Paris: En vente chez tous les libraires [Jules Eugène Gauché and Angélina Leboucher].1911]. The quite rare first edition of this gay erotic novel, bound with Ludovic ou Le Prédestiné à la Pédérastie. The story revolves around the homosexual dalliances of Max Brégantier and includes graphic depictions of orgies and "messe noires." reminscent of Jacques Fersen's scandalous sexual imbroglios some years before. Perceau 296; Pia Enfer, 604; Dutel 398. Very good in original wrappers. Quite rare. More

A. Michel: Paris (1932). 314pp. Benoit's eerie novel about a famous taxidermist who becomes obsessed with protecting birds on his "ile verte". Philippe Jullian's copy which is extra-illustrated with twelve original watercolor drawings illustrating the text. One of 140 large paper copies on Hollande (#50), Jullian has inscribed his name and date (avril 1943) on the colophon page and notes his contribution ("12 aquarelles de Ph. S. Jullian" ). Twenty-four at the time, this is likely among the first collections of his original works- he went on to illustrate numerous books throughout his life. Very good in original wrappers, edges a bit browned. More

This woodblock print appeared in Chubb's A Fable of Love and War, published in 1925. The image was most likely a proof for the book and was acquired from the Chubb estate. Very good, paper has some spotting. More

Paris: Callman-Levy (c. 1910). The French edition of d'Annunzio's work, with a long and sincere dedication to his onetime lover, Romaine Brooks. Around 1909, Brooks and d’Annunzio met at a dinner given by an artist friend who was famous for his colorful posters and paintings. D’Annunzio commented that much more can be expressed without any color at all, and this prompted Brooks to invite him to see her work. Thus began a complicated friendship that lasted for nearly three decades and had a profound impact on Brooks’s art. She saw him as a martyred artist, another lapidé; he wrote poems based on her works and called her "the most profound and wise orchestrator of grays in modern painting". They spent the summer of 1910 in a villa on the coast of France, in a romantic interlude that was disrupted when D'Annunzio's jealous ex-mistress arrived in town. Their friendship remained strong throughout D'Annunzio's life and she painted his portrait in 1912. Very good in original wrappers, rebound in a full morocco signed binding, gilt top edge, gilt titling, very light scuff s, laid into a marbled paper slipcase. More

Paris [L'Imprimerie Sainte-Catherine, Bruges] (1920-1921). 2 volumes. 8vo., 220pp.; 166pp. The first, privately issued edition of Gide's influential confessional memoir, issued four years prior to the first published edition, limited to twelve copies. Cyril Connolly, who included the book on his list of the 100 key books of the modern movement wrote that "Gide's autobiography is a work of art or rather the true portrait of the artist as a young man, for his horizon was much larger than Joyce's and he writes with an electric excitement". This first printing includes explicit passages suppressed in both the first published edition (1924) and the first English-language edition (New York, 1935) and was extremely controversial for its description of his sexual encounters with boys in North Africa. Considered one of his greatest works (certainly his most personal and revealing), the memoir recounts Gide's sexual awakening while on a journey to Algeria in 1893-94, where he met Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, who shocked him with their boldness. In Tunisia he lost his virginity at the age of twenty-three to Athman, a fourteen-year-old Arab boy, and came to accept his own homosexuality. Henceforth his published works invoked the never resolved tensions between a strict artistic discipline, a puritanical moralism, and the desire for unlimited sensual indulgence and abandonment to life. The memoir covers the first twenty-six years of his life Gide was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1947, the first openly gay man to have received the award. In the presentation speech offered at the award ceremony, the Swedish Academy stated "The significance of these memoirs thus is indicated in the mysterious Biblical quotation of the grain of wheat which here represents the personality: as long as the latter is sentient, deliberate, and egocentric, it dwells alone and without germinating power; it is only at the price of its death and its transmutation that it will acquire life and be able to bear fruit." Si le Grain ne Meurt was placed on the Catholic Church's list of prohibited books in 1952, the year after Gide's death. Lovely examples in the original wrappers, laid into chemises and slipcases (signed Devauchelle) , raised dentelles, gilt decorations, marbled endpapers. The first volume  (this example is #8) was issued in an edition of twelve copies and the second volume (#1) was issued in an edition of thirteen copies. A beautiful example of an important twentieth century document. . More

