The 300-year-old sex manual for sale at the Melbourne Book Fair
It’s the first sex manual written in English, it’s more than 300 years old, and it’s 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.
For centuries, Aristotle’s Master-Piece was reprinted in hundreds of editions, and in the 1930s it was still for sale in Soho sex shops. Aristotle didn’t actually write it (his was just a respected name to put onto a scandalous work), but it’s 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.
The opening page of the 17th-century sex manual Aristotle’s Master-Piece.Credit:
It’s racy stuff for its time. Pom Harrington, owner of UK booksellers Peter Harrington, one of the book fair’s exhibitors, says the book recommends “to 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”. There are frank descriptions of both male and female genitalia, in which the clitoris is identified as “the seat of the greatest pleasure in Copulation” for women. And when both parties “meet with an equal Ardour”, there is a higher chance of procreation.
There’s 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’s opening on July 31. You can learn about collecting Georgette Heyer’s novels; illustrations to Jane Austen’s books; the women who contributed their artistic skills to natural history and science; or have a taste of some of Mrs Beeton’s iconic recipes. For children and the young at heart, there’s a dive into Alice’s rabbit hole or a trip into Moominland.
This year, Melbourne also hosts the trade’s 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.
Illustrations from Aristotle’s Master-Piece – yours for $36,600.Credit:
One of Australia’s 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.
A declaration of interest: I’ll be talking to two prominent bookish women in separate events – Kay Craddock on 60 years of selling secondhand and antiquarian books and Lucy Sussex on the story of Mary Fortune, one of Australia’s first crime writers.
At the fair you can pick up a few items for a song, but if you want to buy Harrington’s rare copy of Aristotle’s 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.
They made many annotations at the end of the book on “monstrous births”. Women should avoid such calamities by refraining from eating meats, spices and salads, laughing, crying, anger or “any other Passion”, says the book. The ghastly results of failing to follow this advice are shown in a series of woodcuts showing creatures with horns, wings and eyes on their knees.
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