This Book
A very odd listing, on a site where odd is the norm. This one is a collection of extracts from various texts throughout French history that have featured the enema as a fetishist device. It is not unusual for the enema to appear in flagellation novels, but it appears that it has a long and distinguished (or should that be disgusting?) history. This places it more in the Curiosa/ Fetish category than mainstream erotica. I have a significant number of publications by Liseux and Carrington , that explore classical erotic texts and curious bypaths of deviance. It is not unusual to find anti-clerical and anti- royalist texts, but in the world of erotica nothing is sacred, and this rather delightful tome takes a swipe at the bizarre practices of the medical profession throughout history. So by all means stand and applaud for the medics, but be careful when you bend over.
Frontispiece and Title Page
Claude de Saint-Hieble, L’Instrument des apothicaires, Le Clystère dans l’humour et la litérature. DES Anecdotes de Tallemant des Réaux, Saint-Simon, etc. L’éloge de la seringue, réimpression complète.Ma tante Geneviève, Le Mousquetaire à genoux. Le cas Antoinette Boyau ,Le petit Parnasse des Apothicaires:Grécourt, Collier, La Fontaine, Du- laurens, Béranger, etc., etc. 11 Vignettes de M. VAN MAEL [sic] 7 hors texte d’après les gravures de l’èpoque | [3 ornaments] | COLLECTION DES AMIS DU BON VIEUX TEMPS| Jean FORT, éditeur | 73, Faubourg Poissonnière, 73 [n.d., c. 1920].
This Book. Rebound in quarter beige leather with five raised bands , lined in gilt with author and title in gilt, on mottled boards, lined with pink paper. Original covers preserved. 8vo. (21.8 x 13.7 cm). 224 pp. 11 large head-pieces signed with Van Maele’s monogram. Limited edition of 30 numbered copies on Holland, which contain the signed Van Maele frontispiece, lacking in the rest of the edition. External light wear and rubbing to spine , and edges, internally complete and only marred by discolouration where the glossy images have darkened the facing pages.
Original Cover
Signed Van Maele Frontis
Notice of Limitation
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Bibliographical information.
On the Internet, several sites present this book as a pornographic work of Pierre Mac Orlan devoted to klysmaphilia. The defenders of this refreshing, but not very common practice will be disappointed. In reality, Mac Orlan wrote only a few pages to introduce an anthology of old texts devoted to the clystère. This is a true work of scholarship on a little explored subject, so much so that L’Instrument des Apothicaires is found on the shelves of several libraries of medicine. Nevertheless, the intention of the author is clear: this is frankly a broad joke, which he clearly indicates in his preface: “Nous avons fait en quelque sorte une anthologie, un livre d’or du clystère, à travers cinq siècles de badinage et d’humour, et c’est, je crois, dans le coin des humoristes qu’il convient de placer cet ouvrage sur les rayons de toute bibliothèque.” (We have to some extent made an anthology, a book on the clystère, through five centuries of banter and humour, and it is, I believe, in the corner of the humorists whom it is advisable to place this work on the shelves of any library.) For the discourse of this particular subject, Pierre Mac Orlan chose an original pseudonym, but completely fitting since the sureau hièble (Sambucus ebulus ) is a plant of which the leaves and the roots are purgative and sudorific. On rapprochera cet emprunt à la pharmacopée du Docteur Fowler de Maisons de flagellation.
Perry, S. A.. Martin Van Maele: An Illustrated Bibliographical Checklist (Kindle Locations 379-387). . Kindle Edition.
This Book is for Sale
This Book
Claude de Saint-Hieble, L’Instrument des apothicaires, (Collection des amis du bon vieux temps) Jean Fort. Paris n.d. 1920. illustrated by Martin Van Maele.
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