London: Printed by Henry Hills, 1708. Second edition, a likely piracy of Moxon's Manchester Daemoniack (1703). Small 8vo, removed pamphlet, 16 pages. "We would account it an horrid thing for one to take the *Body of Christ,* and tread it in the dirt under his feet, and tumble it up..... More
![George Eliot's Two Marriages: An Essay [wrapper title]. Charles Ames, ordon](/pictures/thumb/14709.jpg?v=1465913974)
Philadelphia: Printed and Sold for the Friendly Society, 1885. First edition. 16mo, original printed wrappers, 27, [2] pages. The progresive Unitarian minister here examines the novelist's long-term relationship with G. H. Lewes, with whom she had eloped in 1854 (despite his open marriage with Agnes Jervis, he was unable to..... More
![“Got a Bite.” [Novelty carte de visite (CDV) photo.]. Angling, Risqué](/pictures/thumb/18094.jpg?v=1502828954)
Boston: [publisher illegible], 1864. First edition. Original photograph from a drawing, approx. 3.5 x 2.38 inches on a slightly larger printed mount. A lively and moderately salacious CDV image of a woman angler who has caught her skirt on her back-cast, exposing her stockinged legs. The imprint on the mount..... More
Philadelphia: C. W. Alexander, 1869. First edition in German. 8vo, later cloth spine and marbled boards, [1-4], 21-78 pages (evidently complete; this nearly matches the similarly erratic pagination of the English-language edition). Illus. A fugitive German-language edition of the uncommon sensationalist anti-Catholic tract, Convent Horror; or The true narrative of..... More
New York: Sold by the Booksellers [Chez les Libraires], 1840. First edition. 2 vols in 1, 12mo, original blue cloth, gilt lettering. Title page vignettes of a viper; one folding facsimile plate. A scurrilous libel accusing Rev. Verren of poor manners, gross language and attempted seduction: "The word *libertine* burst..... More
(Cincinnati: Pulvermacher Galvanic Co., 1879). [but ca. 1891]. A later version of this promotional pamphlet. 8vo, original blue printed wrappers, 30, [8] pages. Illus. On the myriad benefits of this galvanic belt, aimed in large part at male sexual debility and impotence; Pulvermacher was one of the pioneers in this..... More
Bound Brook, N. J. Asa K. Butts, 1886. A later American printing of this landmark work on contraception, but with an interesting imprint. (See below.). 8vo, original printed wrappers, 47, [1] pages. Frontis portrait of Besant. Besant had revolutionized the publication of contraceptive information in England after her republication of..... More
New York: J. S. Redfield, Publisher, 1870. First edition. 8vo, original terra-cotta cloth, gilt lettering, 240 pages. “The means used for preventing conception, more particularly affecting women, together with the more bodily injurious, more nervously exhausting and more sinfully demoralizing procedures, for the purpose of destroying and making away with..... More
Boston: J. P. Mendum, at the Office of the ‘Boston Investigator,’, 1875. Stated tenth edition, reissued here with an cancel title page. 8vo, original decorated brown cloth, gilt lettering, 88, [1] pages. Frontis, illus. This edition includes the note from Vale in which (per Atwater) “he discusses conception and its..... More
[Boston?]: National Divorce League, 1893. First edition of this extract from the Minutes of the Association. On how to combat the decline of family life, the increase in divorce, and the prevalence of sexual vice in contemporary society. Blame in part is laid to the absence of men on business..... More
[N. p., but Reading, Penna.?]: Printed for the Trade, [ca. 1898-1900]. 8vo, original pictorial green wrappers, [1-4], [9]-99, [17] pages. Illus. Fold-out illustrated ad for the Spanish Magnetic Dip Needle (a scientific divining device) tipped in before the title page. A later edition of a popular cheap pulp book on..... More
St. Louis: n. p., 1910. First edition. Small 8vo, original printed blue wrappers, 32 pages. "Wherever Rousseauism has gained a foothold, the divorce evil has grown beyond bounds; and after the patient toil of nineteen centuries in which the Church has snatched so large a portion of humanity from barbarism..... More
