THE PRIVATE CASE: A Supplement; Notes Towards a Bibliography of the Books that used to be in The Private Case of the British (Museum) Library.
Berkeley: Ian Jackson, 2016. 1st edition. Trade paperback. As new in shrinkwrap.
Item #83101
ISBN: 9781944769321
8vo. 148 pp. Limited edition of 250 copies. This is the essential sequel to Patrick Kearney’s The Private Case: an annotated bibliography of the Private Case erotica collection in the British (Museum) Library (London, Jay Landesman, 1981), a catalogue of the books kept in the British Museum (now Library)’s “locked ward” for books considered to be too erotic, obscene or blasphemous to be placed on the general shelves.
The flyer below was composed by the authors, for whom (naturally enough) the value of their work was self-evident. From their point of view, no hyperbole was necessary. A publisher who wishes to sell copies, however, might add that:
1. The Supplement is an essential historical addition. The 1981 volume is a record only of the books actually present in the Private Case at that very moment, after years of additions, wastage, demotion, theft, declassification and redistribution — as new accessions or bequests muscled out old favorites. The historian of books (or manners) needs to know the name and address of every single book that ever resided in the Private Case, not merely the survivors of successive purges. The 1981 edition listed the 1916 books then in the Private Case. This 2016 Supplement lists 53 books added to the Private Case since 1981, and 956 former residents or passing fancies. Together, these two volumes now supply that great desideratum of the book-historian, a diachronic register of taboos, with Kearney’s introduction providing essential historical data on the life and times of the Private Case from a veteran observer.
2. The Supplement is an essential bibliographical addition. Even to this day, not all Private Case books are listed in the British Library online catalogue. For these few books, Kearney’s Supplement offers the only available record. His catalogue may not be perfect — indeed the sample page-spread of the flyer includes a tiny typographical error that was only caught at the last minute before publication — but for a small number of books, erroneously or incompletely catalogued by the British Library, The Private Case Supplement provides a more accurate and informative and extensive entry than has ever been made available to the public.
Price: $35.00