Paris: Roving Eye Press, 1931. Bob Brown, ed, Readies for Bob Brown's Machine (1931). Roving Eye Press, 1931. A very scarce anthology or collection, printed in France, with contributions (often brief) from the likes of Ezra Pound, William Carlos Williams, Kay Boyle, James T Farrell, Gertrude Stein, et al. Condition: Good, with chipping and splitting to paper at spine ends, droplet spotting and discoloration on front wrap. More

Jersey: Purple Sandpiper Press (2003). 8pp. A collection of poems dedicated to Alan Clodd, accompanied by artwork by Edouard Tanguy. Limited to 100 copies, and twenty signed silk bound copies (of which this is #3). Very good in elaborate silk boards, inscribed by the author on colophon page. More

Corbeil: Impr. Crété ; Paris : R. Saillard (1937). 190pp. A biographical novel about sailors with gay elements by the author of the controversial Chez les Mauvais Garçons. Very good in wrappers. Inscribed on front endpaper to Georges Lecante of the Academie Francaise, library stamp on endpaper. 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

New York Police Gazette: New York: 1 April (1882). 16pp. 4to. A provocative issue of this early New York tabloid shows four flirting women on the cover, two dressed in male attire, with the headline “they could take care of themselves.” Below the image, the caption reads: “A party of gay girls of New York bohemian circles declare their independence by dispensing with male escorts during the masquerade ball season, and enjoy a period of pleasure unadulterated by masculine restraint.” The Boulton & Park scandal in England (men cross-dressing as women) took place in the 1870s. The paper has been folded in half and there is wear around the edges, with chipping, splits and small areas of loss. There are also some margin annotations inside and the top edge of the paper has not been fully cut. 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

London: V. Woolf at the Hogarth Press (1931). 12mo. Dadie Rylands was a Scholar at Eton and at King ’s College, Cambridge, where he read classics and English literature. After graduation he worked for a few months at the Hogarth Press with Virginia and Leonard Woolf, who printed and published two volumes of his poetry. Poems was printed by hand by Virigina and Leonard Woolf. One of 350 numbered and signed copies (#260). Very good in decorative paper boards. First edition, first issue, with the comma after the "L" on the title-page. More

Beloeil [Auguste Poulet-Malassis: 1867]. 75pp. A collection of witty and scandalous anonymous verse by the seventh Prince de Ligne, a soldier-diplomat, belle-lettrist, and notorious seducer. His subjects range from sharp reminiscences of court and military life to a lament on the difficulty of rhyming the French for “buggerer”. Despite his history of fathering numerous illegitimate children, the Prince exalts male companionship and sexuality: for example, the first poem is an ode to the virtues of masturbation, while the second is an assault on an old colonel who prevented the Prince from going on break with his young fellow officers, and the fourth is an epitaph for someone “whose ass suffered diseases that his cock escaped” and who “prayed at the brothel but got a hard-on in church.” A brief note by the Prince introduces each poem, and occasional editorial footnotes are scattered throughout. His poems are followed by a supplement from the filthy 1728 satire Histoire du prince Apprius by Pierre-François Godard de Beauchamp; an editor’s note informs us that it was read in secret by the Prince de Ligne in his adolescence. The satire’s original preface has been transposed to the end by the editor, providing this publication’s title, which, given the contents, might be better translated as Ass-backwards. This book was published in 1867 by Poulet-Malassis, a friend of Baudelaire, from one of two then-surviving exemplars of the final volume of the Prince’s light verse, privately printed ca. 1782. An interesting editorial foreword justifies its publication “for the sake of bibliophiles and learned men” while excusing the scandalous content as the kind of youthful vices “to which the entire history of polite society attests.” The colophon notes the original book was printed “without title, author, place, or date”, but in this re-edition, the still-anonymous author’s identity is only thinly disguised: Beloeil, the given place of publication, is the ancient manor of the House of Ligne. Published in an edition of 70, of which this is one of 16 on Hollande with wide margins. An exceptionally rare survival: only one institutional copy appears on WorldCat, held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France. (Thanks to Connor Wood for the description). Réf. Vercruysse 213. - Launay, "Impressions, publications, écrits d'Auguste Poulet Malassis", Bulletin du bibliophile, 1982, II, pp. 185-208 (cit. p. 190, n° 330). - BGL III:1094 -1095. - Pia 1224. - Pas dans Drujon. - Prov. Comte Sosthène de la Rochefoucauld (note dactylogr.). - Baron de Spandl (vente Simonson, Brux., 8-04-1978, n° 6. Very good in 3/4 morocco boards, marbled endpapers, top edge gilt, half-title has a corner missing, light wear to edges. Laid in is a 1 p. typed note indicating the book was purchased in 1951 from the Comte Sosthene de la Rochefoucauld. More

Insterburg (1916). This large format vintage photograph (15" x 10.5') of an elegantly dressed man was made in February, 1916 by a professional photographer named Alphons Schmidt at his studio in Insterburg, Germany (now Chernyakhovsk, Kaliningrad). Blind-stamped with the photographer's name and address at bottom left, the photograph also bears marks on verso identifying the date. Very good in rustic wooden frame. More

Editions Delahaye 2007. 4to 128pp. An exhaustive collection of the illustrator's work, which concentrated on scouting and boys' adventure series. Fin in wrappers, as issued. One of 200 copies. More

New York (1924). 83pp. The first, and extremely uncommon, anthology of homosexual literature to be published in America. The author, a professional chemist and graduate of Columbia University, compiled the anthology anonymously and remains somewhat of a mystery today. His identity has been revealed by the research of several scholars (notably Timothy d'Arch Smith and Donald Mader) and the story of the anthology has been discussed in the only reprint of the edition (Coltsfoot Press, 1978). The anthology commences with works from ancient Hebrew literature and progresses throught the poetry of the 1920s. Included are a selection of known Uranian poets, such as Digby Mackworth Dolben, Edward Cracroft Lefroy, Edward Emmanuel Bradford, John Gambril Nicholson, John Moray Stuart-Young, Edmund John, "Philebus" (John Leslie Barford) and John Addington Symonds. But there are also some surprising contributions from more traditional poets, such as Ernest Myers, William Alexander Percy, James Fennimore Cooper, Jr., Victor Starbuck, Katherine Mansfield, Willard Wattles as well as the anthologist himself. Described by Timothy d'Arch Smith as a "startingly thorough and well-informed anthology" it remains a classic in the field of gay literature and a cornerstone of collecting in the field. According to a prospectus issued by the anthologist, the book was issued in an edition of 150 copies, but relatively few are known to exist. Copy of Samuel Cottam, another Uranian poet with his penned and penciled notations throughout. Front endpaper has remains of a removed photograph or bookplate. Very good in original Italian paper boards, light bumping to corners, spine label missing, ttile page excised. See Rosenthal, An Arcadian Photographer in Manhattan for a thorough examination of Slocum's work. More