Robinson - Gynecocracy - 1912





Catawiki Buyer Protection
Your payment’s safe with us until you receive your object.View details
Trustpilot 4.4 | 139877 reviews
Rated Excellent on Trustpilot.
Description from the seller
Rare three-volume private-press edition of a Victorian classic of flagellant and femdom-oriented erotica, one of the best-known works of English underground literature in the 19th century.
Publisher: Paris and Rotterdam / London, Pickle (fictitious; actually a private press), reprint of the 1893 edition, around 1912. Fully in 3 volumes, 164, 170, 166 pages, original paper covers, backstrip reinforced with linen, 17 x 11 cm.
--------------------------------------
The boisterous young Julian is sent to the country estate of the family after a sexual advance ("Indiscretion") to a housemaid by his parents. There he is to be disciplined by a strict French governess, Mademoiselle de Chambonnard, together with his three female cousins. As punishment and a disciplinary measure, Julian is subjected to a strict "woman rule" (Gynecocracy). He must permanently wear girls’ clothes, corsets, and fine gloves and is thereafter called "Julia." Alongside drastic Victorian punishment scenes (birching with the rod/"birching"), the story develops into a BDSM narrative. Julian eventually finds a form of sexual release and pleasure in his submission. In the end he marries one of his cousins, but remains permanently under her domestic domination and continues to wear women's clothing.
The work combines a novel narrative with extensive reflections on power, upbringing, and gender roles, and is among the classic publications of English erotic underground literature of the 19th century. Originally printed only in a small run for a private collector circle, Gynecocracy today belongs to the sought-after standard works of this specialty.
Erotic novels of the Victorian era were routinely printed by publishers like Augustin Brancart in Brussels/Rotterdam in plain paper wrappers (softcover). Buyers would then usually have the books privately bound in leather to obscure them on the bookshelf as harmless volumes. Copies surviving in the original cover are therefore extremely rare.
--------------------------------------
Beautifully preserved, clean, and flawless specimen, in this condition probably unique
Seller's Story
Rare three-volume private-press edition of a Victorian classic of flagellant and femdom-oriented erotica, one of the best-known works of English underground literature in the 19th century.
Publisher: Paris and Rotterdam / London, Pickle (fictitious; actually a private press), reprint of the 1893 edition, around 1912. Fully in 3 volumes, 164, 170, 166 pages, original paper covers, backstrip reinforced with linen, 17 x 11 cm.
--------------------------------------
The boisterous young Julian is sent to the country estate of the family after a sexual advance ("Indiscretion") to a housemaid by his parents. There he is to be disciplined by a strict French governess, Mademoiselle de Chambonnard, together with his three female cousins. As punishment and a disciplinary measure, Julian is subjected to a strict "woman rule" (Gynecocracy). He must permanently wear girls’ clothes, corsets, and fine gloves and is thereafter called "Julia." Alongside drastic Victorian punishment scenes (birching with the rod/"birching"), the story develops into a BDSM narrative. Julian eventually finds a form of sexual release and pleasure in his submission. In the end he marries one of his cousins, but remains permanently under her domestic domination and continues to wear women's clothing.
The work combines a novel narrative with extensive reflections on power, upbringing, and gender roles, and is among the classic publications of English erotic underground literature of the 19th century. Originally printed only in a small run for a private collector circle, Gynecocracy today belongs to the sought-after standard works of this specialty.
Erotic novels of the Victorian era were routinely printed by publishers like Augustin Brancart in Brussels/Rotterdam in plain paper wrappers (softcover). Buyers would then usually have the books privately bound in leather to obscure them on the bookshelf as harmless volumes. Copies surviving in the original cover are therefore extremely rare.
--------------------------------------
Beautifully preserved, clean, and flawless specimen, in this condition probably unique

