[lit-ideas] Re: The Sect of the Phoenix
- From: "Simon Ward" <sedward@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 25 Oct 2007 20:54:59 +0100
I do like this inconspicuous thread title. It makes me think I'd actually get
away with a conversation about eritic literature.
And that reminds me of a news item (probably on local TV because it was so
funny), in which a man (living alone no doubt) tells the reporter how much he
deplores the Adult TV channels and how, for the public good, he has conducted
many hours of research and recorded many videotapes, in exploring the problem.
'And it's getting worse,' he might have said while rubbing his hands together.
Ashbee, for those without the necessary Latin to decipher his titles, wrote two
bibliographies of erotic literature. Which I think was a great achievement in a
time when nobody would admit in public that they even knew about such books,
let alone having read them. That aside, it also seems to me that there is also
a certain intellectual heroism in producing a bibliography - of anything really
- but more because Ashbee's work could never be publically lauded. He had his
circle of appreciating friends, no doubt, but there were no prizes for what he
did.
Ashbee also had a rare old time producing entries in a wonderful publication
called 'Notes and Queries'. A real gentleman's relish of a periodical in which
clever weople would ask clever questions that would be answered by more clever
people. Ashbee, Gibson discloses, cheated a bit by asking his own leading
questions to which he would provide the answer.
Ah to be a Victorian! A huge beard, an alarmingly exciting private life and an
Empire to visit.
Regards
Simon
----- Original Message -----
From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, October 25, 2007 3:56 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] The Sect of the Phoenix
A GENTLEMAN'S EDUCATION" - What more besides the bound copies of "Hound and
Horse_?
"THE EROTOMANIAC"
---
S. Ward:
"I'd love to reply to this message, but it would give everything away ...
Instead, I refer you to Ian Gibson's The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry
Spencer Ashbee. A superb example of literary detection that nobody would admit
to reading. It's very good (so I'm told by myself) and claims to finger Ashbee
(as the author of 'My Secret Life')."
Interesting. I should get that book. I was consulting what Kearney has to say
in his "History of Erotic Literature".
"Through his friend James Campbell Reddie, himself a writer of pornography,
Ashbee was acquainted with many of those involved in the trade." Kearney also
mentions the names of the bookseller Dugdale and Avery (compiler).
Particulary with Reddie being an author, I suppose Gibson must engage in a
lot of literary detection.
Kearney refers to three books by Ashbee:
"Index librorum prohibitorum, being notes bio-biblio-iconographical and
critical on curous an duncommon books, by Pisanus Fraxi. London: 1877, repr.
New York: Jack Brussel, 1962).
"Centuria librorum absconditorum". London 1879, repr. JB 1962
Catena librorum Tacendorum. London: 1885, JB 1962.
I think it's about time Penguin Modern Classics have it in one of those big
elephantine editions of theirs.
Other books on erotica I have do not make the Ashbee/My Secret Life
connection, though, but I take your word, Simon.
Yesterday, I received my copy of "Satyricon" by Petronius. The editor says
that its role is 'decreasing in the education of a gentleman' but quotes a
delightful letter 1789 commending the volume.
What interests me is that these were gentleman's gentleman's readings, as it
were -- where the British matron was explicitly excluded. There were books that
_gentlemen_ -- and not students of literature like Margaret Drabble, MA Eng.Lit
-- who enjoyed them. It would be anathema to think for these gentlemen that
Cliff or Coles would be making money out "Notes on MY SECRET LIFE".
I prefer the idea of a 'gentleman's education' to that rather puerile idea of
the Greeks of the British boy and the hoop, "enkyklios paideia' ("round-up
learning, or rear-up" (As Jaeger notes, in his PAIDEIA, the word was initially
merely used literary for 'boy-rearing' or education of the pais.
The Victorians were keen on "boy's" -- as in "The boy's King of Arthur", and
the Edwardians later with their "Boy's Own (annual) or paper". So they did make
a distinction between the minor (boy) and the gentleman -- but 'gentleman's
education' should include everything in the _boy_'s education -- for a boy was
supposed to grow to be a gentleman.
Cheers,
JL
J. L. Speranza,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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