{"id":14327,"date":"2025-07-22T21:14:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/14327\/"},"modified":"2025-07-22T21:14:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-22T21:14:09","slug":"first-sex-manual-written-in-english-aristotles-master-piece-goes-up-for-sale-at-melbourne-book-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/14327\/","title":{"rendered":"First sex manual written in English \u2013 Aristotle\u2019s Master-Piece \u2013 goes up for sale at Melbourne Book Fair"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s the first sex manual written in English, it\u2019s more than 300 years old, and it\u2019s coming to Australia as just one of many historic treasures at the three-day 2025 Melbourne Book Fair. And this copy is annotated, so we can learn something about the 17th-century couple who consulted it.<\/p>\n

For centuries, Aristotle\u2019s Master-Piece was reprinted in hundreds of editions, and in the 1930s it was still for sale in Soho sex shops. Aristotle didn\u2019t actually write it (his was just a respected name to put onto a scandalous work), but it\u2019s an amalgam of advice from two physicians, Levinus Lemnius and Jacob Ruff. In it, you could find out about many aspects of conception, pregnancy, birth and copulation.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The opening page of the 17th-century sex manual Aristotle\u2019s Master-Piece.Credit: <\/p>\n

It\u2019s racy stuff for its time. Pom Harrington, owner of UK booksellers Peter Harrington, one of the book fair\u2019s exhibitors, says the book recommends \u201cto cherish the Body with generous Restorative, to charm the Imagination with Musick, to drown all Cares in good Wine; that so the Mind being elevated to a pitch of Joy and Rapture, the sensual Appetite may be more freely encouraged to gratifie itself in the Delights of Nature\u201d. There are frank descriptions of both male and female genitalia, in which the clitoris is identified as \u201cthe seat of the greatest pleasure in Copulation\u201d for women. And when both parties \u201cmeet with an equal Ardour\u201d, there is a higher chance of procreation.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s plenty to charm the imagination, and possibly produce joy and rapture, in the current Melbourne Rare Book Week, with its program of free events leading up to the fair\u2019s opening on July 31. You can learn about collecting Georgette Heyer\u2019s novels; illustrations to Jane Austen\u2019s books; the women who contributed their artistic skills to natural history and science; or have a taste of some of Mrs Beeton\u2019s iconic recipes. For children and the young at heart, there\u2019s a dive into Alice\u2019s rabbit hole or a trip into Moominland.<\/p>\n

This year, Melbourne also hosts the trade\u2019s mecca event, the International League of Antiquarian Books Symposium. Officers past and present will speak at a session advising newcomers how to make a start in the rare book trade. And the symposium will discuss a range of issues for booksellers, including security concerns and the need to combat digital fraud.<\/p>\n

\"Illustrations<\/p>\n

Illustrations from Aristotle\u2019s Master-Piece \u2013 yours for $36,600.Credit: <\/p>\n

One of Australia\u2019s great bibliophiles, John Willis, will talk about his collection of rare gay and lesbian works. Willis is a former retailer and an early gay activist. His collection comes from donations and also from his own diligent work in seeking out forgotten treasures in bookshops and market stalls.<\/p>\n

A declaration of interest: I\u2019ll be talking to two prominent bookish women in separate events \u2013 Kay Craddock on 60 years of selling secondhand and antiquarian books and Lucy Sussex on the story of Mary Fortune, one of Australia\u2019s first crime writers.<\/p>\n

At the fair you can pick up a few items for a song, but if you want to buy Harrington\u2019s rare copy of Aristotle\u2019s Master-Piece, it will set you back $36,600. Winifred and Francis Witham would not have paid so much for it in 1699. The couple had two sons, but Winifred died soon after, possibly in childbirth, and they might have consulted the book for help with a difficult pregnancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s the first sex manual written in English, it\u2019s more than 300 years old, and it\u2019s coming to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[64,63,457,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-14327","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-books","11":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}