This Book
A very rare clandestine, first edition by Momas under one of his many pseudonyms’, this unique copy is embellished with 4 erotic (risque?) illustrations that would have been added post publication, unable to locate this one in any sales records.
Little seems known of Momas, other than his dates and the titles of the many books he wrote. According to Martial Beauvais in the Dictionnaire des œuvres érotiques, Momas was a low-level civil servant attached to the Préfecture de la Seine, presumably at their headquarters on the Quai des Orfèvres, who became interested in mysticism toward the end of life. As a biography, these are slim pickings, but some tentative conclusions, of admittedly dubious significance,
may be arrived at based on the dates of his books.
By the time Momas’ earliest books appeared around 1891, he would have been about 45 years of age. Twenty-one years later his career as a pornographer was effectively over, after having published comfortably in excess of seventy separate works. The only other author in the field at the time who comes close this achievement is the equally mysterious ‘E. D.’ under which pseudonym almost twenty titles were published, all by Auguste Brancart at Amsterdam, between
1887 and 1899, but even this score may be in doubt.
For further information about this author and his titles see.
http://scissors-and-paste.net/pdf/Alphonse_Momas.pdf
JOYEUSES ENFILADES, par Georges de Lesbos. Amsterdam: [?Auguste Brancart], 1895. Rebound in half brown leather over marbled boards, with author and title in gilt on spine, 175 pages, with 4 full page erotic illustrations inserted. Nice example of exceedingly rare title.
