Eros

EROS

From the heights of romance to the depths of depravity.

TEENAGE LOVE SONGS

Willem van der Borcht's first book, Brusselschen Blom-Hof Van Cupido (Brussels 1641, oblong 24mo), was written when he was only nineteen. Exploring love (both unrequited and requited) and the good life, it begins with a quatrain on the Mona Lisa. Borcht's brother did the etchings. Only Edition.

WISHFUL THINKING

Barbara Juliane Krüdener's Valerie (Paris 1803/4, 12mo) is an autobiographical epistolary novel which reimagines her distant, older husband as a dashing lover. Her real life was also novel-worthy: a well educated religious mystic, Krüdener was an intimate of Tsar Alexander I and an architect of The Holy Alliance. First Edition.

HOT PROPERTY

This unpublished French translation of Christian Heinrich Spieß's Voyages et aventures du Chevalier Benno d'Elsenburg en l'année 1225 (France c.1800, folio) recounts the adventures of dashing knight Benno, his lady love Agnes and celibate best friend. Spieß specialized in dark romantic tales and influenced Ann Radcliffe.

PENIS PRAISE

La Fluste de Robin (Troyes c. 1620, 8vo) describes the "flute" with which Robin pleases the ladies with metaphorical gusto. Mercier says "erotic or pornographic, as you wish." Four antiquarian editions survive, in a handful of examples, from between 1619 and 1622.

"BEWILDERING"

Giacomo Nasi's Endecasyllabi Di Essione Partico Callifilo Archiludimagistro (Viterbo 1661, 12mo) is a disturbing pederastic fantasy in verse. Sicilian schoolmaster Callifilo lusts after his student Fabritio, who runs away with a married woman, contracts syphilis and dies. A morbid medical fascination colors the narrative. First Edition.

THE MOST DEPRAVED LUST OF ALL

Richard de Bury's Philobiblon sive De Amore Librorum (Oxford 1599, 4to) combines practical guidance with profound love of books. This fourth edition contains the first attempt at a 'union' catalog — of manuscripts in the Oxford Colleges — and belonged to John Bellingham Inglis, the translator of the first edition in English.

TEENAGE LOVE SONGS

﻿WISHFUL THINKING

HOT PROPERTY

PENIS PRAISE

"BEWILDERING"

THE MOST DEPRAVED LUST OF ALL

WISHFUL THINKING