The infamous erotic novel Histoire d’O has featured in this space before, but this version is striking enough to warrant revisiting: a 40-centimeter large-format edition of 350 numbered copies published by Cercle du Livre Précieux in 1962, eight years after the original publication. The edition is illustrated in evocative drawings and watercolors by Léonor Fini, and issued as an unbound portfolio. This copy, formerly owned by Swiss erotica collector Gérard Nordmann, is outfitted with a black velvet-covered slipcase, in keeping with its general opulence.

Pauline Réage. Histoire d’O. Paris: Cercle du livre précieux, 1962. PQ2635.E15 H5 1962.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Coulrophobia, dentophobia, acrophobia, necrophobia.

Remember those pop-up books from your childhood?  This one is infinitely more terrifying if you have a fear of clowns, dentists, heights, or even a fear of death.  This clever book, The pop-up book of phobias, was created and written by Gary Greenberg who uses pop-ups to bring the reader into the mind of someone who faces these phobias.  Each page contains a specific phobia with a brief definition and accompanying pop-up, as if the reader were experiencing the fear themselves.  Watch the pop-ups in action!

Phobias are a type of anxiety disorder.  When one is faced with their particular fear they may experience panic, a rapid hearbeat, shortness of breath, trembling, and an acute desire to get away.  It is possible to develop a phobia of almost anything.  Have you ever heard of Alektorophoiba?  It is a fear of chickens.  Or Omphalophobia?  It is a fear of belly buttons.  Pupaphobia?  It’s a fear of puppets.  Some speculate that certain phobias can be explained through evolution.  For instance a fear of spiders or snakes could be a result of a time when man faced these very real mortal dangers out in the wild, and those that were cautious lived longer.  Or agoraphobia, fear of wide open spaces, may be the evolutionary result of the danger of being exposed in open spaces and those that avoided them lived to see another day.

To explore more about these phobias look at The pop-up book of phobias / created + written by Gary Greenberg ; illustrated by Balvis Rubess ; pop-ups by Matthew Reinhart ; produced by Melcher Media. RC535 .G74 1999.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager for contributing this post.

Propos d’un intoxiqué, Jules Boissière’s 1896 chronicle of opium use and dissipation in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, receives a lavish reissue in 1929. A limited edition of 97 copies, the book is designed with a motif of bamboo and opium poppy pods in red and black. It also features colored lithographs of original illustrations by Tsuguharu Foujita, a Tokyo-born artist who lived in France for much of his life; the illustrations depict both drug use and quotidian life in Southeast Asia. The copy pictured here is Foujita’s own hors-commerce copy, extra-illustrated with additional suites of his illustrations in black and white and color; the binding in vellum, by the French binder Jean Duval, has a self-portrait of Foujita affixed to the front cover.

J. Boissière. Propos d’un intoxiqué. [Paris]: Javal & Bourdeaux, 1929.  PQ2603.O37 P76 1929x.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

According to popular legend when the root of a mandrake is dug up it screams and kills all who hear it.  Mandrake is the common name for members of the genus Mandragora, it is entirely poisonous and contains various hallucinogenic alkaloids including atropine, scopolamine, apoatropine, and hyoscyamine.  One of the interesting things about mandrake plant is the root bifurcation or division of the root into two parts, which look very similar to human feet.  This resemblance to humans has been explored in the Bible, literature, magic, and even witchcraft.  Literature has seemed particularly interested in this link between man and mandrake.  Shakespeare references the connection in Romeo and Juliet when he writes “Shrieks like mandrakes’ torn out of the earth” (IV, iii) and even the Hogwarts greenhouse from Harry Potter has mandrakes that look like humans when pulled from the soil and whose cry is fatal.

Figures de la mandragore plante démoniaque is a French volume published around 1936 and seems to cover the history, medical uses, legends, and other information about the mandrake plant.  It includes these fascinating reprints of engravings of the mandrake in various human-looking forms.

To learn more about the mandrake plant look at Figures de la mandragore plante démoniaque. Paris : Chiron, [1936]. GR790.M3 B68 1936x located at the Botany Libraries.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager, Gretchen Wade, and Judith Warnement of the Botany Libraries for contributing this post.

