A sex and pregnancy manual from 1680 that was incorrectly attributed to Aristotle is going up for auction this month at Lyon & Turnbull in England.
"Aristotle's Compleat Master-Piece" may have been banned in Britain
until the 1960s, according to some sources, though that is uncertain.
One thing is for sure: "It was taboo and a lot of people didn't want
their name on it," said Lyon & Turnbull book specialist Cathy Marsden, during an interview.
As for why the book was pegged to Aristotle, "we think it was just to kind of raise the profile of the book," Marsden
said. Also, there has been some suggestion that bits of the book,
though not very much at all, could be attributed to Aristotle's work.
Bits also seem to come from the work of 17th-century physician Nicholas
Culpeper and 13th-century saint and grand thinker Albertus Magnus.
The book, though taboo, was by no means "The Joy of Sex,"
the 1972 cookbook-esque writing known for its explicit drawings of sex
poses and the like. Images in this "master-piece" show a woman's torso
and drawings of hairy children with extra limbs, and according to the
Guardian, an image showing a woman's torso opened up to reveal a baby in
her womb. But there are no actual explicit images, she said. [The Sex Quiz: Myths, Taboos & Bizarre Facts]
"It kind of explains the approach to marriage
and when young people should be getting married and then it goes on to
try to explain why children have deformities; they call it monstrous
births," Marsden told LiveScience.
"They explain how to conceive children and how to conceive male and
female children," said Marsden, adding the book describes what type of
moon to lie under to conceive a male or female child.
In the book section entitled "Of monsters and monstrous births," the
author(s) describe disfigured and hairy babies as "monsters." For
instance, in some editions of the book, it reads, "Another monster,
representing a hairy child:
It was covered with hair like a beast. That which rendered it more
frightful was, that its navel was in the place where his nose should
stand, and his eyes placed where his mouth should have been, and its
mouth was in the chin."
"There is one bit that says a child was born black because the mother
was thinking of a black man when she conceived him," Marsden said.
In a section of one edition of the book explaining "what conception is,"
the author writes, "The first day after the conception she feels a
slight quivering or illness running through the whole body; a tickling
in the womb, a little pain in the lower parts of the belly." That
passage goes on to describe the "giddiness" felt and "pimples in the
face" that apparently were thought to occur days after conception.
Another section details "directions for midwives."
The edition being auctioned at Lyon & Turnbull may have been published in 1766, according to The Guardian.
The bidding will start on Jan. 16 at the auction house in Edinburgh at
between 300 and 400 British pounds (between $487 and $650). Other items
going up for auction the same day include the rare, eight-volume history
"A History of the Birds of Europe," by 19th-century ornithologist Henry
Dresser, as well as a hand-colored 16th-century map of Africa, Marsden
said.
No comments:
Post a Comment