naples: Luigi Pierro (1906), 8vo. One of Douglas's early works, an account of Giordano's De Capreis insula from his Historia Neapolitana. The third in a series on Capri by the author. Original salmon wrappers stamped in black, photographic frontispiece missing (as in most copies). One of 250 copies. Woolf A9. Very good, light wear and small chips to spine. More

Graz: Neugebauer Verlag (2011). 474pp. Edward Hutton was a prolific writer on Italian subjects and began an extended correspondence and friendship with Norman Douglas until the latter's death in 1952. An extensive selection of the letters is presented here in the fourth volume of the series issued by the Voralberger Landesbibliothek and edited by Arthur Wensigner.The correspondence covers a wide variety of subjects and includes references to many of their shared friends and enthusiasms. Fine in red fabric boards. More

Chez la petite Lolotte au Palais Royal, Paris, 1887. 204pp. An uncommon erotic work, largely ignored in the literature. Very good in original wrappers, rebound in vellum. One of 120 numbered copies (#95). Very good, a few darkened areas on final sheets. According to scholar Patrick Kearney: "The identity of 'E.D.' remains something of a mystery. Was he Edmond Dumoulin or Emile Desjardins? Both names have been proposed by sources which are normally reliable. Or perhaps, as has also been suggested, there were two authors working for the same publisher who coincidentally had identical initials. The first public suggestion that the author was Dumoulin seems to occur in the entry (no. 175) for Odor di femina in L'Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Paris: Mercure de France, 1913), the product of the combined talents of Guillaume Apollinaire, Louis Perceau and Fernand Fleuret. The note to the entry reads: "E. D. sur lequel on n'a pas beaucoup de renseignements serait, d'après les uns, un courtier en vins de Bordeaux, selon les autres un functionnaire de la Gironde. Son nom serait Dumoulin. Quoi qu'il en soit, il a publié des écrits libres, jusque vers 1900, chez H[i]rsch, chez D[u]r[i]ng[e], chez Mme R[o]b[e]rt, et chez d'autres. C'est un des plus voluptueux et le plus sensuel des auteurs sous le manteau de la fin du XIXe siècle et parlois il a de l'esprit. Ses meilleurs ouvrages sont: L'Education d'une demi-vierge, excellent roman quit devait avoir une suite, laquelle écrite, n'a jamais paru; Mémoires d'une danseuse russe, l'Odyssée d'un pantalon, Mes amours avec Victoire, Mes étapes amoureuses, Les Stations de l'amour, Les Callipyges, Jupes troussées. La reste ne vaut pas grand'chose, mais l'Education d'une demi-vierge et la Danseuse russe ont quelque sens. The force of the attribution is weakened somewhat by the fact that two of the books listed, L'Education d'une demi-vierge and Les Stations de l'amour, are by a different author entirely, most probably Adolphe Belot. Neverthless, Dumoulin's name is specifically mentioned, and I believe the source of their information to be Charles Hirsch, a French bookseller and publisher who had a shop in London in the last years of the 19th century. As a dealer in erotica, one may reasonably assume that he knew Henry Spencer Ashbee, the great English collector, and as we shall see Ashbee knew the truth of the attribution in the case of one book at least. By 1930, one of the compilers of L'Enfer de la Bibliothèque Nationale had second thoughts concerning Dumoulin. In entry no. 70.4 of his Bibliographie du Roman érotique au XIXe Siècle, Louis Perceau writes: "E. D. serait un nommé Desjardins, qui aurait été professeur de Faculté à Montpellier. Perceau's source of information is unknown to me, and neither do I know where the Christian name Emile seems first to have been used. The earliest I am aware of seems to be late 1950s reprints of Mes étapes Amoureuses which are listed below. But Edmond Dumoulin definitely wrote at least one of the 'E. D.' books, a collection of erotic verses called Rondeaux et sonnets galants (1887). Limited to just 120 copies, it is one of the rarist of the 'E. D.' books, and it is fortunate that the British Library has an exemplar in its Private Case erotica collection. It is part of the Henry Spencer Ashbee bequest, and Ashbee, who knew Auguste Brancart, the book's publisher, thoughtfully added the following pencil note to it: "Received from A. Brancart of Amsterdam. Dec. 1887. 10 francs. Author Edmond Dumoulin, St. Seurin de Cadourne, Medoc, Gironde, France." The suggestion that the pseudonym 'E. D.' might in fact belong to two separate authors with the same initials appears to have been first fielded by Peter Mendes in entry 137-A of his Clandestine Erotic Fiction in English 1800-1930. A Bibliographical Study where he points to the strong stylistic and thematic variations in the books signed 'E. D.' He develops his argument further: "…since the Ashbee note [viz. the one giving Dumoulin's name and address] appears in a copy falling into the more 'normal' heterosexial groupings, 'Desjardins' could possibly have been the author of the texts in which flagellation is the dominant motif; significantly, only 'E. D.' texts of this latter kind were translated into English in this period… Whether one author or two, all the books signed 'E. D.' were first published at Amsterdam by Auguste Brancart between 1888 (Rondeaux et sonnets) and 1892 (Maison de Verre and Mémoirs d'une danseuse russe). In all, there were eighteen separate titles published, although one of them, Après le bal (1889) was a separate publication of the third playlet included in Théâtre Naturaliste, published the same year. Nevertheless, even seventeen separate novels in the space of four years is an achievement, and lends support to Mr. Mendes' theory. More

NP: ND. One of several collections of erotic novelettes, this edition includes "l'Amateur de femmes bien chaussées" ; "Branlage merdeux"; "Deux aspects de Don Juan: 1) Don Juan se fait Mécanicien and 2) Don Juan joue à l'inverti. Quite uncommon. Very good in original green wrappers, light wear to covers. More

Paris: Ambert [1902]. 281pp. 2nd ed. The first of several highly popular schoolboy novels with explicit gay themes written by this French writer, who befriended Count d'Adelsward Fersen and contributed to his journal Akademos. Very good in 1/4 leather binding, original wrappers (with cover photograph by Wilhelm con Gloeden) present, light cover wear, penned signature on endpaper. More

An extroardinary letter from Rear Admiral David G. Farragut aboard the flagship Hartford at Mobile Bay, Alabama dated September 17, 1864 addressed to Acting Ensign, Robert H. Carey aboard the USS William G. Anderson, concerning the Court Martial of a man on charges of "Scandalous conduct tending to the destruction of good morals". The accused was found guilty of acts of sodomy; in part: "After mature deliberation, the court found the accused Guilty of the Charge and sentenced as follows; viz - 'And the Court do sentence the accused, Geo. W. Curtis, Landsman, to ten years confinement at hard labor in the Parish Prison, New Orleans, La. and to the loss of all pay and freeze money now due, or which may become due to him.' I have approved the sentence of the Court in this case. You will have the prisoner sent in irons by the first opportunity to New Orleans, to be transferred to the proper authorities for confinement. This communication to be read on the Quarter deck of your vessel at general muster." The charge of sodomy had been a capital crime up until 1831, although the military did not specifically outlaw it until 1921. Homosexuality was taboo at the time, and there are very few records of it during the Civil War. No punishments were recorded for any soldiers in the army, and only a few records have been found for sailors who were charged and dismissed from the Navy. Usual mail folds, with toning being darker at the folds, some foxing. Four small strips of tape have been placed along mail folds on interior pages. Some weakness along center fold has resulted in slight separation. Two pages of a bifolium, 7.75" x 10" More