More interesting, perhaps, to Harvard affiliates, is the collection of the bookplates of Harvard graduates (who were, at the time they were collected, solely men). Included are the bookplates of several early graduates of Harvard College, including Elisha Cooke (1657) and Nicholas Lynde (1690):

Some recognizable names are included, such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (honorary degree, 1859), Frederick Law Olmsted (honorary degree, 1864), and Theodore Roosevelt (1880) and his cousin Franklin (1904):

While many of the bookplates are more traditional, displaying a collector’s heraldry or family motto, many are small works of art in their own right, such as the plate of Frank Roy Fraprie (BS 1898) and of John B. Stetson, Jr. (1906):

Also included on Flickr is a group of bookplates used in the Harvard libraries in the 19^th and 20^th  centuries, including this one, which must be rather jarring to discover while browsing in the Widener stacks:

For more information on Houghton’s bookplate collection, contact the Modern Books and Manuscripts department, houghton_modern AT harvard.edu.

Thanks to Caroline Bleeke ’10 for cataloging the Harvard Men section, and to Anna S. Patel ’13 for scanning and uploading them to Flickr.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

This week we feature a copy of Les petites alliées, by the French novelist Claude Farrère and published in this edition by Éditions de l’Intermédiaire du Bibliophile in 1927. While Farrère’s popularity has declined in the half-century since his death, his novels deal amply in Santo Domingo subject matter. Les petites alliées is set in the French coastal city and military harbor of Toulon; the plot concerns young naval officers living and working there and entertaining themselves with the demimonde. This edition, limited to 705 numbered copies, distinguishes itself with its lively hand-colored aquarelles, including initials, headpieces, and tailpieces, by illustrator Pierre Brissaud.

Claude Farrère. Les petites alliées. Paris: Éditions de l’Intermédiaire du bibliophile, 1927. PQ2611.A78 P48 1927x.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Searching for information about flowers, medicine, and the secret to great skin?  Look no further than this beautifully illustrated French volume Les fleurs et secretz de medecine.

Until the late 19th-century the practice of bloodletting was regularly used to prevent illness and disease.  The idea is that blood and other bodily fluids typically referred to as “humors” needed to remain in balance for a person to be healthy.  So if someone was sick with anything from a headache to a more serious illness, bloodletting was a common occurance.  This concept of bodily humors came from Hippocrates who believed that human moods occur as a consequence of imbalance in one of the four bodily fluids.  The four fluids included blood which meant you were brave and passionate, yellow bile indicated you were easily irritable and angry, black bile meant you were downcast and short-tempered, and phlegm meant you were tranquil and impassive.

Hippocrates also believed in the practice of cupping, or local suction that is created on the skin to help mobilize blood flow and promote healing.

Cupping is a method strongly connected to traditional Chinese medicine.  It is believed that noted herbalist Ge Hong wrote about a form of cupping in the early fourth century in A Handbook of Prescriptions.  Later books written during the Tang and Qing dynasties described cupping in great detail; one textbook included an entire chapter on “fire jar qi,” a type of cupping that could alleviate headaches, dizziness and abdominal pain.  Though the popularity of cupping has risen and fallen over the years it has again become a desired procedure particularly with celebrities such as Gwyneth Paltrow and Jennifer Aniston.

But if you simply want the secret to skin as beautiful as a child’s don’t fret- just turn to the later pages.  You would only need a host of ingredients like aloe succotrin, borate, alum feather, cardamom, white lead, quicksilver, gall of a goat, camphor, and French blood and voilà!

Les fleurs et secretz de medecine was published in 1949 but the original French translation was published in Poitiers around 1544.  The woodcuts are credited to Gilbert Poilliot and the illustrations to Marie-Eve Mathis.  This copy is printed on velin de Rives, a sturdy cotton based paper, and is accompanied by a selection of uncolored woodcuts in the back of the volume.  This was a limited publication of only 1000 copies and this particular copy falls somewhere in the range between 41 to 100 though we could not find a specific copy number.

