More

Lisboa : Livrarias Aillaud e Bertrand, [1928?] 304pp. Volume 3 of the Portuguese medical professor's treatise on various sexology matters. This volume is dedicated to sodomy, "sexual perversions," homosexuality and other matters. Maroon boards have some deterioration at top. Uncommon. More

Leicester: July (1960). 24pp. The first book catalog issued by d'Offay, which includes works by Wilde, Raffalovich, Whitman, Spare, Norman Douglas and many others. Very good in stapled wrappers. More

Paris: Flammarion (1910). 328pp. Lucien Daudet's collection of 4 novellas, Le Prince des Cravates, was dedicated to Proust, who wrote to him saying that he has written and signed an article for l'Intransigeant praising Lucien's work, 'Votre livre est tellement beau que je ne pouvais pas dormir tant que je n'avais pas écrit q.q. lignes sur lui." Very good in lightly worn 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

London: Curwen Press (1926). 13pp. An uncommon collection of some of Douglas's poems privately printed by A. J. A. Symons in an edition of 50 copies (this is #40). Very good in printed wrappers, light wear to covers, corrections of 4 misprints in the author's hand. Laid into a yellow linen chemise and slipcase, bookplate on front pastedown. Warmly inscribed by Douglas on endpaper ("A belated wedding gift."). More

Napoli: R. Tipografia Francesco Giannini & Figli (1907). 8vo, 58pp. One of 250 copies issued in Naples for private circulation. Woolf A12. The eighth of Douglas' series of monographs on Capri. Good in salmon wrappers, front cover detached. More

Paris: Chamuel (1896). 314pp. An early gay novel about lesbians and gay men, part of the author's "Déséquilibrés de l'Amour" series. Very good in pink wrappers, original wrappers not present. Quite uncommon. More

Golden Cockerel Press. [1933]. Hardcover. One of 325 numbered copies printed by Gibbings in Golden Cockerel type on Batchelor's hand-made paper with seven wood-engravings by Gibbings. A very good copy in morocco-backed decorated cloth, top edge gilt, light bump to one corner. 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

Leipzig, Klaristischer Verlag Akropolis (16pp.) (ND). One of a series of publications by this early German advocate of sexual emancipation and the revival of "male culture". He was a frequent contributor to Der Eigene and his anthology of homoerotic literature, Lieblingminne und Freundesliebe in der Weltliteratur is an important text in the field and the precursor to Edward Carpenter's Iolaus. Very good in wrappers, light spotting 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. More

Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press (1950). 56pp. A collection of poetry by the New Orleans native with an introduction by Tennessee Williams. Warmly inscribed by the author to the Neo-Romantic painter Pavel Tchelitchew on front endpaper. Very good in very good jacket, with light rubbing. More