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STEVEN MARCUS
light not only on the field of study but on how Ashbee's mind re–
garded it. Volume II, the
Centuria Librorum Absconditorum,
may
be roughly divided as follows. It begins with some fifteen pages
noticing the works of Martin Schurig, an early eighteenth-century
German physician and antiquary, who wrote a virtually endless series
of historico-medico-sexual volumes, purporting to deal with the folk–
lore as well as the actuality of sex. Like almost all writing of this
kind, including that which is published nowadays, Schurig's work is
itself folk-lore, though Ashbee is unable to consider it so. There fol–
lows some three hundred pages devoted to books of an "objection–
able, immoral, or obscene nature" which also have to do with re–
ligion, particularly Roman Catholicism; this combination of anti–
clericalism with pornography is a characteristic mode of the genre.
Forty further pages are given to noticing the eighteenth-century
poem, "The Toast," and to a discussion of Rochester's writings. Then
there are fifty pages concerning the obscene drawings and engravings
of Thomas Rowlandson. The text of the book concludes with an ex–
tended notice-cum-discussion of French sodomy, English flagellation,
and some further fragments of anti-clericalism. Volume III, the
Catena Librorum Tacendorum,
is equally miscellaneous in its con–
tents.
It
opens with thirty pages devoted to works "in various languages
upon subjects relating generally to peculiarities of the sexes, or to their
connection, criminal or otherwise, with each other." The succeeding
thirty pages contain a discussion of the sexual life of Venice, of its
prostitutes and courtesans in particular. The next three hundred pages
are concerned with English pornographic fiction; the first two hun–
dred and fifty of these pages deal with separately published individual
works, the remainder with periodical publications. A short section
is devoted to folk-lore, popular tales, and Spanish fiction. The text
of the volume closes with almost one hundred pages of "Additions"
to all the foregoing categories.
Turning retrospectively to examine Volume I, the
Index Libro–
rum Prohibitorum,
we can say that these irregularly assorted cate–
gories by and large cover Ashbee's interests there, if we add to them
his notices-which accumulate throughout all three of the volumes–
of English collectors, writers, and publishers of pornography during
his own time who were personally known to him. And we can say as
well that these categories, with certain minor exceptions, just about
exhaust the field itself. They do so, however, rather accidentally, and