Les fleurs et secretz de medecine / Maistre Raoul Dumont Vert ; illustrations de Marie-Ève Mathis ; gravées sur bois par Gilbert Poilliot.  Monaco : Le Livre d’art, 1949. R128.6 .D89 1949 can be found at the Countway Library at the Harvard Medical School.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager and Joan Thomas, Rare Book Cataloger, for contributing this post.

Today’s volume from the Santo Domingo Collection concerns Montmartre, the famous Parisian district of artists’ communes and nightclubs. In Les après-midi de Montmartre, published in 1919, author René Baudu documents the drinking, drug use, and prostitution that attended Montmartre’s heyday as the center of artistic life in Paris. Les après-midi de Montmartre describes, in fiction, the “lost girls” that inhabited the neighborhood, and the vagaries to which they were subject:

Montmartre girls need love, champagne, shots and a little mystery. What they mistake for love is a childish sentimentality found in music-hall songs and mass-market novels. (p. [17])

The text is accompanied by fourteen engravings by Édouard Chimot, depicting the young women of Montmartre. This copy is unusual in that the publisher, L’Édition, has been replaced on the wrappers and title page with “Pour le compte des auteurs”  (“on behalf of the authors”); it also features an envelope bound in at the end with additional copies of the engravings in various colors and states, as well as two original pencil sketches. This special treatment is understandable in light of the volume’s provenance: it was specially printed for  the author’s mother, Marie Baudu, and inscribed to her by her son.

René Baudu. Les après-midi de Montmartre. Paris: Pour le compte des auteurs, 1919. FC9.B3260.919a2.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Most people picture a chastity belt as a device that looks like iron underwear (complete with a lock) that was meant to keep a woman from having sexual relations.  Legend has it that this device was invented during the Crusades to ensure a wife’s fidelity while her husband was away.  While the concept of the chastity belt is indeed quite old it is in a more metaphorical sense as a pledge of fidelity rather than an object.  No evidence of medieval chastity belts exist and it isn’t until the 15th-century that we can find something that even vaguely resembles one in Konrad Kyeser’s Bellifortis, which is a codex of weapons, armour and other military items.  Bellifortis depicts a type of armour that could concievably be a chastity belt but the tone of Kyeser’s text indicates irony for such a device: “Padlocks unto the four-legged creatures, breeches unto the women of Florence, A joke binds this lovely series together, I recommend them to the noble and obedient youth.”

The French text La ceinture de chasteté : son histoire, son emploi, autrefois et aujourd’hui : avec de nombreuses gravures hors texte, dessins et photographies d’après nature published in 1905 describes the history of chastity belts when the myth of the medieval chastity belt still persisted.  Included in the volume are photographic postcards of two chastity belts that were displayed in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, also known as the National Museum of the Middle Ages.

One of the Musée de Cluny’s chastity belts was long considered to belong to Catherine de Medici until a test of the metal in the 1990s showed it was from the early 19th-century.  It is true however, that chastity belts as actual objects became more widespread in America and England by 19th-century.  However they were typically used willingly by women to prevent rape and sexual harrassment in the workplace since industrialization had placed more women in factories and offices.

Eric John Dingwall is one of the primary historians that is responsible for the myth of medieval chastity belts with his 1931 publication The Girdle of Chastity which can be found in Countway’s collection at the Harvard Medical School, though we can hardly fault him when fake chastity belts were held up as authentic in respected museums.

 La ceinture de chasteté : son histoire, son emploi, autrefois et aujourd’hui : avec de nombreuses gravures hors texte, dessins et photographies d’après nature /Dr. Caufeynon [pseud.]Paris,P. de Poorter, 1905.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager for contributing this post.

Today’s Santo Domingo Feature: this copy of Deux coeurs simples, by the French novelist Jacques de Lacretelle. This limited edition, published by Gérald Cramer in 1947, features a suite of evocative lithographs by illustrator Valentine Hugo. This particular copy is number 7 of the edition’s 378 limited copies, and one of only eight copies to feature an additional double suite of the lithographs, one in black and one in violet, as well as an original Hugo illustration. The volume is bound by Micheline de Bellefroid in black morocco and decorated white paper, with the original wrappers preserved within. As a further enhancement, bound in at the end are additional copies of the title page and sample pages, as well as an invitation from the publisher to an unveiling event for the publication.

