Frederick Hankey(1821-1882)
A B i o g r a p h i c a l S k e tc h
EXTRACTED FROM

Ce n’est pas mon genre de livres lestes… Lettres inédites[de Frederick Hankey] à Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord
Houghton (1857–1865). – Édition établie, présentée et annotée par Jacques Duprilot et Jean-Paul Goujon. Se trouvechez Miss Jenkins et dans toutes les mauvaises maisons de
Londres, 2012.

TRANSLATED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION & NOTESBY

PATRICK J. KEARNEY

Scissors & Paste Bibliographies
SANTA ROSA, CA
2019

The only known image of Frederick Hankey, seen
here as a child with his sister Thomasina-Ionia

TRANSLATOR’SINTRODUCTORY NOTE
Anyone remotely interested in the history and bibliographyof erotic literature will, sooner or later, come across the nameof Frederick Hankey, the bibliomaniac/sadist who so disturbed
the Goncourt brothers, and features memorably in their Journal,
for April 7th 1862, the entry beginning:
Today I visited a madman, a monster, one of those men
who live on the edge of the abyss. Through him, as througha torn veil, I had a glimpse of an appalling aspect, a terrible
side to a wealthy, blasé aristocracy – the English aristocracy– who bring ferocious cruelty to love and whose licentiousness can only be aroused by the woman’s sufferings.1

Hankey was a pivotal character in the erotic world of the
19th century, but relatively little is known about him other than
the names of the other collectors and bibliographers who were
his friends, and the few ‘rarissime’ titles we know for certain
were in his library; I myself have seen just one ‘in the flesh,’ themagnificently bound l’Anti-Justine (1798) by Rétif de la
Bretonne’s in Cambridge University Library, and the only copy
known outside the Bibliothèque Nationale.
The few biographical details we have of Hankey are often
wrong, these apparently originating from his friend Henry
Spencer Ashbee who states that Hankey’s father was “governor
Journal des Goncourt, tom. 2 (Paris: Charpentier, 1887) pp. 2629. This entry was heavily expurgated by the publishers, and although
Hankey had been dead for 5 years in 1887, his name is not included.
The complete entry is restored in the edition of the Journal publishedby Les Éditions de l’Imprimerie nationale de Monaco in 1958, tom.
V, pp. 89-93, in which Hankey’s name is given, but misspelled ‘Henkey.’1

1

of the Ionian islands” and that Hankey Jr. retired from military
service with the rank of ‘captain in the Guards.’ Neither assertion is true; Hankey’s father was secretary to the governor, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Maitland, and his rank on leaving
the military in December 1846 was that of Lieutenant.
Ignoring the inconvenient question of why I’d not done so
earlier, but recognising Hankey’s importance, I decided late in2015 to do some investigating and gather some new information
about him, should it exist.
Frederick Hankey Sr., as the alleged governor of the Ionianisland during the British protectorate, suggested a good starting
point, and I quickly learned his true role as secretary to the governor. His family background was also easy to trace, including
his marriage at Fetcham, Surrey, in July 1796 to his first cousin,
Charlotte Hankey. Two children resulted from this union,
Emma (1798-1864) and Frederica (1816-1872). The birth ofFrederica and the death of Charlotte in the same year prompts
the suspicion that the latter might have died in childbirth.
Most sources cavalierly refer to Hankey’s second wife as “aGreek lady” or words to that effect, without naming her, andindeed finding her name proved the first serious challenge. At
length I discovered she was actually a native of Corfu, named
variously Catterina (or Catherine) Valarmo, Vaslamo or Varlamo depending on which records are consulted. Catherine wasapparently widowed or divorced as she is described as ‘Mrs.’ ina reference to the marriage that was published in The Edinburgh
Annual Register – edited by Sir Walter Scott – in 1819. The
same reference states that the ceremony took place at the Palaceof Corfu in late January of that year. Catherine died in 26th
May 1835, after presenting her husband with two additionalchildren, Thomasina-Ionia (born 1819) and the object of thisessay, Frederick, who was born in 1821.
Information about Hankey Jr. proved less easy to run down,
since almost all records relating to his life are deposited in for-2

eign archives. However, Sheryl Perry, a friend and fine researcher, knowing of my work, managed to find a mention of
him in the 1841 British Census where, at the age of 19 andemployed in the Civil Service, he was living at 14 Lower Berkeley Street, 2 Marylebone, with his father, his two half-sisters,
Frederica and Emma, and Eliza Hankey, his step-aunt.
It rather looks as though “Frederick Hankey, Gent.” left thecivil service position he held in June 1841 (the month of thecensus for that year) and purchased the rank of Cornet in July
1841 in the 6th Dragoon Guards from Cornet E. Warriner who
was promoted to Lieutenant. In March 1843, Hankey purchased the rank of Lieutenant from a retiring officer named
Cocksedge and in April 1845, he was replaced by Lieutenant
Henry Dawson of the 67th Foot, and appointed to the Scots
Fusilier Guards. Following some further changes, he retired on
half-pay in December 1846, but a final reference in the London
Gazette, from where this information on his military career was
found, he makes a cryptic appearance in 1848:
75th Foot, Lieutenant Frederick Hankey, from half-pay
63rd Foot, to be Lieutenant, vice Tyler, appointed to theRoyal Newfoundland Company.3

It is clear from this that Hankey never acquired the rank of
Captain, but I found an odd reference in The Economist for
Saturday, Jan. 3rd 1846, headlined “Address of the British subjects in Paris to the King of the French”:
A numerous meeting of British subjects took place on
Wednesday in the great room of Lawson’s Bedford Hotel,

2

Lower Berkeley Street was renamed Fitzhardinge Street sometime after 1926. It’s a short street running west from Manchester
Square to the north side of Portman Square. No. 14 is today the homeof the British Heart Foundation, assuming the numbering has remained the same.
3
London Gazette 16 June 1848, issue: 20868, Page: 2266.

3

in the Rue St Honore, to vote a congratulatory address toKing Louis-Philippe on his late providential escape fromassassination. Amongst the gentlemen present were…
Captain Hankey, &c.4

Was Hankey posing as a Captain, which seems unlikely, or
was this an unrelated person with same name? We have no wayof knowing.
I found a more positive sighting in the Bulletin des lois del’Empire Française, 5 where one of the ‘propriétaires’ of theCompagnie d’Assurances sur la vie Impérial is ‘M. Frédérick
Hankey’ whose address, 2 rue Laffitte, is conveniently provided.
This was interesting as it tended to support a theory I had that
Hankey received, because of his life-style, little or no moneyfrom his father’s estate, and because of it needed to make a living
on his own account. The origin of this possibility was a copy of
Hankey Sr’s will, dated March 30th 1855, the year of his death,that I was able to acquire from the Public Records Office at
Kew for a small sum. My excitement at receiving it was somewhat diminished when I found it in effect unreadable becauseof the illegibility of the handwriting and its antiquated legalese.
Fortunately, an acquaintance named Rowan Gibbs, who hassome expertise in these matters, generously volunteered to takea look at the document and was able to partially decipher thoseparts treating of Hankey’s son which are reproduced here, withsome slight changes to assist in its readability:…and direct my son Frederick Hankey immediately after
my decease to deliver up to my Executors hereinafter
named One hundred and forty nine obligations videlicet

The Economist, Weekly Commercial Times, Bankers’ Gazette& Railway Monitor, Saturday April 25 1846, vol. 14, no. 139, p. 539.
4Louis-Philippe managed to survive no less than seven attempts on his
life.
5Bulletin des lois de l’Empire française, XIe série, premier semestrede 1869, partie supplémentaire. Tome XXXIII, no. 1501, p. 1150.

