HIDDEN CORNERS
Forbidden
PLeasures Giles Milton explores the Safe Collections, which include not only rare volumes, but a category of ‘forbidden’ books, from the days when the Librarian also played the role of censor
I
n Umberto Eco’s modern classic, The Name of the Rose (1983), the narrative revolves around a monastic library that is structured as a labyrinth. On the shelves of this library are scores of forbidden works kept hidden from prying eyes. Among them is Aristotle’s Second Book of Poetics, the only surviving copy from classical antiquity. The London Library cannot boast such a rarity, but it will come as a surprise to many members that it does have its very own section of ‘forbidden’ works. If you find a book once catalogued under the shelfmark ‘Librarian’s Room’ (or even ‘Librarian’s Room Drawer’), prepare yourself for a hot flush. These include the books that an early Librarian once considered so (nudge-nudge-wink-wink) naughty that there was only one place for them: his personal drawer. The Librarian’s Room books are still kept under lock and key: these days, they form a part of the Safe Collections. They are a quaint survival from the days when the Librarian – always male – had a role in deciding what we should, and should not, be allowed to browse. (All of these books could be borrowed, but they were first wrapped in brown paper before being handed over to members.) The Librarian exercised the censor’s role until quite recently. The Transvestite Memoirs of the Abbé de Choisy (1862)
was locked away as late as 1973, while Louis Henriques’s Love in Action (1959) was removed from circulation ten years earlier. An unexpected (and delightful) forbidden treasure is Emmanuelle l’antivierge, the 1959 French original of Emmanuelle the AntiVirgin, by Emmanuelle Arsan, whose pen name was Marayat Rollet-Andriane. I vividly remember the film version (1974): it was required late-night viewing for all teenage boys in the late 1970s. Aubrey Beardsley’s erotica was confined to the Librarian’s drawer in 1899, while the illustrated Beauty’s Day: les quatre heures de la toilette des dames by the Abbé de Favre, was placed under lock and key in 1890, the year it was published and acquired. Some of the titles in this little collection are self-explanatory. The Practice of Sex (1939) doesn’t beat around the bush, although I must confess to doing a double-take when I saw the author’s name: A. Willy. Other volumes cry out for further exploration. My eye was drawn to Flagellation and the Flagellants: A History of the Rod in All Countries (1869). In all countries! It’s good to know it’s not just the British who like to whip each other. The book’s author was an Anglican vicar,
Aubrey Beardsley’s Lysistrata (detail),from Beardsley’s illustrated edition of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata (1896).
the Revd William Cooper. The fact that he was a respectable man of the cloth did not prevent his work being locked into the Librarian’s drawer. How often, one wonders, did the Librarian furtively open his drawer for a quick peek at the forbidden fruits therein?
22 THE LONDON LIBRARY MAGAZINE
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