Jacques de Lacretelle. Deux coeurs simples. Genève: Gérald Cramer, c1947. FC9.L1193.947d.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Professor Quine’s library numbers over 600 volumes and over 5,000 offprints (reprints of journal articles).  The collection includes numerous editions of Quine’s own works, as well as books and articles by his contemporaries in philosophy and mathematics. A significant number bear Quine’s own annotations, often written with the same wit and candor for which his published works are admired. Together with the W.V. Quine papers (MS Am 2587), the recently cataloged books and offprints represent a windfall to scholars wishing to know not only what the celebrated logician was reading, but what he was thinking as he read it.

While the subject matter of Professor Quine’s library may seem arcane to the non-specialist, there are nonetheless items which evoke the personable side of “Van”, as he was known to his friends. “The Logician’s Christmas Card” pasted to the rear flyleaf of J.H. Woodger’s Biology and Language is one such.  Poking fun at the seeming complexity of the propositional calculus, Dr. Woodger has illustrated the card with a lengthy, but elegantly hand-lettered theorem, and included a translation in plain English beneath it: “Wishing you a well distributed Christmas from J.H. and D.E Woodger and an equivalent New Year.”

W.V. (Willard Van Orman) Quine. Methods of Logic. New York: Holt, 1950. With the author’s annotations. AC95.Qu441.Zz950q (B)

J.H. Woodger. Biology and Language. Cambridge University Press, 1952.  With a Christmas card from the author and his spouse pasted to the rear flyleaf. AC95.Qu441.Zz952w

Thanks to Bibliographic Assistant Noah Sheola for contributing this post.

This post is part of an ongoing series featuring items from the newly acquired Santo Domingo collection.

As the use of hallucinogenic drugs proliferated in the counterculture of the 1960s, instructional texts appeared to guide novice users in the preparation and consumption of these substances. This week’s volume from the Santo Domingo Collection, The psychedelic guide to preparation of the Eucharist in a few of its many guises, is a prime example. As the title suggests, the guide also exemplifies the spiritual, mystical, and consciousness-raising properties associated with these drugs; the editing credits on the title page go to “Robert E. Brown & Associates of the Neo American Church League for Spiritual Development & the Ultimate Authority of the Clear Light”. There are several editions of this work in the collection; the volume featured here is the third edition, published in 1973 and distributed by the Linga Sharira Incense Co.

In its introductory material, the guide warns that the substances it deals in are all illegal (these substances being marijuana, peyote, and psilocybin and ergot fungi), and that the guide is “designed for persons who know how to use hallucinogens and who wish to use them for religious purposes such as the mystical Psychedelic Experience” (p. 1). Numerous illustrations, some spiritual and some biochemical in nature, accompany the text.

The psychedelic guide… Austin, Tex.: [Distributed by] Linga Sharira Incense Co., 1973. RM315.P73 1973.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Though the Santo Domingo Collection is exhaustive in its coverage of opium and LSD, this week we feature a text on a perfectly legal drug: alcohol. A literary gent: a study in vanity and dipsomania, published in 1895 by the English novelist Coulson Kernahan, is a cautionary tale about a writer afflicted with the titular conditions. Dipsomania, a nineteenth century antecedent to our modern conception of alcoholism, is an uncontrollable craving for drink, which accompanies the egotism that our narrator experiences as he finds literary success. This 61-page story is part of a series of four, entitled Strange Sins, and is bound in decorative black publisher’s bookcloth.

While brief, A literary gent is relentless in its condemnation of alcohol abuse. In an address to the reader following his sorry tale, rather than offering apology or proof of redemption, the protagonist ends his narrative with a final twist of the knife:

No, I have only one reason for writing this story. Can you not guess it? It is that I may sell it—as I’d sell my immortal soul were I able—for money to buy more drink. (p. 61)

Coulson Kernahan. A literary gent. London : Ward, Lock & Co., 1895-6. PR6021.E727 L5 1895.

Thanks to rare book cataloger Ryan Wheeler for contributing this post.

