The Mysteries of Conjugal Love Reveal'd.

The first european sex manual. The rare first English language edition of the first European sex manual, originally published anonymously in French under the title La génération de l'homme, ou Tableau de l'amour conjugal in 1675. It was, alongside Aristotle's Masterpiece (first published in 1784), one of the most notorious and widely read sex guides of the early modern period and was repeatedly reprinted, translated, and abridged up through the nineteenth century. Copies of the first edition, however, are rare. Only two others appear in auction records over the last few decades, one of them defective, and no institutional copies are listed by WorldCat. Individual catalogue searches of the British Library, Wellcome Collection, Royal College of Physicians, Oxford, Trinity College Dublin, the Library of Congress, Huntington, Yale, and Harvard reveal no examples of the first edition, only those of the second of 1707 and third of 1712. ESTC cites only a 'second edition' of 1703 at the Royal College of Physicians in Dublin (N60577), but a catalogue check reveals this to be a copy of the 1712 edition with 'done into English by a gentleman' as part of the title.

'Arranged in four main parts, [The Mysteries of Conjugal Love Reveal'd] is subdivided with an air of scholastic analytical seriousness into chapters and "articles". Typical articles treat such subjects as "of the external genital parts of Man", "What hour of the day one ought to kiss ones Wife", "Of the Menstruous Blood". The book's enormous popularity is partly attributable to its explicit treatment of titillating subject matter, and partly also to its challengingly liberal tone. Venette declines to accept, for example, the church's negative view of copulation retro, while his comments on the appropriate frequency of married intercourse are not only liberal but set out in a tone of dead-pan bravado that is plainly intended to startle.' (Hart, Heaven and the Flesh, p. 34)

First English language edition; 8vo (18 x 11.5 cm); ownership signature to the preface and inscription to the verso of the title, occasional pencilled marks to contents, some spotting and finger soiling; 18th-century sprinkled calf handsomely rebacked to style, endpapers renewed, spine gilt in compartments, red morocco label, some mild scuffing to boards, very good condition; 496pp.