My Secret Life (Volume 4)

The book that was banned for more than 100 years

My Secret Life was first published between 1888-1894 in 11 volumes in Amsterdam by the Belgian-born bookseller/publisher Auguste Brancart (1851 - 1894). For the next hundred years, it remained banned and considered obscene and pornographic.

Sexologist Vern L. Bullough (1928 – 2006) described the book as "one of the most valuable sources of information on sexual attitudes and practices in the last part of the nineteenth century in the English speaking world", with over 4,000 pages in the original edition.

The British Library has a set that it believes was published in about 1880, but "The imprint is probably false; printed in Belgium?".

No-one really knows the true identity of "Walter". But biographer Ian Gibson claims it is the pen name of one Henry Spencer Ashbee 1834 – 1900), who went by the pseudonym "Pisanus Fraxi", a lewd pun derived from praxinus=ash and apis=bee.

Only 20-25 sets of My Secret Life were originally printed, and sold at £60 per set, an enormous sum for the times, equivalent to over £4000 ($6000) at today's prices.

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