Sale 2468 - Early Printed, Medical, Scientific & Travel Books, March 8, 2018

74 c (EROTICA.) [Chorier, Nicolas.] Aloisiae Sigeae Toletanae Satyra Sotadica de ArcanisAmoris etVeneris.Aloisiahispanice scripsit latinitatedonavit JoannesMeursius V.C. [12],165,[1];[2],78,[2] pages,including last leaf with query for grammarians.Collation:a 6 A-K 12 L 4 ,with G4 missigned G3 and G6 missigned G5.Catchwords on each page.12mo,124x69 mm, early 20th-century ½ calf gilt; margins trimmed close just touching text on preliminary leaf a5, dampstaining in upper inner corners toward end, contents otherwise generally clean. [Np, 1660s?] [5,000/7,000] Scarce early edition of a collection of 6 dialogues revolving around a young woman’s sexual initiation, “the most outspoken erotic work of the 17th century” (Kearney). Though the text is purportedly the Latin translation by the Dutch classical scholar Johannes Meursius of a Spanish work by the 16th- century poet Luisa Sigea de Velasco, the real author was a French lawyer and historian. The first edition was published circa 1660; the first complete edition with a seventh and final dialogue appeared in 1678. Kearney, A History of Erotic Literature, pages 34-46. From the library of the erotica scholar and collector Gershon Legman (1917-99), with his bibliographical notes and signature dated 1954 on a leaf mounted on the front endpaper.