Books
Ashbee's most famous works were his three bibliographies of erotic works:
- Index Librorum Prohibitorum: being Notes Bio- Biblio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books. London, privately printed, 1877. (The name is a reference to the Catholic Church's list of banned books "Index Librorum Prohibitorum").
- Centuria Librorum Absconditorum: being Notes Bio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books. London, privately printed, 1879.
- Catena Librorum Tacendorum: being Notes Bio- Icono- graphical and Critical, on Curious and Uncommon Books. London, privately printed, 1885
The Index was arranged by author, the Centuria and Catena by subject. Ashbee includes plot summaries of the works listed, with liberal quotations. Of particular note are the 300 pages of the "Centuria" devoted to anti-Catholic pornography. Initially only 250 copies of each volume were printed.
Read more about this topic: Henry Spencer Ashbee
Famous quotes containing the word books:
“Good books do not make people wiser or happier—only more conscious.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Most books belong to the house and street only, and in the fields their leaves feel very thin. They are bare and obvious, and have no halo nor haze about them. Nature lies far and fair behind them all. But this, as it proceeds from, so it addresses, what is deepest and most abiding in man. It belongs to the noontide of the day, the midsummer of the year, and after the snows have melted, and the waters evaporated in the spring, still its truth speaks freshly to our experience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“My only books Were woman’s looks And folly’s all they taught me.”
—Thomas Moore (1779–1852)