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[=viz.] sixty-nine of the Railway de Paris a Lyon, twentyfive of the Railway de Rouen and fifty-five of the Railway
de l’Ouest belonging to me and now in the possession
care[?] or custody of my said son for my use[?] and in casemy said son shall so do or shall have delivered the same up
to me in my lifetime then I direct my Executors out of mygeneral personal estate to raise and pay unto this my said
son for his own use and benefit the sum of four thousand
pounds of lawful money, but that if my said son shall nothave delivered up the said obligations to me in my life time,or shall not peaceably and without suit deliver up the said
obligations or the value thereof or such part thereof as my
Executors may in their discretion think fit to receive in fullof the said obligations under the power to compromise
hereinafter [indecipherable]tained to my Executors within
six Calendar months next[?] after my decease then the said
Four thousand [pounds] is not nor is any part thereof to beraised or paid to my said son and I expressly direct[?] that itshall not be incumbent upon my Executors to take any legal or other proceedings for the recovery of the said Obligations of any of them if my said son should [indecipherable] or refuse to deliver up the same to them but this [indecipherable] is not and is not to be [indecipherable] intoa discharge to my said son in any manner [indecipherable].
And I give to my Executors the fullest possible [indecipherable] and discretion to sue or not to sue for the said obligations or any or either[?] of them and to get in or not to getin the same or any of them of any part thereof as part of mypersonal estate and the fullest powers to compromise forless than the [indecipherable] amount or value of the said
obligations and exonerate my Executors from all liability or
responsibility to my residuary or other legatees in case of acompromise or in case my Executors from family feelingor any other reason cause or instinct[?] shall not think fit totake proceedings against my said son or any other person5

or persons for the recovery of the said obligations or any ofthem or any part thereof.

From this it would seem that a bequest of £4,000, a considerable sum in 1855, was contingent on Hankey Jr fulfilling an
obligation of some sort involving railway shares. Whether heactually carried out that requirement is unknown, but the belief
that he might not have done so and had to work for a living was
supported, albeit circumstantially, by an entry in Henry Spencer
Ashbee’s diary for April 8 1875 which, in part, reads: “His apartments are situated in the best part of Paris, 2 rue Laffitte, lookout on the Boulevard, and face the Caffé Anglais and Opéra
Comique, but in spite of their excellent situation they are notconvenient, and as kept by Hankey and his mistress are entirely
wanting in comfort.”6 Describing a visit to Hankey’s apartment
in March 1882 in company with Octave Uzanne and Félicien
Rops, Ashbee comments elsewhere on the lack of creature
comforts: “There was no fire or other artificial heat, in spite of
the low temperature of the atmosphere.”7 A personal foible, orlack of funds?
A tangential piece of information put in an appearance on a
genealogical site. Hankey’s name appeared, together with thatof his mistress, ‘Angelina (Annie) Sophie Vernon Beckett.’ That
he had a ‘companion’ or mistress named Annie is attested to in
a letter she wrote to Richard Monckton Milnes, lamenting
Hankey’s death, which is preserved in the Houghton Papers at
Trinity College Library, Cambridge.8 But who was she? Attempts to contact the genealogical site for clarification were not
Quoted by Ian Gibson, The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life ofHenry Spencer Ashbee (London: Faber & Faber, 2001), p. 33.
7Henry Spencer Ashbee, Catena Librorum Tacendorum (Lon6don, privately printed, 1885), p. lii, note 78.
8“My tears, dear Houghton are blinding me I can write no
more…” Quoted by Ian Gibson, The Erotomaniac: The Secret Lifeof Henry Spencer Ashbee (London: Faber & Faber, 2001), p. 85. For
the complete text of this letter, see Appendix II.

6

answered, and a general internet search provided no information.
From her name, though, Angelina sounded English, and acheck on births in the United Kingdom provided a tantalisingclue in the form of a baptismal record dated 4 March 1830 for
an Angelina Sophia Beckett, the daughter of John and Sophia
Beckett. The ceremony was held in the Parish of St George,
Hanover Square, Westminster. This was tempting; the namewas close and the date about right. The family was living on
Gilbert Street which, today at least, is in a fashionable part of
London, running between Oxford Street and Brook Street.
What it was like in 1830 I am unable to say, but John Beckett
gave his profession as that of ‘clerk’ and so must have had someeducation. Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find further tracesof the family and cannot say for certain that it has any connection with Hankey.

A
In late April, 2016, in one of those rare coincidences thatsometime occur, I received an email from Ian Jackson of Berkeley, California, who had seen my website and felt I might beinterested in a review he’d written for The Book Collector9 of
a book touching strongly on Frederick Hankey that had been
privately published four years earlier:
Ce n’est pas mon genre de livres lestes… Lettres inédites[de Frederick Hankey] à Richard Monckton Milnes, Lord
Houghton (1857–1865). Édition établie, présentée et annotée par Jacques Duprilot et Jean-Paul Goujon. Se trouve

9

The Book Collector, autumn 2013, pp. 531-534.

7chez Miss Jenkins et dans toutes les mauvaises maisons de
Londres, 2012.

Both Duprilot and Goujon are well known to me, by reputation. Duprilot is the author of two major works of bibliographical research, the first on the 1887 ‘Galitzin’ erotica catalogue10 and the second on the erotica publishers Jean-Jules Gay
and Henriette Doucé.11 Goujon is an authority on Pierre Louÿs
(1870-1925), and wrote an important biography of that author,12 and is the editor of a number of editions of his works,
letters, &c. A book on Hankey by two such important scholars
was something of an event, but it was limited to just fifty copies
and I feared it might no longer be available.
Ian Jackson’s review provoked some contradictory feelings.
It seemed likely that my own work on Hankey was now redundant, which I found vexing, but the enthusiasm of the review
made me nevertheless anxious to obtain a copy:
Only 22 of Hankey’s letters survive from what was obviously a larger corpus but they are a unique witness, apparently the only surviving documentation of supply and demand in the clandestine erotic book trade of that (or any?)
period. The texts are presented in English original andFrench translation, with massive annotation. The 80-page
introduction and the substantial appendices of unpublisheddocuments convert this edition of a handful of letters into
a 278-page case study without parallel, offering a panoramaof the sexual underworld of two metropolises with a cast of
characters that ranges from the scatological bibliographer
Octave Delepierre, Rétif’s bibliographer Paul Lacroix, the10L’énigma du catalogue secret du Prince G*** ou les ruses dulibraire Lehec (Genève, 1989).
11
Gay et Doucé, éditeurs sous le manteau (1877-1882) (Paris: Éditions Astarté, 1998).
12
Pierre Louÿs – une vie secrete (1870-1925) (Paris: Seghers,
1988).

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collectors Prince Galitzin, Eugène Paillet and Alfred Bégis,and the dealers Techener and Potier… 13

I wrote to M. Duprilot asking whether copies were stillavailable, but his reply was in the negative. He furthermore expressed his frustration that the authors had been obliged to publish the work themselves, in a format that displeased them, sinceno conventional publishers were prepared to take on such an‘uncommercial’ project. Fortunately, Mr. Jackson generously
allowed me a sight of his copy, and I immediately shared his
opinion of MM. Duprilot and Goujon’s work which is a superb
piece of research and urgently deserves greater exposure.
However, I was not anxious to abandon my own work on
Hankey, and so decided to translate the basic biographical sections of Ce n’est pas mon genre de livres lestes… – comprisingpp. 10-16 – and offer them here on the Scissors & Paste site,with some additional information I’d found myself which is included in this Note.
Before closing, I’d like to express a purely personal thought
about Hankey, and one which may not be universally accepted.
It seems to me that Hankey’s obsession with books is more to
do with them as objects, their bindings, decorations, illustrations, and the paper they’re printed on. He seldom mentions
the texts. As I’ve mentioned in an email to a friend, it’s likesomeone who collects toast racks, and rhapsodises over their design and decoration, the quality of the ceramic &c., but has
nothing to say on the pleasures of the toast.
The caparisons of books are what Hankey speaks of mostoften and so lovingly, and he was not alone in the nineteenth
century – or later – in his passion for fine bindings but he wasprobably unique in being unappreciative of what lay between
the covers.

