•  Publisher's light boards with gray printed d/j.  (24175)

•  Publisher's wrappers, but clearly removed from a bound volume. (15126)

•  Publisher's brown textured cloth over pasteboards, front cover with a gilt lettering and a gilt-stamped center-vignette of an old man with five children gathered around him. Binding lightly worn, with small cloth loss at top and bottom of spine. Front joint starting. Light foxing and small watercolor stains in some corners. Occasional shallow tears, limited to the margins and not touching the text. Gift inscription on front free endpaper. In mylar covering. (4674)

Not all content is sexual exposé — the anti-Catholic/clerical impulse is as real as the pornographic one — but substantial sections cover pretty much “toutes les questions matrimoniales,” while others speak of masturbators, the violation of virgins, and incest. The workings of female anatomy are of interest simply as such; the volume therefore has considerable medical interest, with a long section (for example) on “l'opération césarienne.

•  Contemporary quarter brown morocco. Ex-library: call number tag on spine, bookplate on front pastedown, pressure-stamp on title-page. (21084)

•  New; publisher's quarter cloth with paper sides with a reproduction of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

•  Not in Sabin. Quarter buckram over paper-covered sides. Without the original mourning wrappers. "Mercantile Library Co." blind-stamped on both sides. Paper call number label on spine. Edges and corners worn, tips of spine pulled, with loss. Ownership signature on front fly leaf, and charge pocket and card on rear free endpaper. Dog-eared. (3722)

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The book is profusely illustrated with pen drawings by Eric Palmquist, who has signed the colophon; of these, some are full-page, and some are spread across two pages with the text printed beneath. Most are smaller in-text drawings, including an extensive series of decorative tailpieces.

This edition was prepared under the supervision of Ragnar Svanström at the Royal Printing House in Stockholm, Sweden, and is limited to 1500 copies. Designer Karl-Erik Forsberg used a hand-set Berling Roman font which he himself designed; Forsberg also drew uncial letters, printed in red ink, for use on the title-page and for the canto-opening initials.

The binding is half natural Swedish linen stamped on the spine in red and black; the sides are covered with Swedish paper hand-grained to look like wood, and bear a small gold-stamped design of a warship, the Norse drakkar.

•  Limited Editions Club, Bibliography of the Fine Books Published by The Limited Editions Club, 1929–1985, 232. Original slipcase, swith pine sunned, edges and bottom rubbed (with small loss of paper), and a few scratches; very good overall. A fine copy.

•  Publisher’s cloth, covers blind-stamped, spine with gilt-stamped title; binding lightly scuffed overall, spine with extremities worn and one compartment gently faded, back joint with small ink blotch and corner of front cover with traces of old adhesion, as a sticker. Front pastedown with private collector’s bookplate and institutional bookplate, front free endpaper with inked ownership inscription dated 1859, title-page verso stamped (no other markings). Pages slightly age-toned.

•  Publisher's cloth. Very good condition, in a very good dust jacket; price clipped from front flap of dust jacket.