The private case of the British Library.

[Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 1600-1988.

Multiple languages

Various Western and Eastern European languages.

1 online resource (2,637 monographs).

The Private Case of the British Library is a collection of erotic printed books, transferred from the British Museum in 1973. It is similar in intent and purpose to the Enfer at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Greek Delta collection at the Library of Congress and the Phi collection at the Bodleian Library. Established in the 1850s, it contains material that was segregated from the main British Museum Library collection on grounds of obscenity. Its name derives from it being kept originally in lockable book cases or cupboards in the Keeper's room; items from the collection were issued to readers only with his written permission. This prevented the British Museum from violating obscenity laws and deterred theft of rare and collectable items. Today, the Private Case contains approximately 2500 volumes but it held up to 4000 volumes in the past. This is because books were moved in and out of the collection according to the social mores of the time; the definition of obscenity has seen many changes since the mid-nineteenth-century. The Private Case consists mostly of erotic printed fiction and poetry, with some social science material, dating from the late seventeenth century through to the twentieth century. It perhaps goes without saying that almost all the Private Case erotica was produced by men for men. The collection also contains some typescript, microfilm and photographic material. The content is in a number of languages, with a large proportion in French. The Private Case is now a historical collection; its contents have been preserved, no additions have been made since 1990 and there are no longer any restrictions on its use. The collection is described at item level on our 'Explore the British Library' online catalogue and items can be consulted in the Library's Rare Books & Music Reading Room. The 1850s, when the Private Case was created, was a period in which strict Victorian notions of morality culminated in legislation against the publication and distribution of pornographic material. The Obscene Publications Act was passed in 1857, making the dissemination and sale of obscene materials a statutory offence. The act empowered police to search premises on which indecent publications were kept for sale or distribution. Such obscene material could be seized and the sellers prosecuted; obscenity was famously defined by its ability "to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall" (Regina v. Hicklin (1868)). The act did not have such an adverse effect on the forbidden book trade as one may suppose. Erotic books were still printed and sold clandestinely. Booksellers who sold politically subversive and pornographic literature, such as William Dugdale (1800-1868), were routinely arrested but continued gamely on. Wealthier clientele established relationships with erotic booksellers in mainland Europe and books were smuggled into Britain. In fact, it could even be argued that the forbidden book trade, as an outlet, flourished in the overtly moral climate. Nevertheless, the Act does at least demonstrate the official efforts to censor and suppress. It was in this climate and in accordance with this legislation that the Private Case was established. The earliest record of the collection is a manuscript catalogue of its contents that dates from the 1850s when the collection was kept in the Keeper's room. From holding just twenty-seven books in 1850, the Private Case had amassed many hundreds by the turn of the century. This early collection of Private Case books was supplemented in 1900 by an important bequest. Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834-1900) was a wealthy Victorian gentleman, book collector and bibliographer who amassed a significant personal library across his lifetime. His library included a world-class collection of Cervantes material and, more notoriously, one of the most extensive collections of erotica in existence at the time. When he died Ashbee left his collection of over 700 Cervantes volumes to the British Museum on the condition that they accepted the erotica too (they had permission to dispose of duplicates). Today, over 400 items in the Private Case that belonged to Ashbee can be identified (some of his milder erotic books are now in the General Reference Collection). The bequest included important works by the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), a French nobleman, revolutionary politician and writer known for his particular brand of eroticism that inspired the term sadism, and Restif de La Bretonne (1734-1806), a French novelist whose writing combined eroticism with social concerns. The bequest also incorporated many works about flagellation, a popular genre of erotica in the Victorian period, and Ashbee's personal annotated copy of his bibliography of erotica; the Index Librorum Prohibitorum written under the pseudonym Pisanus Fraxi. Through the Ashbee bequest, the Private Case also received rarities from the libraries of other Victorian collectors of erotica, including James Campbell Reddie (1807-1878) and Frederick Hankey (1822-1882). In the twentieth century the Private Case continued to grow. Dr Eric Dingwall joined the British Museum as a volunteer in 1946 and was granted the rank of Honorary Assistant Keeper in the Department of Printed Books. He built up the Private Case considerably, often by using his own money to purchase books and donate them to the British Museum. He personally donated two of the earliest editions of John Cleland's Fanny Hill, one of the most prosecuted and widely banned books ever. First printed in 1748, Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, commonly known as Fanny Hill, is thought to be the first erotic novel printed in English. Dingwall also bought bigger collections of erotica from private individuals to pass onto the British Museum. By acting as a go-between he ensured that these individuals remained anonymous, sparing them the embarrassment of being identified in the British Museum's records. However, some provenance can still be gleaned from correspondence and other sources. Dingwall compiled a manuscript catalogue of the Private Case collection between 1951 and 1953, for example, in which he identifies some of the donors. The Girard collection entered the Private Case by this method in 1948. It consists of 46 rare French and English works, and includes a copy of the limited first edition of Teleny, or, The Reverse of the Medal. First published in 1893 in only 200 copies, Teleny is one of the earliest homosexual erotic novels written in English. It was written anonymously but was attributed to Oscar Wilde by Charles Hirsch, a clandestine bookseller who was charged with looking after the manuscript before its publication.

Date range: 1600-1988.
Source institution: The British Library.

Access limited to authorized

Archives of Sexuality and Gender: Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century.

Online Resources > Ebooks
All Resources