13

The full text of Mr. Jackson’s review can be found in Appendix

I.

9Bibliographically speaking the rebinding of old books, nomatter how luxuriously and artistically, is unwise, especially ifthey are fine copies in their original, as issued, wrappers or bindings. If binding is important, and money is no object, a more
prudent course of action would be to keep one’s treasures ‘asis’ but have special solander cases or boxes made for them. Thesecan be as fancy as one can afford, and leave the contents in their
original condition.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Sheryl Perry and Rowan Gibbs kind assistances have been
already mentioned above, but it would be remiss of me not tosingle out Ian Jackson for a particular appreciation; in addition
to going to the trouble of letting me see his copy of Ce n’est
pas mon genre de livres lestes…, he also generously took out
time from his busy schedule to look over and correct my notoriously poor command of French and offer many words of advice and encouragement. Finally, my thanks to Jacques Duprilot
and Jean-Paul Goujon for allowing me to translate and publish
the biographical section of their important work.

10

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH
Frederick Hankey was the result of an exceedingly cosmopolitan union, being the son of Mr. Frederick Hankey, an English soldier and diplomat, and a Greek lady, a native of Corfu,
named Caterina Varlamo. The two married on December 24th,
1818, in the Palace of Corfu. Caterina died in Malta on May
26th, 1835, “after a long and difficult illness” (cancer?). She gave
her husband two children, a son, Frederick, in 1823 (or 1821
according to some sources), and a daughter, Thomasina-Ionia,
who would go on to marry Captain Charles F[rancis] Maxwellin 1839. Caterina’s imposing tomb can still be seen in Malta, in
the Greek Orthodox cemetery.
Sir Frederick Hankey (he was ennobled in 1832) was bornin 1774 and died in London on March 13th, 1855, with therank of Colonel. He belonged to an ancient family, which, inElizabethan times, was famous for Henry Hankey, the mayor of
Chester, and later, at the beginning of the 18th century, for Alderman Henry Hankey of London, who died in 1736. Frederick
first saw service in the Army in Ceylon (1800-1811), then in
Malta and in Corfu, as the private secretary of Sir Thomas Maitland, Lord High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands, a post inwhich he played an important political role. It is, however, agreat exaggeration to claim, as did Ashbee and many others after
him, that he was ‘governor of the Ionian Islands.’ Nonetheless,we do know that the approximate dates of his stay in Corfu
were between 1817 and 1823. Later, he could be found in Malta(about 1828-1831). Caterina Varlamo was actually his second
wife, for he had been married earlier to his cousin Charlotte
Hankey, who died in 1816 and with whom he had two daughters.
Concerning Caterina Varlamo, we know nothing, except

11that her father, Nicolo Varlamo, was a Maggiore della Piazza[town-major of Corfu] and a member of the Legislative assembly, and despite being unable to read or write was “a nobleman,belonging to an ancient and respectable family of Corfu”.14 It is
pleasant to think that she would have possessed the beauty of
the Greek women of her native island.15 The precise date ofbirth of his son Frederick has not been determined with certainty. The announcement of his death16 states that he died (in1882), “at the age of 59 years”, which would place his birthprobably in 1823, while Ian Aers Hankey, archivist of the family
papers, assures us that he was born on July 14th, 1821 in Corfu.
Hankey was obviously related to the founders of the banking
company Hankey and Company of London, but just how
closely? It has sometimes been stated that Thomson Hankey(1805-1893), Governor of the Bank of England in 1852, washis brother, but this is incorrect; he was only a first cousin. Furthermore, the Almanac impérial pour 1867, lists (p. 5), on the
Board of Directors of the Compagnie d’Assurances sur la vie
L’Impérial, a “F[rédér]ic Hankey” Is this our man? His name
14

The Quarterly Review, vol. 29, 1823, p. 97.

15

In 1830, Disraeli, while on his trip to Malta, wrote to his father:“I sat next to old Mrs. Hankey at dinner, whom they all make muchof, but who is rather an old-fashioned affair.” (Disraeli, letter to hisfather, Malta, October 1830, Lord Beaconsfield’s Letters 1830-1852,
London: John Murray, 1887, p. 36). But is this definitely our hero’s
mother? In 1818, her husband was just past forty, and if she was thenabout the same age as him, she would have been in her fifties in 1830,
which is not consistent with the remarks of Disraeli. Doubtless it’s not
Mrs. Frederick Hankey being referred to, but Frederick’s mother,born Elizabeth Thomson, and first wife of John Hankey, whom she
had married in 1783. If it is definitely about her, she would, therefore,
have been in her seventies (?) in 1830.
16
Bibl. De l’Arsenal, MS 9273, dossier Hankey, f o 17 (cited by J.
Duprilot, in « Quand Lorédan Larchey recevait à l’Arsenal Frederick
Hankey, “l’érotomane correct” », Bull. Du Bibliophile, 2000, no 2, p.
359).

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already appeared there in 1865.
His military career seems to have been fairly short, andspanned the years 1841 and 1846, essentially in the Scots Fusilier
Guards, having enlisted in 1841 as a Cornet in the 6th Dragoon
Guards regiment (Carabineers). He retired on half-pay in December 1846. In 1847, his name disappears from the “ArmyLists", and, as Anthony Hobson wittily wrote, “clearly, theScots Fusilier Guards did not suit Hankey, or he did not theregiment”… But as is clear from his letters to Milnes, he had,during his years in Paris, kept in touch with some comradesfrom the Guards, and when writing to Milnes his letters sometimes bore a seal with the word “Dragoons.” At a date which
we are unable to determine, but around 1848, he decided tosettle in Paris, where he lived until his death, without following
any other occupation than that of rentier. No doubt it was tofully pursue his love of books and erotica, away from the Victorian atmosphere that reigned in England. Certainly he was already in Paris in 1849, since he attended the Bolle auction (Maison Silvestre, 30 April-12 May 1849), where he made various
acquisitions. Was he already living at 2, rue Laffitte? It’s possible,
but we do not have proof.
Of his later life, we know very little except, of course, what
is said in his letters to Milnes. He seems to have been entirely
devoted to his hellish bibliophily, but also to some conventional
pursuits, because, as will be seen, he had many connections,some of which were very highly placed in both Paris and London. In addition, he was very sociable and willingly made hiscollections available, at least with regard to his most notablebooks. The last of his letters to Milnes, however, shows that in1865 he found himself embroiled in a scandal, which we’ll talkabout later; its exact nature remains unknown but it caused him
real anxieties, forcing him to hurriedly hide his books away…
at the British Embassy! Another more curious activity, occurredin 1864, when he joined the Société d’ethnographie américaine

13

et orientale, and remained a member at least until 1869. Nothing is known about his life during the war of 1870 and theCommune, but we see him reappear in 1872, when he madeeffective use of his connections, moving heaven and earth toreceive the Légion d’honneur… which he eventually succeededin doing in 1881, the year before his death. The pretext wasquite strange: during the Exposition Universelle held at Paris in
1878, Hankey was – you can’t make this up! – a jury memberof Class 29 “Leather goods, Marquetry and Basketry” [sic]. In
the words of Jacques Duprilot in his article on Larchey and
Hankey, “It’s obvious to us that Hankey never exhibited anything, and to get his medal, must have benefitted from insider
connections…” The fact remains that his day of glory arrived
on June 11th, 1881, in the form of a decree from the ministre
des Affaires étrangères naming Mr Frédérick Hankey as a knightof the Legion of honour, “English exhibitor in 1878”. Anotherachievement to be laid to the credit of our “absolute erotomane”!
However, something that we unfortunately cannot specify
must have happened during the years 1875-1876, because it isduring this period that Hankey parted with an amazing flagellatoire manuscript of Tom Jones… and in particular one of thegems of his library, the original edition of Rétif de la Bretonne’sl’Anti-Justine. Did he run out of money after some financial
setback, or was it some private disgrace? We are unable to say.
Little is known of his final years either. He continued to receive visits, and although he suffered from gout, it didn’t stop
him from scouring the bookshops in search of rarities. On June
8th, 1882, he died in his apartment in the Rue Laffitte and wasburied two days later in Père-Lachaise cemetery, where his
grave can still be seen. Ashbee was told of the event in a letterfrom a friend (Bégis perhaps?), which read:Our friend Hankey died suddenly while I was with him lastThursday. He had begun to recover. He did not believe his

