The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee [Hardcover]

Ian Gibson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 13, 2001

Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834–1900) was a prosperous and respectable Victorian gentleman, a family man who counted among his many friends the celebrated adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton. But he was a gentleman with a secret—one so delicious that he rented a separate apartment to contain it. Within the well-appointed chambers of Gray's Inn, Ashbee concealed an astonishingly vast collection of erotica and pornography, thousands of volumes strong. Ian Gibson, the acclaimed biographer of Lorca and Dalí, now turns his attention to the hitherto little-known Ashbee, a man who happily supported his wife and four children but spent his spare time meticulously cataloguing such risqué titles as Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving and The Marchioness's Amorous Pastimes. And with exclusive access to Ashbee's diaries and his family's archives, Gibson has uncovered evidence that Ashbee may himself have been the author of the notorious My Secret Life—the "true" autobiography of an unnamed Victorian gentleman and his sexual adventures. With his celebrated touch for evoking both his subject and his subject's era, Gibson has created a telling and provocative portrait of a fascinating character and the no less intriguing age that made him possible.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'Here is the lust that dare not speak its name: Victoria may not have been amused; but I guarantee that you'll be.' Sunday Express '[A] gripping, finely researched jewel of a book.' Sunday Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Ian Gibson lives in a village near Granada, Spain. His Federico García Lorca: A Life won numerous awards and was named a best book of the year by the New York Times and the Boston Globe.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Da Capo Press; 1ST edition (November 13, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0306810646
• ISBN-13: 978-0306810640
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #131,689 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #87 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Historical > British

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On the Trail of a Great Pornographer, November 13, 2001

By 

R. Hardy "Rob Hardy" (Columbus, Mississippi USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee (Hardcover)

The ongoing detection of the mysterious author of the huge erotic classic _My Secret Life_ has advanced a step further (although the sources of information are only slightly better) by Ian Gibson, in _The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee_ (Da Capo Press). Ashbee had a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence as a successful London businessman, travel writer, and paterfamilias. He also tended his huge collection of pornography. It was so large a collection that he rented rooms in Gray's Inn especially to contain it (and perhaps to keep it from being a family concern). Ashbee was no supporter of the suffragettes, but he liked the idea that women took pleasure in sex and could actively participate in it, ideas that were unfashionable or obscene at the time. In his own writing, Ashbee railed that "the English nation possesses an ultra-squeamishness and hyper-prudery peculiar to itself." He was furious that missionaries were trying to intrude this morality into societies where sexuality was more open.

It is clear that Ashbee's books ridicule these notions, even when Ashbee made it seem that he was supporting them. He is the author of three books, magnificently produced private editions cataloging his own books and those he was interested in. The titles give away his game: _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ ("Index of Books Worthy of Being Prohibited," mocking the Vatican's own catalogue, 1877), _Centuria Librorum Absconditorum_ ("A Hundred Books Worthy of Being Hidden Away," 1879) and _Catena Librorum Tacendorum_ ("String of Books Worthy of Being Silenced," 1885). Ashbee produced his volumes under his scatological penname Pisanus Fraxi; he seems to have enjoyed rebuses of his name, and Pisanus Fraxi is an anagram of the Latin words for "ash" and "bee."

When it is known that Gibson has produced this biography after being allowed the first glance at Ashbee's diary, one might expect that there would be many personal revelations. Sadly, with some exceptions which Gibson quotes, the diary is discontinuous, and mostly dull. Ashbee was too busy reading and buying books to spend much time on a diary. If Gibson is to be believed, he spent a good deal of time writing _My Secret Life_, too. The final third of _The Erotomaniac_ is an amusing list of correspondences of style, phraseology, and philosophy between the writings of Pisanus Fraxi and those of the "Walter" who wrote _My Secret Life_. Gibson allows that someday electronic scansion of the texts may make the identification more positive (and perhaps someone will pay literary sleuth Don Foster, of _Author Unknown_, to take the case). To me, the most compelling evidence is that Ashbee's volumes all have an obsessively inclusive index, just as "Walter's" book hilariously does. Under the gerund form of the most shocking verb in English, Walter has seven columns of entries, including: in masks / wheelbarrow fashion / modesty hinders complete pleasure / is the great humanizer / in a grotto / in cabs / in a church / in a calf shed / in a cow shed / against trees. On and on the list goes, a tribute to someone obsessed with sex, with lists, and with compilations. As Gibson says, if Ashbee didn't write it, who on Earth did? Gibson's own book, meticulously researched and genially entertaining, has just about as much of Ashbee as we will ever know, as well as genuine insights into Victorian times and morals.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars If You're Reading This, Buy The Book, January 15, 2008

By 

Chris Ward (Costa Rica) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Erotomaniac (Paperback)

Face it-- if you're reading a review of this book, you're knowledgable and interested enough to enjoy it. I'd guess that 1 out of 1000 readers might get a kick out of "The Erotomaniac," but if you read "My Secret Life" and wondered about who "Walter" was, or know who Gershon Legman is, or have a bibliographic bent, then this book is for you. Ashbee wasn't the most likable of men, but his utter obsession to collect and classify his erotica ruled his life, and the people he met (including Richard Francis Burton, who comes off even more perverse than I'd imagined) make for a compelling narrative. I developed a great sympathy for him-- he was ruled by sex, but enslaved by his books. He could only share his fetish with a few other devotees, and had to hide his love for smut from his own family. If only he could have lived to see our century!