My Secret LIfe: Volumes I - XI - Two Volume Set
New York: Grove Press, 1966.
First Edition. Hardcover.
First Printing of the Grove Press edition. This was the first uncensored edition published in the United States. The work was first published at the expense of the author in 1888-1894 in an eleven-volume private edition, reportedly limited to only 20 to 25 copies.
My Secret Life is the sexual memoir of a well-to-do English gentleman ("Walter") of Victorian England, who began at an early age to keep a diary of his erotic escapades. The author’s sexual encounters are mostly with prostitutes, servants, and working-class women, spanning a period of about forty years into the 1880s. The documentation provided here gives a unique picture of the Victorian Age. Steven Marcus, author of The Other Victorians, regards it as the most important document of its kind about Victorian England.
Item #9026856-1/8 x 9-1/4", black cloth, green endpapers, lxiii, 2359pp, index.
Crimping to extreme spine ends both volumes, clean, tight, square, crisp, bright, a remarkably fine set in dust wrappers and original slipcase. The slipcase title label is moderately rubbed and there is a bump to the top-edge, yet the slipcase is very good indeed.
Price: $250.00