14death was near and was unafraid. He choked and died,without experiencing any apparent pain. We were very
close for 30 years, he was one of my best friends. He wasburied Saturday at the cemetery of Père-Lachaise.17

Fifteen years later, Henri Béraldi reported what he called
the ‘last words’ of Hankey:
He was on his deathbed when the bell rang at the front
door. Hankey, in a final thought, recalled one of his bibliophilic desires, long cherished but unfulfilled. Ah! he says,
it’s a bookseller bringing me a Justine on PAPIER VÉLIN!
And he died.18

Se non è vero [even if it’s not true]… The Journal des débats
announced on June 14th the death of “Mr. Hankey, age 59, rue
Laffitte, 2”, while Gil Blas, two days before, had printed:
Yesterday [sic; i.e. the day before yesterday] Mr Frederick
Hankey, an old guards officer of the English Queen, andknight of the Légion d’honneur was buried. Mr. Hankey
was the possessor of one of literature’s unique marvels: LesMœurs du temps, of La Popelinière. His collection was
known to knowledgeable amateurs, but off limits to everyone else.

His death, however, did not give rise to many newspaper
mentions – far from it. However, we do note an article byCharles Monselet:“An Englishman, extremely well known in Paris, Mr
Frederic [sic] Hankey, a bibliophile with very special tastes,
has just died, leaving a rich cabinet in his apartment on therue Laffitte.” [In fact, Monselet speaks only of Les Tableauxdes Mœurs du temps!]. Then: “While Mr Frederick
Ashbee, Catena Librorum Tacendorum, 1885, p.LIII.
H. Beraldi, La Reliure au XIXe siècle, Troisième partie, L. Conquet, 1896, p. 63-64.
17
18

15

Hankey was dying, M. de la Poupelinière’s old hotel on the
rue Richelieu was being demolished. It had become in recent years the hôtel d’Espagne, located opposite the Bibliothèque [Nationale]. It was decreed that the week should
be entirely devoted to La Poupelinière. (…)19

Octave Uzanne followed him, in Le Livre, 20 with, let us
confess, an article of no interest: even though Hankey had honoured him, together with Rops, on a guided tour of his collection, Uzanne was careful not to include any personal recollections, but instead confined himself to simply copying Monselet’s
article from L’Evénement! He did not step out of line: for him
as for all the others, Hankey was merely the owner of Tableauxdes Mœurs, which, from a practical point of view, has the meritof allowing you to avoid saying who he was and what he reallycollected. In this respect the reader will find later on what wehave called “les extravagances of Octave Uzanne”.
Hankey’s famous library was dispersed privately, although
we have few details. We know that some bibliophile friends
shared in the spoils, discreetly dealing with Annie Hankey. Ashbee, of course, but also Bégis and Charles Cousin - and doubtless also the bookseller Labitte.21

ENIGMAS
The first is the greatest: despite extensive research in archives
and the various photographic collections of the period, it is impossible to find any photo of Hankey. No doubt there’s one
Monselet, L’Evénement, mardi 27 Juin 1882, à la une du journal
sur deux colonnes.
20
O. Uzanne, Le Livre. Bibliographie moderne, 10 août 1882
21
For more on this individual see the letter from Annie Hankey
to Milnes dated after June 1882, Appendix II.
19

16

somewhere, but where? Let us hope that some other researcher
is more fortunate than we’ve been. Judging from a letter fromIan Hankey, it seems no pictures were retained by the family
who preferred “not to admit to his existence.”22
Another enigma, even more irritating if possible: Annie
Hankey. Our researches have led us to the conclusion that she
was not Hankey’s wife, but his mistress: this is expressly mentioned by Ashbee in his diary in April 1875. According to thedeath certificate at the registry office, Hankey died single;23 no
mention of a wife! Therefore, Annie was his mistress. Was it
therefore a relationship of convenience? Apparently not.
Hankey had lived with her for nearly thirty years … But then,why did she sign herself ‘Annie Hankey’? For her maiden name,as we shall see, was Angelina Sophie Vernon Beckett. And why,
after the death of Hankey, is she described as the ‘widow
Hankey’ in the rent records of Rue Laffitte? She disappears fromthe rent records between 1893 and 1894, but it is certain that
she had moved into a smaller apartment, still at 2, rue Laffitte,
which may be explained by a rent increase to 1600 francs, but
this is just a theory. She was then a tenant on the 3rd floor in anapartment with a rental value of 1500 frs, a taxable cadastral income of 1125 fr, whose rent on the basis of the property tax,
amounted to 1280 frs. Finally, by July 1st 1894 her third floor
apartment was occupied by a baker named Léon Robin.
It seems she lived at least until 1895, when she is found listed
in the Tout-Paris of 1895, under the name Mme Hankey at 57,
avenue Victor-Hugo, after being listed in the 1893 and 1894
editions at the sole address of 2, rue Laffitte. Inexplicably, in
1895, she appears at two addresses, 57, avenue Victor Hugo and2, rue Laffitte. But she disappears from the 1896 directory under
22

Letter from Ian Hankey to Jacques Duprilot, April 8th 2008.
It was the concierge of his building and an employee of [theauction house] Drouot named Engelmann who reported the death(Archives de la Seine, microfilm état-civil décès 1882).
23

17

the headings ‘noms’ and ‘rues’ for avenue Victor Hugo, and has
probably moved; 24 what is singular, however, is that, in thesame directory, she continues to be listed only at her former
residence, 2, rue Laffitte! And she appears nowhere in the ToutParis for 1897, 1898 and 1899. In any case, she was not dead at
her avenue Victor-Hugo lodging, from where she wrote a spicy
letter to Lorédan Larchey… What happened later is a mystery…
what is certain is that after the death of Hankey, she was not
short of resources, because the sale of some books to friends ofhis (Ashbee, Bégis, Cousin, etc.) must have brought in large
sums of money.
We note that in Hankey’s will she was known by her maiden
name, Angelina Sophie Vernon Beckett, and she was, apparently, a British national, as is shown in the following document:
December 8, 1882.
Mr. Frederick Hankey, English subject, a former officer inthe service of the Queen of England, a native of Corfu(Greece) residing in Paris, rue Laffitte 2, died at said residence June 8, 1882 and established as his sole heir Mlle
Angelina Sophie Beckett Vernon, a non-relative, also living at rue Laffitte 2 under the terms of a holographic will
dated October 13, 1869, a translation of which was recorded at the 2e Bureau des huissiers, Paris.
The estate of the said Hankey consists only of the furniture,valued in the filed statement at five thousand one hundredand fifty five 5,155 francs.
Approved by Miss Vernon Beckett who signed the statement.

24

The ten-year table of deaths in the 16th arrondissement between
1893 and 1902 lists no one named Hankey, nor a Vernon or a Beckett,evidence that Annie Hankey must have moved after 1895.