Paris: Impr. de J. Haumont (1945). 34pp. Sir Coleridge Arthur Fitzroy Kennard (1885-1948) was educated at Eton and circulated in Oscar Wilde's milieu (his mother financed the Epstein memorial for him at Pere Lachaise). He was also a great friend of Ronald Firbank and Vyvyan Holland and for many years was Firbank's most ardent supporter and literary confidant. One of several publications issued during his lifetime and surely one of the oddest- it might be argued that the book is in fact a spoof, created by a third party, to denigrate Kennard or bring amusement to others. The poems herein, all in English, are erotic to some extent, a number quite homoerotic: "O! let me calm/ Your fevered blood / Quick! Let me drink,/ Deep in the chasm,/ The growing flood/ Of your vast spasm!" One of 380 numbered copies, finely printed on Johannot, cream wrappers lightly worn. Rare. More

Beloeil [Auguste Poulet-Malassis: 1867]. 75pp. A collection of witty and scandalous anonymous verse by the 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. The first poem is an ode to the virtues of masturbation and another 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. 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." 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 only 70 copies, 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. 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

London: Print for Tho. Parkhurst, Tho. Cokerill and Benj. Alfop, (1680). Titus Oakes was a religious fanatic and conspiracy monger during the "Popish plots" in the late 17th century. He was also a known homosexual (expelled from several schools in his early life for sodomy) and was eventually found guilty of perjury in 1685. See Norton, R. Mother Clap's Molly House @34; Herrup, C. A House in Gross Disorder @128. In the 1630s, the sensational Castlehaven affair had whetted the appetites of those who equated homosexuality with the degeneracy of the Catholic church in England. Folio pamplet (31 x 20cm), sewn, but separated from a bound volume. pp. [8],24,33-36. The jump in pagination is common to all copies & a printer's pagination error. Slightly frayed on the lower outer margins, light dampstain affecting upper inner margin first few leaves, otherwise very good. [Wing O41; Watt 713r]. More

London: Walter Scott (1886). 148pp. A collection of poems, velied but clearly Uranian in tone, evoking the spirits of Ganymede, Adonis, Narcissus and other classical figures. Raffalovich, the wealthy Russian emigré, was an acquaintance of Wilde and intimate of John Gray for many years. A frequent writer on homosexuality in medical journals, he also published several other volumes of prose and poetry. Original tan cloth with bevelled edges lettered in red and decorated in black. Covers lightly worn, light loss at head and tale of spine, spine a bit dulled, small mark on endpaper, bookplate of Anthony Reid (by Ralph Chubb) on front pastedown. Inscribed by the author to Mrs. Lovett Cameron (aka Caroline Sharp), the British romantic fiction writer. Young 3177*. Rare. More

Imprimé sous le manteau et ne se vend nulle part. [Paris: Albert Messein, 1903.] In-12 (183 x 116 mm). The first edition of Verlaine's explicit paean to homosexual love, which includes the "Sonnet au trou-du-cul" written in collaboration with his lover Arthur Rimbaud. The editor Le Dantec refused to include this collection in the modern critical edition of Verlaine's complete works. Enfer 1151. Pia 601 A beautiful copy of the special edition, limited to 25 (this is copy #1), bound in full morocco, signed H. Duhayon, raised bands, edges gilt, original wrappers present, wood slipcase, ex libris of Henri Fischer. With the holograph corrections to the page numbers (46. 47. 48) Van Bever & Monda, p. 67; Carteret Romantique II, p. 435; Paul Verlaine, Oeuvres poétiques complètes, Pléiade, p. 1375; Pia Enfer, 650; Dutel I, p. 170, N° 397*. More