Boston: Printed by T. R. Marvin, 1826. First edition. 8vo, removed, 27, [1] pages. A detailed sermon on the good works of this rescue mission for prostitutes in Boston, with much in the way of anecdote and first-hand accounts of conversions. "One came to the Refuge who was led astray..... More
New York: Mason Brothers, 1860. First edition? 8vo, original cloth, gilt lettering, 348, 48 pages. From this long time Michigan homeopath who later gave up medicine to refine petroleum comes a manual to avoid the fundamental causes of diseases (excessive labor, spirits, narcotics, etc.) with a special 48-page supplement (as..... More
New York: Max Yankovitz, 1918. First edition in Yiddish. 2 vols, 8vo, original printed blue cloth, 400, 399 pages. First edition in Yiddish of the Swiss neuropsychologist and sexologist Auguste Forel’s Die Sexuelle Frage (München: E. Reinhardt, 1905), here translated by I. M. Albert. Includes a chapter on sexual pathology..... More
North Wrentham [Mass.]: New-England Telegraph Press, 1834. First edition. Original printed wrappers, 8.75 x 5.63 inches, 32 pages, stitched. First published in the columns of Moses Thacher's New-England Telegraph and Eclectic Review, a religious Trojan Horse containing a small troop of early American philosophical and medical thought relating to the..... More
New York: J. S. Redfield, Publisher, 1870. State fifth edition. 8vo, original terra-cotta printed wrappers, 240. [12] pages. “The means used for preventing conception, more particularly affecting women, together with the more bodily injurious, more nervously exhausting and more sinfully demoralizing procedures, for the purpose of destroying and making away..... More
New York: Bermingham & Co., 1883. First edition. 8vo, original green cloth, gilt lettering, 274 pages. From the pioneering American neurologist comes this examination of male impotence, with case studies, including both physiological and psychological causes. (Masturbation, homosexuality, and preoccupation with work all make appearances as culprits; examples of “undoubted..... More
Buffalo: Peter Paul & Brother, 1893. First edition. Small 8vo, original printed wrappers, 16 pages. Portrait of Ingersoll on the inside front wrapper. A theological argument for “Christology,” with an indirectly sexual thrust, arguing that Christ had brought the religion of Almighty Love to replace the judgmental God of Theology..... More
New York: n. p., (1870). First edition? 12mo, original blind-stamped brown cloth, gilt lettering, 192 pages. An early edition of the celebrated lectures on sex disorders, female diseases and the evils of onanism from one of the members of the enterprising Kahn/Jordan family of anatomy museum proprietors; this copy with..... More
Harrisburg, Pa. United Evangelical Publishing House, 1909. First edition. 8vo, original blue cloth, black lettering, 199, [1] pages. Frontis portrait. Law was a state superintendent for the American Purity Federation and appears in contemporary local directories as a lecturer in Detroit; her work here avoids the sensationalist aspects of kindred..... More
London: Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co., 1880. First edition. 8vo, removed pamphlet (no wrappers), 19 pages. Lengthy and legalistic arguments in favor of reforming the marriage laws of Britain, with special focus on the ins and outs of Parliament since the Bill of 1835. Oddly, OCLC seems to note..... More
Hartford: Peter B. Gleason and Co. Printers, 1811. First edition. 8vo, removed pamphlet (no wrappers), 31 pages. "The author of the following pages neither wishes, nor designs to invite and encourage a marriage with a wife's sister; nor with a first, nor second, nor third cousin; nor with the most..... More
New-York: G. & C. Carvill, 1827. Stated second edition; a 47-page edition was published in Carlisle, Penna., in 1826. 8vo, removed from a nonce volume (retaining the printed front wrapper and the larger volume's front free endpaper), 48 pages. "Abolish this law; expel this household God: Let it be publicly..... More
South Norwalk, Conn. Michael Monahan, June 1914 - November 1914. Small 8vo, six numbers bound into red quarter cloth (retaining original pictorial wrappers to each number), orange-yellow boards, partially unopened. The first volume of this little magazine, the successor to Monahan’s Papyrus; Phoenix ran to six volumes through December, 1916..... More
