Five Letters fromJames Campbell Reddie
toHenry Spencer Ashbee
Edited and with Notes by
Patrick J. Kearney

Scissors & Paste Bibliographies
Santa Rosa, CA
2019Introductory Note

The following letters – four complete and one fragmentary– are a complete mystery. I believe they are genuine, but assuming the information I have about them is correct, they haveno verifiable existence before the 1950s.
They were sent to me in mid-2007, from London by a man
named Tom Starling. He appears to have no interest in erotic
literature himself, but thought the letters sufficiently interesting
to show his friends, one of whom, who had visited my website,
suggested he contact me about them. After a short exchange ofemails, Tom agreed to send me copies of the letters. I’ll leave
the relevant parts of Tom’s emails to explain how he came tohave them.
“I got the letters from my dad. In the 1950s he was acountry solicitor who did a fairly good business with probate law. I’m sorry but I don’t remember too well how
he got them himself. I didn’t pay very much attention
when he told me. Basically, an old woman died in Iverand he had the job of sorting everything out. She lived
in one of a couple of houses owned by a pub called I
think The Swan, but whether she was his client, or the
pub was, is where things get a bit messy. In the 50s the
pub would probably have been owned itself by a local
brewery, so they could have been his client too. Dad dida lot of work in and around Iver, but I never went there
myself. We lived in Slough until dad died in 1983 andthen mum and I moved to Muswell Hill to be near gran.

2

“Dad told me the letters were in a single envelope ina trunk or old suitcase in the woman’s attic, but I don’t
think the original envelope survived because when I got
the letters they were in three fairly standard Basildon
Bond envelopes. They were the only interesting thingsin the trunk, the rest was just the usual bollocks, old rent
and cheque books, Christmas and birthday cards fromyears before, odds and sods like that. He did hang onto a
couple of ration books from the War though which I still
have around here somewhere. They’d be useful thesedays as film props I imagine.”
Iver is a village in Buckinghamshire, just across the borderfrom what used to be the County of Middlesex. There is a pub
called The Swan Hotel, with a sort of mock-Tudor facade.
Whether the houses owned by the pub are the two immediately
adjacent to it on the left in the photos I don’t know, but it ispossible. The full-size photograph of the High Street on the left
shows that two of the four upper windows of the houses arebricked up. This is a vestige of the infamous ‘window tax,’ thatwas instituted in the 17th century. The idea behind this was to
avoid a hated income tax and instead raise revenues based on
the number of windows one had. This eventually led to a sitution in which the extremely rich ostentatiously added windows
to their property in order to differentiate themselves from themerely wealthy. Poor people, having more sense, simply
bricked up as many windows as they could comfortably live
without, thus reducing their taxes. Window taxation, which is
popularly believed to have led to the expression ‘Daylight Robbery,’ was abolished in 1851, which means that houses in question are unlikely to have been built after that date.
James Campbell Reddie (November 26th 1807 - July 4th1878) was born in Glasgow, Scotland, the son of James Reddie(1775-1852), an advocate, and Charlotte Marion Campbell. For
some reason he took a dislike to his father, or at least his father’s
3name, preferring to be called James Campbell. H. S. Ashbee
provides the following account of Campbell’s contribution toerotic bibliography and literature:“James Campbell died at Crieff in Scotland, July 4,1878, at a ripe age. Decline of health, and failing sightobliged him to abandon his literary pursuits, and to leave
London. For a short time he resided at Bath, but quitted
that city in October, 1877, for Crieff. Without the advantage of an university education, James Campbell’s acquirements were considerable. He read with ease Latin,
French and Italian, and although not familiar with German, few erotic books in that language were unknown
to him. So thorough indeed was his knowledge of thisparticular branch, that hardly an obscene book in any language had escaped his attention. His industry was unflagging. Each book, or different edition, as he acquired it,
was at once collated, confronted with every available authority upon it, and compared page by page, word byword, with any other procurable issue of the same work.
Of very scarce books, which he might not be able to acquire, he frequently made copies with his own hand. By
this it may be judged how exact and thorough he was,and how completely he had mastered his subject. James
Campbell viewed erotic literature from a philosophic
point of view–as illustrating more clearly than any otherhuman nature and its attendant foibles. His collection ofbooks was extensive–more extensive than choice, forwhile he by no means disdained a copy containing extra
illustrations, or in an artistic binding, it was the book itself
that he coveted, not the adornments, and, as he was nota rich man, he preferred more books and less embellishment. He never refused to lend a book, and although he
was loth definitely to part with any one of his treasures,
it frequently happened that a volume was not to be found4

on account of some forgotten borrower having omitted
to return it. With his knowledge he was equally liberal.
Indeed, imparting information seemed to afford him special satisfaction, and he would spare neither time nor labour in his friendly and gratuitous researches. Probably
all the English books which are to be found correctly
noted in M. Gay’s Bibliographie … were communicatedby J. Campbell, whose name figures in the preface to thethird and last edition. Further, with a view probably of
aiding M. Gay in a future edition, Campbell correctedmany of his other notices by comparing them with books
in his possession, and his own copy of the Bibliographie
is now before me, of which almost every page of the six
volumes is covered with marginal notes and corrections.
His enthusiasm for the bibliography of erotic literature
was so great that, had his funds been sufficient to warrant
his incurring the risk which such an undertaking must
always involve, he would probably have given to theworld a compilation of his own, which could not havefailed to be a masterpiece of exact and comprehensive
research. Shortly before his death he presented me with
the Bibliographical Notes which he had made with thisintention, and I have found them of great service in preparing the present volume. Campbell knew William
Dugdale, and furnished him with many of the original
tales which he issued, besides the translations to be foundin The Exquisite and other publications. He was an intimate friend of Edward Sellon, and of the authors of Cythera’s Hymnal both of whom died a few months before
him. My readers will not be displeased to have before
them the likeness of one who took so much interest in
the subject in hand, and I add his portrait, the reproduc-5

