London: Kegan Paul (1902). 505pp. The posthumously published poems of the metaphysical poet who, along with his onetime lover John Addington Symonds, became a disciple of Walt Whitman's theory of comradeship. This collection of his poetry contains an Introduction by John Addington Symonds, who maintained a friendship with the author until his own death in 1893. Very good in lightly worn slate boards, half-title lightly creased, prelims lightly browned. Uncommon. More

Lisbon: Monteiro & Co. (1918). One of two books self-published by Pessoa in 1918, the other being Antinous. Both of these publications contain a number of passages that have been interpreted as having a gay sub-text. An important and complex collection of modernist poetry, influenced by Elizabethan imagery. Very good in original sewn wrappers, light browning to covers and a few light traces of foxing, pages uncut. More

Bonn: A. Marcus & E. Weber (1919). The author, a medical doctor, studies the role of loving relationships in teaching and articulates the view that 'pedagogy is the right field for the pederast' and offers advice on how to obviate the dangers of becoming involved with students. See Florence Tamagne 'A History of Homosexuality in Europe: Berlin, London, Paris, 1919-1936 (2006), p. 234-5]. Very good in lightly worn wrappers, slight spine roll. More

Elysium Press (1998). A story set in Greece that depicts the conflict of the regimented social values of the upper class and the pursuit of pleasure by the young. One of 75 copies printed letterpress, bound in purple fabric over boards. Printed in two colors. More

Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra (1925).122pp. Precioso was one of the intellectuals who were part of the "Decadentismo" movement in Spanish culture, along with Antonio de Hoyos y Vinent and Álvaro Retana. He was one of the guiding lights behind the fiction collection known as La Novela de Hoy (The Novel of Today). This popular novel was part of the "novela de la noche" series and contains lesbian characters. Very good in decorative wrappers, lightly worn. More

Paris [1934]. 256pp. Quite uncommon. Very good in original decorative wrappers. More

Asphodel (2002). 480pp. Hardcover. Volume 2 of this anthology of homosexual verse in English translations by Anthony Reid. Included are works from Britain, Europe and America. Fine in wrappers. Uncommon. More

Paris: Éditions de Pan (1912). A quite uncommon collection of short essays with homoerotic allusions, one of which is dedicated to Jacques Fersen (with whom he shared the same publisher) and others to Georges Polti and Robert Scheffer. Many of the writers who were published by Éditions de Pan had also contributed to Fersen's short-lived periodical Akademos. A lovely copy in illustrated wrappers, inscribed by the author on the endpaper, occasional light foxing. Uncommon. More

London: D. Bogue: [Chiswick Press] (1881). The British peer's first collection of verse, preceding Rose Leaf and Apple Leaf for which Oscar Wilde provided an introduction. Rodd and Wilde eventually parted ways after Wilde courted scandal and Rodd went on to a prominent career in the Foreign Service. The poem "If any one Return" has a particularly homoerotic caste. By the high cliff's edge where the wild weeds twine, And he would not speak or move, But his eyes would gaze from his soul to mine, My eyes that would answer without one sign, And that were enough for love. Good in parchment wrappers with ownership inscription of Henry Dunkin (alumnus with Rodd of Haileybury School) dated 1881. Wrappers chipped with loss at edges, penciled notes of Brian Reade on endpaper. More

