British Library's Collection Of Obscene Writing Goes Online

Detail from illustration in Harris’s Lists of Covent-Garden Ladies, held in the British Library ‘Private Case’ collection. Photograph: British Library

The Guardian: British Library's collection of obscene writing goes online

‘Private Case’ of sexually explicit books dating back to 1658 ranges from the hijinks of Roger Pheuquewell to pioneering gay porn in the 19th century.

The sniggeringly pseudonymous Roger Pheuquewell’s contribution to a series of 18th-century erotic novels imagining the female body as land needing to be “ploughed” is among a collection of books from the British Library’s “Private Case” – a collection of obscene titles kept locked away for more than a century that are finally being shared with a wider audience.

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