18

Foreigner
Angelina Beckett
Droits
A 9% sur 5160 .................................................... 464,40(a) 2 Xer [sic] ½ ................................................. 115,10

Received five hundred eighty four, 50 cents.25(We notice immediately that the books and works of art andantiques are not included in the estate…)
In another indication, this letter from the Conservation duPère Lachaise:
I inform you that the lease under which Monsieur Hankey
Frédéric [sic] was buried is in perpetuity. It was acquiredby Mme Vernon Beckett Angelina Sophie [sic]. Only
Monsieur Hankey Frédéric [sic], has been buried in thisplot; no further burial rights exist.26

Angelina Vernon Beckett was therefore not buried in PèreLachaise, but then where? It’s impossible to know because we
don’t know the date of her death. We are not even certain
whether she died in Paris, or even in France. And we are no
wiser as to her date and place of birth; the only clue we have isthe slenderest: her letter to Milnes (see below) indicating thatfrom childhood she had known Colonel Studholme Hodgson
who, as will be seen, shared the tastes of Hankey and Milnes…
It would, however, be interesting to know what took place
on Hankey’s death, and whether Annie Hankey was not, as
seems likely, bypassed by the family of the deceased, which
would have immediately reduced all his personal papers to ashes.
It would also seem, according to Annie’s only letter toMilnes that we know of (and it will be reproduced later), that25

Archives de Paris, Registre des mutations pour Décès, DQ7
12.434, f o 69.
26
Letter from the Custodian of the Père-Lachaise cemetery to
Jacques Duprilot, 17 May 2001.

19

some activities of her companion were problematic. Was it related to marital fidelity, or to some obsessions, attractions or impulses that she could not understand? Hankey’s way of life certainly exceeded Annie’s understanding, and this feeling of
strangeness and incomprehension created by her surroundings(the books and objects in the apartment), and all that she would
have been able to guess or learn (flagellation practices), and finally his daily routine of probably deviant behavior, must havereached an unbearable level. Everything in Hankey’s life wasout of the ordinary. His fetishistic erotomania seems to havebeen a constant feature however normal and obvious it seemedto himself. It is also doubtful that Annie knew all about Fred’s
activities beyond the threshold of rue Laffitte. In addition, his
exclusive taste for obscenity was not, frankly, in tune with thetimes, and this sort of collecting was then a scandalous pursuit.
Who knows if, in an amazing text that will be found in theannexes, Eugène Paillet might not have betrayed Hankey’s secret? While acknowledging that he was an extraordinary bibliophile, we are led to understand that in other respects Hankey
was not a very pleasant individual, not for his taste in erotica but
from his unspeakable behavior. This also explains the animosity
shown by Lorédan Larchey for his friend, notably for his“Bound in virgins’ hide”. (An article, by the way, exemplary in
its pointlessness with regard to Hankey’s collection, with no title
cited, a complete vilification and act of revenge, and three quarters of the text unrelated to the matter!) Unfortunately, we may
never know what Annie Hankey knew, nor the exact nature ofher relationship with Hankey. One fact is reassuring (so to
speak): they lived together for a long time and she did not leavehim. Apparently he was not sadistic with her, and both of thempresented to the World the façade of a bourgeois couple. Should
we conclude that Hankey was more-or-less impotent, and thatlike Rousseau, La Popelinière, Helvétius and so many others heneeded to be whipped to reach ecstasy? We don’t know.
In the meantime, here are two very curious letters of Annie

20

Hankey to Larchey:27

2 January / 83
Thank you my dear friend for your kind remembrance.
Yes: you are right. I was very ill the last year almost beyond
bearing and my health, which was not good to begin with,has worsened. I sometimes go to Neuilly to see a girl en
pension but I always get back before 5 pm. I hope to be
more joyful when next you come to see me. In the meantime, with all friendly greetings.
Annie Hankey.
[n.d.l
It was good of you to send me the catalogue of books onbirds, plants, &c. that have so delighted my friends. Would
you therefore give me the pleasure of accepting the small
works I have here? That way you will be obliged to pay
me a visit[.] I have all manner of domestic upheavals[.] myonly servant is sick[.] I have the little girl for the Easter
holiday, and I am forced to forage like a bachelor, me who
hates everything that isn’t my home. I’m really to be pitied.
At 5 pm you will find me always, but if this time is notconvenient let me know, and I will be here at whatevertime you name. Your rheumatism has gone I hope[.] don’t
blame me too much for the trouble that I’m causing foryou. A thousand affectionate compliments.
Annie Hankey.

It is not clear what to think of this young lodger about whomAnnie Hankey seems to brood so particularly. An illegitimate
child? And who is the father? Still, this child was very importantin her eyes, and she looked after her now that was left alone and27

Larchey Collection, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal.

21

a “widow”. This then is the life of Angelina Vernon Beckett,which remains for us an absolute enigma.
Jacques Duprilot et Jean-Paul Goujon

Translated and published with permission of the authors by
Patrick J. Kearney

22Appendix I

Ian Jackson’s review reprinted fromThe Book Collector(Autumn 2013, pp. 531-534)

CE N’EST PAS MON GENRE DE LIVRES LESTES….
Lettres inédites [de Frederick Hankey] à Richard Monckton
Milnes, Lord Houghton (1857–1865). Edition établie, présentée et annotée par Jacques Duprilot et Jean-Paul Goujon. Se
trouve chez Miss Jenkins et dans toutes les mauvaises maisonsde Londres, 2012. 50 copies privately printed.
‘Un incomparable Enfer, gardé par Satan en personne!’ 28
Such is one of several pungent descriptions of the finest erotic
library of the nineteenth century and its owner, Frederick
Hankey (1821–1882), that Jacques Duprilot and Jean-Paul
Goujon offer in Ce n’est pas mon genre de livres lestes… Only
22 of Hankey’s letters survive from what was obviously a larger
corpus but they are a unique witness, apparently the only surviving documentation of supply and demand in the clandestine
erotic book trade of that (or any?) period. The texts are presented in English original and French translation, with massive
annotation. The 80-page introduction and the substantial appendices of unpublished documents convert this edition of ahandful of letters into a 278-page case study without parallel,
offering a panorama of the sexual underworld of two metropolises with a cast of characters that ranges from the scatologicalbibliographer Octave Delepierre, Rétif’s bibliographer Paul Lacroix, the collectors Prince Galitzin, Eugène Paillet and Alfred
28‘A Hell beyond compare, guarded by Satan himself!’

23

Bégis, and the dealers Techener and Potier, to Guglielmo Libri,
who ‘ne nourrissait visiblement aucune espèce de préjugé contre les livres licencieux’,29 and the Duc d’Aumale, from whom
Hankey attempted in vain to buy the erotica section of the library of Armand Cigongne (1790–1859), a notorious homosexual, acquired by the Duke en bloc. The remarkable exchangeof correspondence between the various interested or opinionated parties – Hankey and Aumale, his preceptor CuvillierFleury and his Parisian steward Edouard Bocher – is here published for the first time. After much discussion, eleven volumes
from the collection were burned on Aumale’s orders, but others
escaped the auto-da-fé and have trickled on to the market over
the years.
Hankey was rich and well-connected, with powerful protectors, shipping erotica to Milnes in London by means of theAmbassador’s Bag or Queen’s Messenger. (Books small enoughto fit in a coat pocket could be almost openly imported.) Like
André Gide, Hankey enjoyed a virtual diplomatic immunityfrom prosecution. He was even allowed to deposit his entire
library at the British Embassy in the early 1860s to protect itfrom possible seizure by the minions of Napoleon III, which
was the fate of the erotica of his friend Bégis. Enemies (the Goncourt brothers and Henry Spencer Ashbee, both rival collectors)
and friends (Monckton Milnes, Swinburne and Sir Richard
Burton, all fellow adepts of le vice anglais) alike agreed that
Hankey was the Compleat Obsessive, right down to his street
address, a fashionable corner house that he fancied was the nervous centre of the city – or, as he put it, ‘le clitoris de Paris’.
Hankey distinguished himself from other collectors not only by
the astounding quality of his books, but by the brazenness of his
single-minded pursuit of the obscene, although the editors suspect from the monotony of contemporary descriptions of the29‘had no apparent distaste for licentious books’.