Frederick Rolfe, aka Baron Corvo (1860-1913) was a rather obscure figure in modernist literature, but his influence has been discerned in novels written by Henry Harland, Ronald Firbank, Graham Greene, and Alexander Theroux. His biography by A.J.A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo, is regarded as a minor classic in the field. A lengthy and revealing 4 pp. ALS letter to English poet Charles Kains Jackson, which covers a number of subjects, such as photography, Catholicism, and boys, with Rolfe thanking his friend for his "charming letter…one most grateful to me for I am undergoing one of my periodical fits of dumps." He encourages Jackson to send papers relating to photography, and then provides a description of the tombs at Ariccia near Albano, “…you may walk the 11 miles if you like…the straddling is awful. Moreover out of the crevices in the walls where you wedge your elbows dire & dreadful beasts put out horns & claws & hoofs at you like this.” Rolfe has added a pair of bold sketches here: one of a man walking gingerly into the receding tunnel, and the other of horns and claws. On the next page Rolfe adds the peculiar line “Lady Burton is a woman,” before launching into a tirade against Papists, “…I am trying to kick up some awful row about the way papist treat their converts in one of the newspapers…I've sent a letter to the Manchester Guardian.” In Miriam J. Benkovitz's biography of Rolfe, she notes this passage as being Rolfe's first attack on Catholics. He continues on and writes about ongoing paintings, an Arras, St. Edmund, and how “There is a St. Martin coming on & now what I want is a perfectly naked boy floating in mid air perpendicularly, head thrown back & arms up. I'll give him a golden bow & quiver & call him 'Love.'” He proceeds to complain that he hasn't the right bathing places to pose his boy models, and describes them as “ribald & ugly. Pose they couldn't for their lives,” comparing them unfavorably in front of the camera to the models he found in Italy. He mentions that Gleeson White has offered his 13-year-old son Eric as a model, a proposition that causes Rolfe alarm: “I am sure he regards me with a suspicious eye & expects me to give way to genuflections or some other Jesuitry.” He asks for Henry Tuke's address in order to send him some photographs, and closes with a candid statement on his "relations with boys. You know I never make friends of them now, I am too old & uninteresting. But I make them my bondslaves & worship their beauty.” In very good to fine condition, with ink erosion-related loss to the bottom of the drawing on the first page. More

Paris: Printed for Private Distribution (Contact Editions, 1929). The author of these gay stories was a seventeenth century Japanese writer whose stories about samurai man-youth relations have been widely reprinted. The stories collected here were translated by Ken Sato and are the first English transcriptions, published by Robert McAlmon's Contact Editions. Originally intended to be a two volume book, McAlmon reported to Sylvia Beach that many of the stories "got lost in the mails," but there were still enough (111 printed pages), he reckoned, to provide amusement "without the matter getting wearisome." He had read the Sato manuscript on his trip to America and had found a pleasing naiveté in the stories as well as "situations so completely horrifying to Anglo-Saxondom" that he vowed "they'd better be done."' (Hugh Ford, Published In Paris, Garnstone Press, 1975). Very good in original lightly worn wrappers, small closed tear at head of spine. With the small bookplate of renowned gay collector Herbert Boyce Satcher on front free endpaper. One of 500 copies printed, although rarer in commerce than this would imply. More

Paris: Librairie Generale Catholique (1922). 287pp. A fictionalized version of the events leading up the the eruption of Mt. Pele in 1902, which resulted in the death of 30,000 people around St. Pierre, the capitol. St. Pierre has been described as the Sodom of the Caribbean, a town rife with prostitution, decadence, blasphemy, homosexuality and unbelief and many believed this was the reason for the eruption. The author portrays assorted sacrileges and "decadent behavior" that occurred immediately before the eruption. Very good in original wrappers, light wear to covers and spine, pages uncut. Quite rare. More

Wie : Carl Schusdek (1924). One of a number of Viennese “adult” newspapers that catered to progressive views on sexuality and social issues, imitating Hugo Bettauer’s successful Er und Sie. Wochenschrift für Lebenskultur und Erotik. ich und du published essays and fiction on Berlin prostitutes, illegitimate children, women in prison, sexual outsiders, “what is perverse?” as well as personal ads. Generally good condition, papers browned with edgewear, many illustrations and some colored illustrations. The following issues (each generally 16 pages) are included, housed in a contemporary worn linen folder: (all 1924). No 2, 3, 10, 11, 12, 12, 14, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39. More