This volume details scientific pornography during the long nineteenth century. Though there is little overlap between pornography and sexual science currently, in the past pornographers played up scientific credentials to reassure readers.
This volume focuses on the entanglement of pornography and science. Although both categories became better defined during the nineteenth century, they intersected in various ways. Documents in the volume illustrate how medical and pornographic writing were treated as companionate genres in the emerging pornography trade, which together furnished customers with what they needed to enjoy healthy, happy sex lives; how medical and scientific writing could be used as a form of entertainment, and informed sexual fantasies in pornographic fiction; and how pornography was used in the making of sexual-scientific knowledge. They also illustrate challenges that these intersections presented for state authorities and scientific fields.
Volume II: Pornography and Science
Edited by Sarah Bull
Table of contents
Acknowledgements
Chronology
List of Illustrations
General Introduction
Volume 2 Introduction
Bibliography
Part
1. Sexual Freedom
Introduction
1. Advertisements, Era, 2 June 1844, p.
2.
2. Wards New Catalogue of Parisian Novelties (Strand: W. Ward, [ n.d., c.
1850])
3. Charles Knowlton, Fruits of Philosophy, or, The Private Companion of Young
Married People [ 1832] (London: Dugdale, Russell Court, Drury Lane, 1838), pp.
iii-x, 1-59
4. On the Use of Night Caps, or, Seven Years Experience on the Practicality
of Limiting the Number of a Family, By the Best Known Methods, Including Some
Valuable and Novel Information, Never Before Published, by a Married Man with
Six Children! (London: J. Turner [ William Dugdale], n.d.)
5. Intercidona [ pseud], The Connubial Guide, or, Married Peoples Best Friend
(London: John Wilson [ Edward Duncombe], [ c. 1840])
6. Late Extraordinary Charge Against a Tradesman to Poison His Wife,
Lloyds Weekly London Newspaper, 45, Sunday, October 1, 1843, pp.
6.
Part
2. Medical Eroticism
Introduction
7. Title Pages of Three Medical Works Published by William Dugdale
Conjugal Love; or, the Mysteries of Hymen Unveiled ([ s.n.]: H. Smith, 37,
Holywell Street, Strand, [ n.d.])
A Lecture on the Generation, Increase, and Improvement of the Human Species
(London: [ s.n.], 1840)
On Impotence and Sterility; or, Private Advice to those Married Ladies Who
Have Been Hitherto Unable, But are Eagerly Desirous to Have Children ([ s.n.]:
H. Smith, Printer, 37, Holywell Street Strand, [ n.d.])
8. The Secrets of Nature Revealed (London: Printed for the Booksellers of
Town and Country, 1832)
9. A Hybrid Reconstruction of The Surprising Adtentures [ sic] of Bigenio, an
Hermaphrodite, or Man-Woman, and Woman-Man (c. 1840s)
10. Seduction by Chloroform (London: J. Turner, [ c.1850])
11. James Campbell, The Amatory Experiences of a Surgeon (Moscow: Printed for
the Nihilists, 1881)
Part
3. Science and the Law
Introduction
12. Two Statements by Edward Duncombe Following an Arrest, April 1856
13. Court of the Exchequer, Reynolds's Newspaper, 13 July 1856, p.
16.
14. Three Newspaper Reports on Medical Works in Court, 1857-8.
15. Title Page and Introductory Advertisement from Revised Edition of the
Works of Aristotle, the Famous Philosopher (1857).
16. Mr. Justice Coleridge on Obscene Publications, Beverley and East Riding
Recorder, 14 November 1857, p.
3.
Part
4. Imperial Pornography
Introduction
17. A. C. Swinburne, The Cannibal Catechism (1863) reprinted in A.C.
Swinburne, Major Poems and Collected Prose, ed. J. McGann and C.L. Sligh (New
Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2004), p. 413-15.
18. Two Papers Read Out by Members of the Cannibal Club at Anthropological
Society Meetings
Richard Burton, Notes on an Hermaphrodite, Memoirs Read before the
Anthropological Society of London, 1865-6, Vol. II (London: Published for the
Anthropological Society by Trubner & Co, 1866).
Edward Sellon, Remarks on Indian Gnosticism, Memoirs Read before the
Anthropological Society of London, 1865-6, Vol. II (London: Published for the
Anthropological Society by Trubner & Co, 1866).
19. Two Letters to Richard Monckton Milnes (c. 1860)
Letter from Richard Burton to Richard Monckton Milnes, January 22, 1860
discussing Birchiad, signed Hadji Abdullah. Wren Library, Trinity College,
Cambridge, Houghton Papers, 228.14.
Letter from Studholme John Hodgson to Richard Monckton Milnes, Arlington
Court, Barnstaple, December 25 [ c.1860]. Wren Library, Trinity College,
Cambridge, Houghton Papers, DF2/3.
20. The Kama Sutra of Vatsayayna, [ excerpts], trans. Richard Burton and F.F.
Arbuthnot (London: Printed for the Hindoo Kama Shastra Society, 1883).
21. Charles Devereaux [ pseud.], Venus in India; or, Love Adventures in
Hindustan [ excerpt] (Brussels, 1889).
Part
5. The Science of Books and the Science of Sex
Introduction
22. Pisanus Fraxi [ Henry Spencer Ashbee], Introduction, Index Librorum
Prohibitorum: Being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono-graphical and Critical, on
Curious and Uncommon Books (London: Privately Printed, 1877), pp. ix-lxxvi
23. Pisanus Fraxi [ Henry Spencer Ashbee], Catena Librorum Tacendorum: Being
Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono-graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon
Books [ excerpts] (London: Privately Printed, 1885), pp xliv-lv, 183-89, 197,
246-51, 458-76
24. Fragments from Iwan Blochs work with Henry Spencer Ashbees
Bibliographies, c. 1900
Iwan Bloch. Letter to Henry Spencer Ashbee, 20 July 1900
Excerpt from Dr. Iwan Bloch, Sex Life in England (New York: Panurge Press,
1934).
25. Charles Carrington, Bibliotheca Arcana in Album 7: A Collection of
Prospectuses and Catalogues of Erotic and Obscene Books, Pictures and
Instruments. 18891929 [ excerpts]
Index
Sarah Bull is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Toronto Metropolitan University. She is the author of Selling Sexual Knowledge: Medical Publishing and Obscenity in Victorian Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2025).