24same few show-pieces that he had a second Enfer, a musée secret shown only to intimates. Even his great rival Ashbee had asafely conventional second string in editions of Don Quixote.
And Monckton Milnes had collected a large gentleman’s library,albeit with nooks and crannies full of singularities, curiosities
and heterodoxies, above all in Blake and Sade. Indeed, Hankey
and Swinburne (who knew Milnes well and spent days on end
exploring his library) may be considered among the ‘inventors’of Sade – the devotees who transformed an embarrassing monomaniac of slender literary talents and obnoxious social habits
into the Divine Marquis. Ashbee considered Hankey to be ‘asecond de Sade without the intellect’. Our editors attribute thenervous general silence on the subject of Hankey to his sadism:‘Un homme qui glorifiait Sade à tout bout de champ était absolument infréquentable, et qu’on ne pouvait à aucun prix sevanter de l’avoir connu, ni encore moins fréquenté’.30 There is,incidentally, no known portrait of the man.
Charles Cousin also noted the singularity. ‘Certains bibliomanes, dont l’Anglais Hankey était le prototype (rougis, ô pudique Albion!), n’ont pas de bibliothèque: ils n’ont qu’un Enfer’,31 he wrote in Racontars illustrés d’un vieux collectionneur(1887). Duprilot and Goujon wonder whether Hankey had ‘mis
au service de sa lubricité personelle son exceptionel fétichisme
bibliophilique, ou bien si au contraire cette bibliomanie (considérée ici comme un des beaux-arts) tenait la première place danssa vie. Sans doute les deux à la fois…’,32 suspecting that ‘sa collection n’ait été qu’un énorme aphrodisiaque dans une quête de30‘A man who sang the praises of Sade at the drop of a hat could
never be considered hail-fellow-well-met. It was simply impossible foranyone to boast of his acquaintance, still less to admit to enjoying his
company.’
31‘Certain bibliophiles, of whom Hankey the Englishman was themodel (blush, O prudish Albion!) have no library. They have only aHell.’
32‘had harnessed his extraordinary bibliophilic fetishism to his own

25sensations encore et toujours renouvelées, mais pour quel typede rencontres?’ 33 Although ‘l’ampleur de ses perversions n’ajamais pu être établie’,34 they give abundant evidence of theirlikely range, concluding that in the age of the internet he would
probably be serving a long term in prison.
For most readers of THE BOOK COLLECTOR, a binding inhuman skin is perhaps at best a disagreeable curiosity, with nofurther nuances, but a taste for flagellation presumably gave
Hankey and his fellow connoisseurs a sense of terroir in thesematters that would have enchanted Krafft-Ebing. Even Sir
Richard Burton found Hankey’s perverse tastes in leather preposterous, to judge from an amusing boutade preserved in
Milnes’s Commonplace Book, and here first printed. As Hannah Glasse might have advised, first skin your schoolgirl – butthere is much more to cookery and bookbinding than the provision of raw ingredients. According to Beraldi, Hankey was an‘Erotolâtre Trautzomane ou érotomane Trautzolâtre’,35 a pioneer in erotic bookbinding at the highest level, who even convinced Trautz to place his name on commissions bedizened
with gilded genitalia from tools of Hankey’s own design. Beraldi’s phrase for such a binding, with its ‘cynical flowers andconcupiscent butterflies’, was ‘reliure aux fleurs du mal’, 36
which almost seems unfair to Baudelaire. Nonetheless, Beraldi
was the most astute, sympathetic and witty commentator on
Hankey before our present editors. His own quest for perfection, which involved the patient distillation of several very finelubricious tastes, or whether this bibliomania (considered as one of thefine arts) was first and foremost in his life. Doubtless both at once…’
33‘his collection had been nothing but an enormous aphrodisiac in
his search for endlessly renewed sensations – but for what sort of sexual
encounters?’
34‘the extent of his perversions has never been ascertained’.
35‘Sex-worshipping Trautz-maniac or Trautz-worshipping sexmaniac’.
36‘binding in the style of The Flowers of Evil’.

26

copies into one superb book, had much in common with
Hankey’s. How could Beraldi not honour him as ‘l’érotomanecorrect’?37 Wallace Stevens copied into his commonplace booka phrase describing Beraldi’s methods from the preface to thefirst volume of his sale catalogue (1934): ‘Lorsqu’il eut achevésa tâche, H.B. n’avait-il laissé subsister de son trésor de livres
que la quintessence: Le plus beau, le plus rare, le plus pur’.38
Stevens added the Mallarméan gloss that this was ‘a theory of
poetry … The subject forms no part. The scholar is not involved. There is only the book, beau, rare et pur’ – see Sur

Plusieurs Beaux Sujets: Wallace Stevens’ commonplace book,edited by Milton J. Bates (1989), p. 37.
‘Sa bibliomanie est unique en son genre, car il fut toute savie hanté par le livre érotique parfait’,39 the editors observe ofHankey. With a speciality in which luxury reprints, private extra-illustration or beautiful calligraphic copies could be had or
made, a bibliophile could suit his personal tastes as exactly as ata maison close or in the coulisses de l’Opéra, seeking not somuch authority and authenticity as sheer desirability. Thus it
was that in 1875 Hankey refused the offer of the still unpublished manuscript of Sade’s Cent vingt journées de Sodome,
an extraordinary survival written in the Bastille in 1785 in microscopic letters on both sides of a long roll of paper. As theartist Jules Adolphe Chauvet explained to Ashbee (in a letter –yet again – here first printed), the collector complained: ‘Que
voulez-vous que je fasse d’un manuscrit de douze mètres delong et absolument illisible. Faites-m’en faire une copie sur papier en feuilles et je l’achèterai de suite…’40 (The manuscript has
37‘the absolute erotomane’.
‘Once he had completed his manipulations, H. B. (so to speak)allowed only the quintessence of his books to survive: the most beautiful, the most rare, the most pure’.
39‘His bibliomania was unique of its kind, for he was under thespell of the perfect erotic book for his entire life’.
40‘What do you expect me to do with a manuscript twelve meters38

27

since found more appreciative owners, most recently Gérard
Nordmann, to whose memory this book is dedicated.) Hankey
was similarly reluctant to add Richard Payne Knight’s An Account of the Remains of the Worship of Priapus (1786) and
Vivant Denon’s Eaux fortes to his collection, finding them both‘more singular than exciting’. He explained to Milnes that a
Sammelband of seventeenth-century facetiae did not attract him
either: ‘It is not my sort of loose Book’. (This remark has given
the editors their title, just as a notorious establishment for flogging has provided a fanciful imprint.) As these revealing comments show, this is a volume that may be read with profit evenby the hopelessly unerotic. The psychology of his customers
must always be the dealer’s first study.
One small error: as the home address on page 217 makes
clear, the courier who regularly smuggled erotica from Hankey
in Paris to Milnes in London (‘a very good hand at passing
quarto volumes in the bend of his back’) was not Sir Augustus
Henry Glossop Harris (1852–1896), then a mere schoolboy, but
his father Augustus Frederick Glossop Harris (1826–1873). And
is not the unidentified ‘Mrs. Austin’ of whom Hankey spoke
profanely (p. 23) Sarah Austin, mother of Lady Duff Gordon
and unhappy wife of that driest of sticks, the jurist John Austin?
‘Walker’s “Essay on Woman” ’ is no doubt a slip for Wilkes’s
anonymous book, but the editors miss Hankey’s train ofthought. In 1839, Alexander Walker published the volume

Woman, physiologically considered as to mind, morals, marriage, matrimonial slavery, infidelity and divorce.
Ian Jacksonlong and totally unreadable? Find someone to make me a copy on
single sheets of paper and I’ll buy it immediately’.

28Reprinted by kind permission of The
Book Collector. In its original appearance, almost every quotation was left in
the original French. For this republication, the author has added English translations of these passages (footnotes 28-40).

