Product Description

The best libraries in Victorian Britain kept this tome under lock and key, permitting access only to doctors and professors. Scotland Yard had a copy in their reference library, and even Sherlock Holmes may have had recourse to a copy in certain investigations. In private collections across the English speaking world, it was kept on top shelves, or safely stowed in locked cabinets, beyond the reach of minors, domestics and spouses. Any woman who gazed upon its pages was said to have fainted away. The church campaigned to have it banned and the German translation was burned at Nuremberg. Many antiquarian book sellers believe the book to have been a myth, others claimed it changed hands at enormous cost, and some are certain all original copies are now lost. But Curious Pleasures does exist and is back in print - nearly a century since it's last apocryphal edition. This encyclopaedic treasure of adult pleasures, dysfunctions and unacceptable female behaviour has been fully restored with the original illustrations intact. In modern hands, this forbidden work of scholarly madness will prove hilarious.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #316632 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover
Curious Pleasures
A Gentleman's Collection of Beastliness

The best libraries in Victorian Britain kept this tome under lock and key, permitting access only to doctors and professors. Scotland Yard kept it in their reference library, and even Sherlock Holmes may have had recourse to a copy in certain investigations. In private collections across the English speaking world, it was kept on top shelves, or safely stowed in locked cabinets, beyond the reach of minors, domestics and spouses. Any woman who gazed upon its pages was said to have fainted away. Many antiquarian book sellers believe the book to have been a myth, others claimed it changed hands at enormous cost, and some are certain all original copies are now lost.

But this catalogue of the bizarre, illustrated with case studies predating Freud, did exist and is back in print - over a century since it's last apocryphal edition. This encyclopaedic treasure of adult curiosities and unacceptable female behaviour has been fully restored with the original illustrations intact. In modern hands, this forbidden work of scholarly madness will prove irresistible to the curious.

About the Author
No clergyman with those precise initials has ever been traced, and the exact identity of the author, or authors, remains a mystery. The tone of the work suggest a man of the cloth with a scientific bent, but it might equally well have been the creation of some enterprising Victorian pornographer keen to extract monies from erudite men and university libraries. What is certain is that he knew his subject. The actual author is the scholar, wine expert and author Peter Freeman, who specialises in historical and literary pastiches - particularly Arthur Conan Doyle and Charles Dickens - and is an expert on sexuality in the Victorian period. Joe Shepherd is an experienced illustrator of humour and adult comics.

Customer Reviews

The perfect stocking filler for real stocking enthusiasts
If you can imagine it, someone's doing it. Or, at least, so it would seem from this 'Gentleman's Collection of Beastliness', proudly presenting itself as 'The Most Decadent Book in the Realm'. Purportedly the product of over fifty years' dedicated research into paraphilias - kinky sex to the uninitiated, the kinds of thing you hope your parents never got up to behind closed doors, let alone out in the woods - the Reverend Croom's book appears at first glance to be from 1901, until a quick scan of the copyright page suggests that this is indeed an entirely modern tome. If there were any justice in the universe, this would fly off the shelves at the same rate as The Dangerous Book for Boys, as it's far funnier and has much more useful tips - how to prepare birches and canes, the correct way to turn your paramour into a piggy-girl, and why you probably shouldn't try to have sex with an octopus.

The range of kinks covered is extraordinary, from 'Agalmatophilia' - 'a rare but ancient paraphilia in which the subject falls in love with a statue' - to 'Chionolagnia', 'the association of carnal pleasure with snow', while the period detail (thank god for sex toys, I say: we've come a long way from the 'eviscerated chicken' used for certain unspeakable acts here) and moralising Victorian tone are pitch-perfect. And while Croom may be making up some of the names, and most (I hope!) of the scenarios, I suspect these are all real kinks, however obscure (do people *really* get turned on dressing up as clowns?); while if you take nothing else away from it, skimming through the book will improve your Latin, as Croom constructs ever more arcane terms for ever more bizarre behaviours. But best of all are the subtle hints the worthy reverend occasionally drops, for all his quasi-scientific bluster and paternalising, that his interest has gone beyond the merely scientific: while discussing breast-milk fetishism he lets slip that 'The cheese is especially good', and is constantly falling out of trees/wardrobes etc where he's hidden in the name of 'research'.

The entries are probably best savoured as individual morsels rather than read through all at once, although the more depraved will have trouble putting it down. Add to this the gorgeous illustrations, perfectly judged depictions of monocled cads and blushing fillies (with the occasional lobster costume thrown in for good measure), which manage to arouse and amuse while staying on the right side of respectability, and you've got the perfect gift for anyone who wants more from their sexual reading than Cosmo's top ten orgasm tips - this will, in my humble opinion, lead to a far richer sex life. And more ecstatic grinning. Just be sure to follow the reverend's advice and not leave it lying around for the fairer sex, those in service, or those who have not had the benefit of a worthy education.

An encyclopaedia of depravity...
With well over a hundred separate monographs and over fifty pen-and-ink illustrations this book tells you tells you all (or possibly more) than you want to know about katoptronolagnia, nipiomimetophilia and many other beastly practises you never knew existed.

Obviously well researched (by the indefatigable and self-sacrificing Rev. E. St J. Croom), and containing illustrative anecdotes along with scientific explanation, one can use this volume as a textbook, an instruction manual, or a kind of historical treasure-hunt and game of Hangman, as the names of all persons mentioned (even that of the well-known playwright W------ S----------) have been anonymised by the substitution of dashes for all letters but the initials.

Gorgeous!
I love this book to bits. First came across it in an email newsletter, obviously couldn't help having a look, and decided it would make the perfect christmas present for a particularly kinky friend of mine! :)

Once it arrived, I couldn't help peeping, and was so delighted with the contents I immediately ordered another for myself.

I can highly recommend this book!!!