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LGBT Studies Microfilm Research Guide

Alphabetical list of materials on microfilm that are available to Emory faculty, staff and students relating to gender, sexuality, and queer studies.

Sex and Sexuality Collection 1640 to 1940

SEX & SEXUALITY, 1640-1940
Literary, Medical and Sociological Perspectives

Woodruff Library call number for series: MICFILM 4135

Part 1: Sources from the Bodleian Library, Oxford and the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, London

Digital Guide

Sex and Sexuality seeks to make available a broad range of rare printed texts describing changing attitudes towards sex and the body.  Part 1 covers 61 texts from the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and the Wellcome Institute in London.  It offers:

  • Medical works on the body, sex, and venereal diseases, including Aristotle's Masterpiece (1690) and Tissot's A New Guide to Health and Long Life (1808).
  • Writings on sexual habits, such as Bienville's Nymphomania (1775) and accounts of James Graham's 'celestial bed' through which electrical currents were passed in order to give couples 'superior ecstasy'.
  • Works on masturbation from Onania (1729) to Tissot's A Treatise on the Crime of Onan (1766).
  • Advice literature on sex such as Thomas Beddoes' Hygeia (1802-3) and H H Allbutt's The Wife's Handbook (1886).
  • Material concerning prostitution, including William Acton's Prostitution considered in its moral, social and sanitary aspects (1857) and Michael Ryan's Prostitution in London, with a comparative view of that of Paris and New York (1839).
  • Writings on the sociology of sex from George Drysdale's The Elements of Social Science; or Physical, Sexual and Natural Religion (1861) to Richard von Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis (1892)

Part 2: Romantic friendships and lesbian relationships in literature and history

Digital Guide

Part 2 offers 65 texts describing the whole spectrum of same sex relations between women from romantic friendship to lesbian couples:

  • The treatment of classical writings by Sappho, Juvenal and Ovid - the way in which their texts were translated tells us a lot about changes in attitude towards homosexuality.
  • Historical accounts describing sexual practices in Turkey and the 'Orient' including works by Rycaut, Tavernier, Poussin, Hamilton, and Bourdeille.
  • Works on uranism, lesbianism and homosexuality by Xavier Mayne, Raffalovich and J A Symonds.
  • Literary treatments of female same sex relations including Jean Barrin's Venus in the Cloister (1683), Jane Barker's The Lining of the Patch-work Screen (1726), and Eliza Haywood's Cleomira (1722) and Cleomelia (1727).
  • A full range of works by John Cleland - including The Dictionary of Love (1753), Memoirs of a Coxcomb (1885) and Memoirs of Fanny Hill (1888) - depicting every type of sexual relationship.
  • Writings by Diderot (including Les Bijoux Indiscrets and La Religieuse); Barbara Montague (A description of Millenium Hall); Eliza Jeary (Marina and Amelia); Charlotte Lennox; Elizabeth Steele; Pierre Ambroise Choderlos de Laclos; Elizabeth Rowe; Nicholas Chorier (Satyre sotadique); and others.

Parts 3 and 4: Erotica, 1650-1900, from the Private Case Collection at the British Library, London

Digital Guide

Parts 3 & 4 are based on the Private Case collection at the British Library. They include:

  • The Cabinet of Venus Unlocked (1657-58) by Sinibaldus (Giovanni Bendetto).
  • L'escole des Filles (1668) by Michel Millot.
  • Fifteen Real Comforts of Matrimony (1683).
  • Fifteen Plagues of Maiden-Head (1707).
  • Treatise on Hermaphrodites (1718) and The New Epicurean (1740).
  • Therese Philosophe (1748) by Jean-Baptiste Argens.
  • Errotika Biblion (1783).
  • Justine and Histoire de Juliette (1794) by the Marquis de Sade.
  • La Masturbomanie (1830).
  • The Exhibition of Female Flagellants (1860).
  • The Merry Order of St Bridget (1868).
  • The Romance of Lust; or, Early Experiences (4 vols, 1873-76).
  • The Boudoir: A Magazine of Scandal (1883)
  • The Autobiography of a Flea (1887) and The Whippingham Papers (1888).
  • My Secret Life (11 vols, 1890), reputed to be the autobiographical adventures of H Spencer Ashbee.
  • The Pearl.  A Journal of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading (3 vols, 1879-80).
  • Confessions of Madame Vestris (1891).
  • The Powers of Mesmerism (1891).
  • Gynecocracy. A narrative of the adventures of Julian Robinson (3 vols, 1894).
  • The memoirs of Jacques Casanova (12 vols, 1894).
  • Lady Gay Spanker's Tales of Fun and Flagellation (1896).
  • The Lysistrata of Aristophanesillustrated by Beardsley (1896).
  • Forbidden Fruit (1898) and Private Letters from Phyllis to Marie (1898).
  • My Married Life (1900)
  • Les 120 Journées de Sodome (1904).