14
STEVEN MARCUS
additions, amounting to a mass of six hundred and twenty-one pages
of print. Its author listed himself on the title page as Pisanus Fraxi.
The
Index Librorum Prohibitorum-the
title of course is hu–
morously annexed from the Roman Catholic organ of censorship-–
is the first bibliography in the English language devoted to writings
of a pornographic or sexual character. But the
Index
is itself only
part of a work, for in 1879 there followed a second, companion
volume,
Centuria Librorum Absconditorum,
and in 1885 Pisanus
Fraxi completed his project with a third volume, entitled,
Catena
Librorum T acendorum.
This bibliographical trilogy is not only the
first work of its kind in English; it is undoubtedly the most important,
and probably the most important in any language. All later writings
on this subject draw on its resources, either by reference, direct quo–
tation, or outright cribbing; and half of the legends, rumors, and
generally broadcast fantasies that have to do with pornographic
writing can be traced, like the links of some bizarre chain-letter, to
their original source in these volumes. Such a weight of indebtedness
is a result not merely of the knowledge of the writer and the compre–
hensiveness of his work but of the particular bibliographical form
which he chose. These three volumes are not a simple listing of titles,
dates, editions, etc. For the largest majority of his entries, the author
includes a description or summary of the contents of the work under
discussion, quotes liberally, adds annotation and critical remarks of
his own, and generally brings to bear whatever relevant or collateral
information he possesses-which is always formidable. These volumes,
then, cannot be regarded as a secondary source alone; they are pri–
mary material of the first interest, touching as they do on any
number of points of social and moral history. They also serve to in–
troduce us to a special kind of mind or person-the bibliophile of
means, the wealthy collector of pornographic books.
Pisanus Fraxi was the pseudonym of Henry Spencer Ashbee.
l
Born in London in 1834, Ashbee was, according to the
Dictionary of
National Biography,
"apprenticed in youth to the large firm of
Copestake's, Manchester warehousemen ... for whom he travelled
for many years." Subsequently, the
DNB
goes on, "he founded and
became senior partner in the London firm of Charles Lavy & Co., of
1 Fraxi is a freely invented form of the Latin
fraxinus,
ash or ash-tree;
Pisanus is a scatological pun.