29

Appendix II

Letter from Annie Hankey to Richard Monckton-Milnes[later than June 1882] pressmark : Houghton 38/42[This letter and the accompanying notes taken from Cen’est pas mon genre de livres lestes… pp. 241 & 191 respectively.]
2 rue Laffitte
My dear Houghton41
You who knew the devoted affection I had for Fred and that
only wished to live to be of some little use to him, I never passed
my time like his sister in praying God to shower his bountiful
blessings on him, but thought constantly in what manner I could
make the necessary losses to get him what he wanted – different
natures have different ways of showing their affection! and thisduring 33 years[.] You can imagine all I suffer more except mydear old friend Hodgson who has known me from a child almost42 –There are moments I wish I had gone first not to suffer somuch [.] I can neither eat nor sleep and if this continues much
longer I shall be dropped into the hole prepared before themonument is finished.
And in all this people come and talk to me of money [.] I
41

An amazing expression from Annie Hankey’s pen, suggesting an
odd familiarity. Were closer, even friendlier, ties created in Hankey’s
later years between his girlfriend and Milnes? Or, more simply, could
it be a simple imitation of the formula used by Hankey in his last
known letter to Milnes?
42
General Studholme John Hodgson, died in 1890…: this would
imply that Annie Hankey was English, or raised in England.

30

want but little now as I wrote to Thomson43 that whatever hechose and decide I would find right and that they would neverhear recriminations from me.
He sent me a Bankers [?] too late for the funeral and which
he ought to have done in time. I had however old friends whocame immediately and we buried him not according to his religious principles but with every respect due to the family,
friends and to his memory.
My tears dear Houghton are blinding me and I can write no
more – do come when you pass through Paris to see me andgive my love to the Burtons.44
Your ever affect[tiona]te friend
Annie Hankey
P.S. I wrote to Labitte45 and hope he has done what you
43Thomson Hankey (1805-1893), Frederick Hankey’s first cousin.
Sir Richard Burton married Isabel Arundell on 22 January 1861.
45
Adolphe Labitte, an important Paris bookseller (1 January 1832–
19 June 1882), who applied his expertise exclusively to cataloguing
auction sales. Pawlowsky paid homage to him in the Journal de la
Librairie for 18 July 1882. In the Milnes papers held at Trinity College,
Cambridge (pressmark Houghton 232-345), can be found a visitingcard, datable to 1882, with a hand-written message to Lord Houghton(Milnes) the text of which which we reproduce here:
44

Tuesday 3 January [1882][Adolphe Labitte | Libraire de la Bibliothèque Nationale |Paris, 4 rue de Lille] presents his sincere regrets at being unable
to receive Lord Houghton owing to a family commitment, but
hopes to see his Lordship in March and give him a copy of theprinted catalogue. The sale is in April
Evidently this is the sale of books from the library of Lord H****[Catalogue de livres anciens et de manuscrits sur vélin provenant en
partie de la Bibliothèque de Lord H***] which took place at Drouoton the 17th and 18th April 1882, the catalogue of which was compiled
and published by Labitte. The postscript of Annie Hankey’s letter,
written after the sale, probably relates to books, but are they books ofHankey’s which Milnes wished to buy privately at Labitte’s valuations,31

wished.

or something else not now known to us?

32Appendix III

Since the preceding was written and published, I was able tolearn some further details of Hankey and his family from a genealogical site. Rather than try to weave the new material into
the existing text, I will reproduce it here, more or less intact;
the original is untidy, and from the language has the appearance
at times of being quite old, and so I have made a few editorialchanges for the sake of clarity. The italicized quotations in thesecond part are not fully sourced. The particular biography of
Burton is not identified, and the source of the paragraphs statedto have been written by Henry Alers Hankey are not provided.

Frederick Hankey Sr.
Sir Frederick Hankey GCMG (1774-1855), Frederick
Hankey’s father, was the third son of John Hankey of Mincing
Lane. Frederick was born on 13 Mar 1774 and baptised on 4
Apr at St Dunstan in the East. Educated at Charterhouse School
Jun 1784-Jun 1790 (Berdmore’s house).
His father having died in 1792, Frederick was often with his
cousins at Bedford Square, where the table was always open tohim. Nothing was so constant as quizzing & telling exaggerated
good stories of their acquaintance who were considered quizzible and Frederick, who was what is called a very sharp tag, wasinexhaustible in his anecdotes. The great fun used to be to tellJohn Hankey’s three sons that there was a cousin for each ofthem. Jack the eldest had at that time rather a preference for me[Matilda, daughter of Robert Hankey] & he was very sore about
it. Fred however could laugh heartily & help forward the joke,
little thinking he was to take the eldest Miss Hankey himself.
Charlotte persuaded him to leave off the family business of33

making sugar, and take a commission in the Guards, which hedid before he was of age. Frederick thus became the first of the
Hankeys to embark on a military career. He was in the 1st Foot
1793, and served with the Duke of York in the Low Countries
in 1794; he went to India and Ceylon in 1797, and was Ensign
90th Foot Sep 1800; Major 50th Foot 1808, of 2nd Ceylon
Regiment 1809, and of 15th Foot 1815 to 1816, when placedon half pay.
Sir Frederick Hankey was very extravagant when young andentered the army and rose to be Colonel. He then gambled toa great extent & having no money to pay, sold his Colonelcy
and did so. Returned to England, told his father, who as a lastgift gave him £1000. Went to town to Duke of York’s Officeand obtained a low commission about 2 steps up. He thenbought as much higher as he could with his £1000 & finallybecame Colonel a 2nd time. He spoilt his son Fred. He sold his
Commission a second time (but retained his title by permissionof Government) for £4000. He was once wounded in battle,
but saw little field service.
Frederick was married on 7 Jul 1796 at Fetcham to his firstcousin Charlotte Hankey (1774-1816), eldest daughter of thelate Thomas Hankey of Fetcham Park. The Monthly Mirror of
July 1796 recorded the marriage of Capt Hankey, of the 1st
Regiment of Foot Guards, to Miss Pankey, of Bedford Square;
this printing error caused a correspondent in Notes & Queries,
March 1900, to suggest this was the origin of the phrase HankyPanky!
Frederick and Charlotte had two daughters surviving:- Emma (1798-1864) born at Bedford Square; died unmarried at Boulogne.
- Frederica (1815-1872) married [in Steyning, Sussex] in1842 to Captain George Johnson, Coldstream Guards.
Charlotte died at Worthing on 25 Sep 1816, aged 42 andafter 20 years of marriage, and was buried on 10 Oct at St Dionis
Backchurch; she was reinterred at Kensal Green in July 187834

(catacomb B, vault 45). Her daughter Frederica had been bornwhen her mother was so near her end that she never knew she
had given birth to another child – but kind Mrs Hankey[Frederica’s maternal grandmother], who was twenty times amother to the Frederick Hankeys, brought [her] up with great
care.
Frederick was on the Staff of Sir Thomas Maitland from1805 when Sir Thomas was Governor of Ceylon, and was his
Secretary (1814-1824) when Sir Thomas was High Commissioner of the Ionian Islands.
On 8 Nov 1818 Lt-Col Frederick Hankey was married asecond time, at the Palace of Corfu, to a native of that island,Caterina Regina Varlamo, daughter of Sieur Alfieri Nicholas
Varlamo, of Krevatsoula, Dassia, Corfu. She was of a terrible
temper which he bore with very well. She was divorced from aman living when he married her, but he had three other wives,and as the divorce & marriage were both legal by the laws ofher country (Corfu) she was recognised as Lady Hankey by the
Marchioness of Hastings.
Frederick Hankey was Secretary to the Order of St Michael
and St George from 1818 to 1833. Shortly after his marriage,
on 18 November 1818 at Corfu, he was invested KCMG. He
was invested GCMG in 1833 for his services in Malta.
Sir Frederick was from 1825 to 1838 Secretary to the Governor of Malta Sir Thomas Maitland & the Marquis of Hastings
at a salary of £1500 with a Government Residence (at 86 Strada
Vescovo), and afterwards had a retiring pension of £700. He
was placed as a check on the Marquis of Hastings (who was very
extravagant & was not satisfied with £50,000 a year as Governor General of India) lest he might draw on the Treasury.
By Caterina, Sir Frederick had a son and a daughter, bothborn in Corfu:- Thomasina Ionia (1819-1900) married in1839 to Lt-Col
Charles Francis Maxwell (1806-1873), then ADC to the Governor of Malta. As clever as she was beautiful and as good as she

