A nonce collection of erotic literature with a false edition statement, released by the notorious Edmund Curll after his obscenity trial

[Erotic Literature] [False Imprints] [Nonce] By the Most Eminent Hands

The Altar of Love: or, The Whole Art of Kissing in All Its Varieties. Consisting of Poems, and other Miscellanies...Now First Collected into a Volume.

London: [E. Curll], 1731. Third Edition [First Thus]. Bound to style in modern half calf over marbled boards with gilt and morocco to spine. Measuring 188 x 117mm. A sturdy copy, with some marginal staining and toning throughout. Discreet library blindstamp to lower right corner of first two leaves and ink stamp to recto of title page. This copy collating: [2], 3-32; 40; [8], 32; vii, [1], 39, [1]; viii, 39, [1]; [4], 22; [8], 106, [2]; 16; [2], 22. A nonce collection reissued by Edmund Curll with a collective title page bearing a false edition statement, ESTC notes reveal that none of the documented copies have matching contents or collations. This is reflected across the copies held at five libraries in the US. Auction records on the text are similarly tangled, as Curll released another nonce text with the title The Altar of Love, bearing a different subtitle and his imprint, in 1727. Its contents differ from the documented copies of this nonce, and similarly all copies have varying collations. Of the present text, the modern auction record documents only three appearances (1931, 1937, and 1988), each, again, with mismatched contents. The present is the only example in trade.

Edmund Curll "rose from poverty to wealth through publishing, and he did this by approaching book printing in a mercenary and unscrupulous manner. By cashing in on scandals, publishing pornography, offering up patent medicine, using all publicity as good publicity, he managed a small empire of printing houses. He would publish high and low quality writing alike, so long as it sold" (Jeffers). It was in 1727, the date of the first iteration of his Altar of Love nonce, when he was "first punished for an obscene publication in the case King v. Curll...and Curll was 'forcibly undressed and birched like a schoolboy in the Dean's Yard' as punishment" (Jeffers). It was "the first time an English court had sustained a conviction for obscenity" (Nussbaum).

The present iteration of The Altar of Love, with its false edition statement and its refusal to name its publisher, nevertheless doubles down on enticing the audience toward physical pleasures. Adding "The Whole Art of Kissing in All its Varieties" as the subtitle suggests that whomever buys the collection for a modest 6s. will be treated to a range of erotic advice and adventure. The opening of the first text delivers: "Celia, thou flower of all the Virgin Throng, Joy of my Soul and Mistress of my Song. Thy Lips and Neck and ev'ry flowing Wreath...Bless me with Kisses, in Duration long, Press'd with thy Lips and moisten'd with thy Tongue...So may our Lips in am'rous Order meet And jointly strive to make the Joy compleat; Within our Mouths each other's Tongues may roul Till ev'ry Motion fires the fleeting soul...And within inchanting Raptures dye away."

Contained in this copy are: The Art of Kissing; Popeana; The Rape of the Smock; The Hoop-Petticoat, An Heroicomical Poem; The Patch; The Welch Wedding; A Receipt for a Soup; Bury-Fair A Poem; Poems on Several Occasions; Jesus Grove Inscrib'd to a Lady; Pastoral in Imitation of Virgil; Oratio; An Oration in Defense of the New Philosophy; An Apology for the Writings of Walter Moyle.

ESTC N16438. Not in the Register of Erotic Books. (325)