I am sure you must have wondered what has become of me in all these years (three, isn't it?) since we met at Lord E-'s place. Perhaps you won't care to hear from me again, and will fancy I have forgotten our old friendship; indeed, my dear, it is not so, but I've been knocking about a bit, and seen the world. I've been in Paris two years in two different places, and learned as much in that time as many folks do in a lifetime. Cooped up as you are in a humdrum sort of place, with one old lady, you can have no idea of what goes on in livelier households. In my last place I was one of six lady's maids, all with nothing to do but to attend to some separate part of our lady's toilet. I entered her service from that of a grave austere woman with no ideas of colour beyond brown and grey, and a tremendous church-goer, so you may imagine what a change it was. I soon wearied of that place, you may be sure, and was glad when the Marquise St. Valery took me into her service. The Marquis was immensely proud and very poor, but he bestowed his titles and position upon a banker's daughter, whose wealth was said to be fabulous.

The whip and the stick has been used for much of human history, this fascinating history reveals why corporal punishment seems to be such a common thing among all cultures through much of recorded history.

This work offers bibliographical descriptions of all printings of erotic fiction in English issued clandestinely during the period 1800-1930. By 'clandestine' is meant books whose publishers and printers attempt to hide their identities, usually by offering title pages whose misleading places and dates of publication may shock and amuse, but which always aim to mystify. Using internal and external evidence, an attempt is made to establish who were the printers, booksellers and publishers, English and Continental, involved in this trade. The printing families or 'groups' into which a large percentage of the material falls are classified, accompanied by illustrations which identify the main printing characteristics ('house styles') of the groups. Bibliographical descriptions follow a checklist of clandestine catalogues; these provide valuable evidence for dating, pricing and 'sales pitch' and information on items of which no copies can now be traced. The work concludes with a series of appendices which provide significant external evidence, and three indexes: of themes, titles and names. Peter Mendes' original research builds on and significantly extends the essential pioneer work of the Victorian collector and bibliographer H.S. Ashbee ('Pisanus Fraxi').

Women in Victorian England wore jewelry made from each other's hair and wrote poems celebrating decades of friendship. They pored over magazines that described the dangerous pleasures of corporal punishment. A few had sexual relationships with each other, exchanged rings and vows, willed each other property, and lived together in long-term partnerships described as marriages. But, as Sharon Marcus shows, these women were not seen as gender outlaws. Their desires were fanned by consumer culture, and their friendships and unions were accepted and even encouraged by family, society, and church. Far from being sexless angels defined only by male desires, Victorian women openly enjoyed looking at and even dominating other women. Their friendships helped realize the ideal of companionate love between men and women celebrated by novels, and their unions influenced politicians and social thinkers to reform marriage law. Through a close examination of literature, memoirs, letters, domestic magazines, and political debates, Marcus reveals how relationships between women were a crucial component of femininity. Deeply researched, powerfully argued, and filled with original readings of familiar and surprising sources, Between Women overturns everything we thought we knew about Victorian women and the history of marriage and family life. It offers a new paradigm for theorizing gender and sexuality--not just in the Victorian period, but in our own.

The antiquarian's reference to old books features thousands of listings, including hundreds of new titles, a new Internet buying guide, a complete glossary of book-collecting terms, research resources, information on dealers, and advice on buying, selling, and maintaining fragile acquisitions. Original.