Joel Dorman Steele, Ph.D. was the author of a series of textbooks in late 19th-century America including Hygienic physiology : with special reference to the use of alcoholic drinks and narcotics.  It was meant to be used not for medical students but to inform young people in the principles that underlie the preservation of health and to form good physical habits.  Steele and his wife, Esther, were both educators who believed that traditional textbooks of the time were self-indulgently long.  Their solution was to write a series of textbooks meant for fourteen week courses on a range of subjects such as history, chemistry, zoology, astronomy, and of course physiology.  Hygenic Physiology explains the various systems of the human body because as the author states, “Habits are often formed in youth which entail weakness and poverty upon manhood, and are a cause of life-long regret… use of a strained limb may permanently damage it.  A thoughtless hour of reading by twilight may impair the sight for life...”  What is fascinating is that some of these ideas, particularly the reading with dim light are still commonly believed as true even though medical study has refuted the claim.

The volume contains beautifully illustrated depictions of the various systems and operations in the body including the skeleton, muscles, circulation, the nervous system, and others.

The information contained in Hygenic Physiology is particularly interesting when one notes that it was published just before the idea of germ theory.  It is a fascinating window into the prevailing wisdom of the day and a stark example of just how far medical technology has taken us.  Another interesting aspect of the book are the “Practical Questions” at the end of each chapter which reveal a great deal about the typical worries of the general public, some of which seem not quite so medically important…

Have you ever wondered what causes hair to “stand on end” when we are fightened?

What is meant by a “furred” tounge?

When a law of health and a law of fashion conflict, which should we obey?

Is the blacksmith’s right arm healthier than the left?

Regardless of the modern relevance of these questions it is certain that the book popularized the subject of physiology, thus enriching understanding of the human body during this time.  Hygienic physiology : with special reference to the use of alcoholic drinks and narcotics /by Joel Dorman Steele. Enl. ed. with selected readings. New York : American Book Co., c1888. QP36 .S81 1888 and many other interesting medical texts can be found at the Countway Library at the Harvard Medical School in Longwood.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager and Joan Thomas, Rare Book Cataloger at Countway for contributing this post.

What to do if you are looking for the “ultimate guide for safe mushroom picking”?  Frank and Cheeri Rinaldo have got you covered with Safe-pik, a flip book of handy mushroom identification cards.  Measuring only about 2 1/2 by 4 inches it could easily fit in your pocket and deals mainly with Psilocybins, the type of mushrooms that contain a naturally occuring psychedelic compound.  There is a helpful disclaimer that children should not take mushrooms, one should never trespass, and that mushrooms should be used for the purpose they were intended… mind expansion.

Identification of mushrooms is hardly a new concept as seen by the German publication Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches in Bildern by Dr. Gotthilf Heinrich von Schubert.    

Schubert was a 19th-century German physician, naturalist, and professor in Munich.  Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches in Bildern is the botanical part of a textbook set, Lehrbuch der Naturgeschichte, that includes additonal plates.  The beautiful hand-colored lithographic plates help to identify and educate the reader to also expand their mind… though perhaps the intent was not in quite the same way as the Rinaldos.  

Mushrooms may have an even greater role according to mycologist Paul Stamets who states that they play a vital role in the survival of both earth and the human race.  Stamets has published many books including Mycelium running : how mushrooms can help save the world which can be found here at Harvard.  Stamets briefly explains the connection between mushrooms and survival in an amazing video excerpt featuring time-lapse footage of mushrooms from the documentary Fantastic Fungi: The Forbidden Fruit.

To see more botananical items from the Julio Mario Santo Domingo Collection check out the Botany Libraries.

Naturgeschichte des Pflanzenreiches in Bildern : nach der Anordung des allgemein bekannten und beliebten Lehrbuchs der Naturgeschichte / von G.H. v. Schubert ; bearbeitet von Chr. F. Hochstetter.  Esslingen a. N. : J.F. Schreiber, [1865].  Bot Ill Sch8n 1865.

Safe-pik mushroom identification cards / [Frank & Cheeri Rinaldo ; photographs by John Allen].  [Seattle?] : Shroomer Publications, c1979. QK604.2.H34 S127 1979x.

Thanks to Alison Harris, Santo Domingo Project Manager, Gretchen Wade, and Judith Warnement of the Botany Libraries for contributing this post.