35was attractive. She died at 7 Cornwall Gardens, leaving 12 children.
- Frederick (Fred) (1821-1882).
Sir Frederick had a grant of supporters to his arms, in approval of his long services. Colonel 1825, retired 1826. In 1825
he was living at 86 Strada Vescovo.
Sir Frederick was a first rate man of business and an exceedingly liberal character. He used to say “Never forget a man’sname” and always found something to say to everybody on
every occasion.
Caterina died on 26 May 1833 at Malta, and was buried in
the Greek Orthodox cemetery at Floriana; her tomb is now at
the Msida Bastion Garden of Rest [now known as the Msida
Bastion Historic Garden]. Recorded as being Governor of Cyprus and of St Helena [?]. In 1841 he and his son were living at
14 Lower Berkeley Street, Marylebone.
Sir Frederick died at 7 Montagu Square on 13 March 1855,
his 81st birthday, and was buried on 17 March at Kensal Green(catacomb B, vault 120); his will was proved on 30 Mar 1855 at
London.
On 18 Nov 1827, 25 year-old Henry Edward Fox (later
4th Lord Holland) met Sir Frederick and Lady Hankey at adinner party in Rome. He wrote: “I was obliged to hasten
to dine with the Braccianos at 4. It was a great dinner:Orsinis, Piombino, Lady Drummond and Sir F. and Lady
Hankey. Sir F. is going to England from Malta where he issecond-in-command. He is clever; but noisy, vulgar, narrow-minded and hard-hearted. He lamented the victory at
Navarino and rejoiced in Lord Guildford’s death. Nothing
could better portray his character. He was ever the creatureof Sir T. Maitland and has worthily followed his footsteps.
His wife is a Greek. She is dreadfully fat, and being now
with child looks fatter, but she is lovely; her eyes; her teeth,
her complexion, one the finest I ever saw almost. The latterI never saw rivalled but by my mother many years ago.”36

Frederick Hankey Jr.
Son of Sir Frederick Hankey and his second wife Caterina,
Frederick (Fred) was born on 14 Jul 1821 at Corfu and wasbaptised there on 1 Dec 1821.
He was a junior clerk in the Government Statistical Department from 3 Jul 1838 until his resignation on 6 Jul 1841. A
week later, on 13 Jul 1841, he purchased a commission as Cornet in the 6th Regiment of Dragoon Guards (Carabineers); on
31 Mar 1843 he purchased a commission as Lieutenant; in 1846
he was serving with the Scots Fusilier Guards; on 8 Dec 1846
he was placed on half pay (63rd (The West Suffolk) Regimentof Foot); 1845-1850 [probably 1847] his retirement from the75th Regiment of Foot was listed.
Having left the Army he settled in Paris. He lived with his
mistress Angelina (Annie) Sophie Vernon Beckett (an actressand a very common woman) in a flat on the second floor of ahouse at 2 Rue Laffitte, as a tenant of 4th Lord Hertford.
During his time in Paris, Frederick Hankey built up an extensive library of erotic literature, referred to by Algernon Swinburne in a letter to George Powell on 29 Jul 1869:
His erotic collection of books, engravings, etc., is unrivalled upon earth unequalled, I should imagine, in heaven.
Nothing low, nothing that is not good and genuine in theway of art and literature is admitted.

In addition to collecting, the perverse and debauched Fred
Hankey supplied erotica to Algernon Swinburne, Richard
Monckton Milnes (1st Baron Houghton), General Studholme
Hodgson, Sir Richard Burton and Henry Spencer Ashbee anda number of gentlemen of similar tastes. Burton’s biographer
wrote:At the end of October [1859] Richard [Burton] spent a few
weeks in France. In Paris he met Frederick Hankey, by a37

letter of introduction from Monckton Milnes. Hankey wasa bizarre acquaintance of Milnes; a gentleman by birth (hewas the son of Sir Frederick Hankey the Governor of
Malta), he had resigned his commission in the Guards in1847 to settle in Paris and pursue his chief interest in life:
obscene, pornographic, sadistic and masochistic literature,
and aberrant sexual practices. Characteristically, Richard
was instantly attracted. Hankey interested and amused him,
and had many anecdotes to add to Richard’s fund of information on sexual matters. By 1857 Hankey was functioning as a book runner for Milnes, finding and smuggling into
England unusual books, and objects, for Fryston’s famous
library. [Monckton Milnes, later Lord Houghton, had hisseat at Fryston Hall, near Ferrybridge, Yorkshire.]

Hankey himself I should take to be about 50 years old, lean, tall,with yellow hair, a white skin, and soft blue eyes, a good forehead, and yet his expression is entirely devoid of energy or determination. In his youth he must have been good looking, buteffeminate. His apartments are situated in the best part of Paris,
2 Rue Laffitte, look out on the Boulevarde, and face the Café
Anglais and Opéra Comique, but in spite of their excellent situation they are not convenient, and as kept by Hankey and his
mistress are entirely wanting in comfort.
Frederick was joint author of Instruction Libertine, a girl’s guideto the knowledge of good and evil, 1860.
Fred died on 8 June 1882 at Paris, and was buried at Père La
Chaise cemetery. It seems he left a French will leaving his estate
to his long-time mistress. Angelina Vernon Beckett continued
to live at 2 Rue Laffitte until 1893-94, but what then becameof her, or whether she returned to England, is not known.
There is an old Spaniard Mr Gayanga, Librarian to the Kingof Spain, who says he knows a Mr Hankey who lives always
in Paris, over the Café de Paris, who told him once that the
Hankey who built the Mansions [Queen Anne’s Mansions]38was a near relation of his. This Mr Hankey is a man of
about 45, eccentric and immoral, and lives with an actress
who is not his wife, & who is a very common woman. He
has never left Paris for 32 years, except last summer when
he came over to London for 5 weeks, in order to get afavourite white cat stuffed, that he had had for years and atlast it died. He used to be much richer than he is now, but
lost his money by starting all sorts of French companies. He
goes in for all sorts of speculations, & is said to be mad, but
Mr Gayanga says he is only eccentric. It sounded so like
Arthur, that I asked if he was sure he was alive, & he saysthat he met him in the Exhibition in May, & had a longtalk with him. He says he is tall, thin & fair. Do you know
who it can be? Mr G says he is a son of Hankey the Banker& that he told him so himself. He says the Duke of Hamilton who died in Paris was a great friend of his, & that therooms he is now in over the Café de Paris once belonged
to the Duke. – By Henry Alers Hankey (c.1867)
On the evening of July 13 1882, called at the house No. 3,
Rue Lafitte, where I had always heard he had resided, to
ask concierge what had been done with him. Heard thatfor the past 25 years he had left No. 3 for the house opposite, No. 2 Rue Lafitte, where he had lived ever since &died about 3 weeks ago. Concierge said he heard death wascaused by blood poisoning, but he had suffered for sometime previously as well from gout for years past. He was up
about 3.30 p.m. & dead at 5.30 p.m. His body was taken
to a protestant service in the Church in the Rue Chauchat& buried in the Cemetery of Père La Chaise. Age about
60. Concierge said Madam Hankey continues to occupy
the apartment & is about 5 years younger than he was. Boththe houses at 2 & 3 belonged to the Marquis of Hertford &now belong to Sir Richard Wallace, both friends of Frederick Hankey. – By Henry Alers Hankey (1882)39

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