In this final volume of the 1877 work that established him as England's leading authority on pornography, Henry Spencer Ashbee describes scores of "curious, uncommon and erotic books" that were banned or otherwise prohibited from legitimate sale during the Victorian era. Included in this volume are such "gentlemen only" titles as Intrigues and Confessions of a Ballet Girl, The Pleasures of Kissing and Being Kissed, and the infamous Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. This catalog of mostly forgotten works is an invaluable-and highly entertaining-resource for bibliophiles, students of erotica, and collectors of Victoriana. British book collector, travel writer, and bibliographer HENRY SPENCER ASHBEE (1834-1900), aka Pisanus Fraxi, is thought by some to have authored the notorious Victorian sexual memoir My Secret Life.

The Index librorum prohibitorum was a directory of the Roman Inquisition that listed for every Catholic the books whose reading was considered a grave sin; for some of these books, the ecclesiastical punishment was excommunication. First published in 1559, its last official edition dates from 1948 with supplements until 1962, and most recently listed 6000 books. The index was actually only abrogated in 1966 under Pope Paul VI. Gröls Classics - English Edition

2001 essay collection on the Italian Church's attempt to control and censor 'knowledge' during the counter-Reformation.