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
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
[San Francisco]: San Francisco News Company, 1878. First edition. Small 8vo (6.75 x 5 inches), original purple cloth, gilt lettering, xx, 505, [1] pages. Frontis portrait, vignette illustrations in the text. The self-described Thermal-Sudatorist and Pioneer Water-Cure Physician here publishes a comprehensive hydropathic guide to health for the family, including..... More
Exeter: Published for the Author, 1844. Second edition. Original printed wrappers, 9.25 x 5.5 inches, 84 pages. "As nothing cuts like the truth, it is presumed that the individuals here implicated will be full of wrath and indignation. They may accuse me of writing this book to excite public sympathy..... 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
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
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
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
Venezia: Antonio Graziosi, 1774. Third Italian edition. 8vo, contemporary vellum spine, sprinkled boards, [2], 164 pages. A nice early Italian edition of this critical work in the pathologization of masturbation. Perhaps an obversation might be made on the spread of a fundamentally Protestant approach to the idea of a “solitary..... More
Buffalo: Printed and Published at the World’s Dispensary Printing Office and Bindery, [ca. 1885]. First edition. Original printed green wrappers, 7.63 x 5 inches, 96, 71 pages. Frontis portrait, illus., map. From the longtime populist Buffalo medical man and founder of the Invalids’ Hotel in Buffalo; this account includes a...... More
[Washington, D. C. n. p., 1894]. First edition of each House Report. Two removed pamphlets, approx. 9 x 5.5 inches, 12, 10 pages. HR Report No. 1110 and 1110, Part 2. Should a drunken sexual deviant receive a military pension? The recommendation of the House Committee on Military Affairs to..... More
Newark, Ohio: Star Publishing Steam Print, 1885. First edition. 8vo, original printed blue-green wrappers, [23] pages. An uncommon publication from a reforming organization backed by progressive lawyers and churchmen alike; the title page is here transcribed to include the corporate author, though the catalogued record on OCLC (which notes three..... More