tion of a photograph taken about ten years before his decease. (Catena Librorum Tacendorum. London: Privately Printed, 1885, pp. xlvii-xlix.)
Additional information on Campbell is sparse, although
there is evidence to suggest he was a ‘joiner.’
On December 10th 1829, Campbell joined The Society of
Writers to His Majesty’s Signet. A publication on the history of
the Society, apparently printed at its own expense by the University of Edinburgh in 1890, gives his correct birth and death
dates (which means we are dealing with the right man), andstates that he was “apprenticed to David Cleghorn.” (See: A

History of the Society of Writers to Her Majesty’s Signet: Witha List of the Members of the Society from 1594 to 1890 and an
Abstract of the Minutes, by Frazer Tytler. Edinburgh: Printed
for the Society at the University Press by T. & A. Constable,
1890, p. 167.)
Who David Cleghorn might have been is uncertain. In vol.
4 of a publication called The Scotttish Jurist (Edinburgh: Printed
by Michael Anderson, 1832) there are a number of references
to a “David Cleghorn, W.S., Crown Agent.” In view of Reddie’s father having been an attorney, this may be our man, but
the word ‘apprentice’ is not one usually used in connection with
the Law.
Campbell was also a member of the Maitland, a Scottish historical and literary club founded on March 31st 1828. His nameappears on the membership list included in Napier’s De arte lo-gistica Joannis Naperi Merchistonii baronis libri qui supersunt(Edinburgh, 1839), a rare work limited to just 101 copies. He
was still a member of the club at least four years later, when his
name appears, again in a membership list, in a club publicationby the Rev. Robert Wodrow called Analecta: Or Materials fora History of Remarkable Providences Mostly Relating to Scottish Ministers and Christians (1843).
6

So far as can be determined, Campbell appeared in only two
Census returns, the first in 1841, when he was living in an Edinburgh lodging house owned by a David Hall and his wife Isabella. Aside from the Hall family, and a female servant named
Margaret Bryce, the other lodgers included Douglas Mackenzie,
an advocate, a clergyman named Alexander Henderson, a ‘Doctor of Medicine’ named James R. Pollexfen and Ronald Menzies, a fifteen-year-old with no stated function. Reddie’s occupation is given as “Writer To The Signet.”
The second was in 1871, when Reddie is living at 26 Brecknock Crescent, Camden Town. His name appears as ‘James
Campbell’ with the profession of accountant. He is a lodger inthe household of Adamo [or sometimes ‘Adam’] Pedroletti,
about whom some curious information will be found below.
Pedroletti was born about 1830 in Italy, and married in 1861 an
English woman named variously Elizabeth Comtesse or Elizabeth Sutton. They had two children, both girls : Louisa Maria
Antonia (1863–1926) & Caroline Elizabeth Comtesse (1864–
1921).
And a final trace. In a collection of papers preserved at Glasgow University Library pertaining to the Muirhead family, originally of Lauchop, is included a letter from James C. Reddie to
J.P. Muirhead, dated 28 Dec. 1846, which acknowledges receipt of copies of James Watt’s Correspondence. The shelf markis: MS Gen 1354/165 in the Dept. of MS.
Henry Spencer Ashbee (21 April 1834 - 29 July 1900). Concerning Ashbee, much has already been written and the interested reader is referred to the following works for biographicalinformation of varying degrees of completeness.

The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee, by Ian Gibson, (London: Faber and Faber, 2001).
The Other Victorians, by Steven Marcus. (New York: Basic
Books, 1966).

7

Forbidden Books of the Victorians. Henry Spencer Ashbee’s
Bibliographies of Erotica Abridged and Edited, with an Introduction and Notes by Peter Fryer (London: Odyssey Press,
1970).

James Campbell Reddie

Henry Spencer Ashbee

Iver, Buckinghasmhire, about 1920. The Swan public house referred to in Tom Starling's letter can be8seen at the bottom right corner of the photograph.

Letter no. 1

Bath, January 15th 1877 [Monday]
My Dear Ashbee,
I thank you for your recent letter, and I trust you will forgive
the tardiness of my reply. As you know, my sight has not been
good for some while and coupled with generally poor health I
felt that the cleaner air of Bath might renew some of my old
vigour. There has also been the matter of a falling out with thatdamned dago who owned the house at Camden where I lived.
I believe you met him on one of your visits to my rooms there.
I will not weary you with the details; suffice it to say that my
undoing may be laid to the credit of a weakness I conceived forthe son of a Margate landlady at whose house I stayed for a few
days last summer. Although an enthusiastic party to the proceedings himself, Pedroletti sought to extract money from meby threatening to inform the authorities.1 When I protested, theblackguard locked me out of my rooms leaving me with theclothes I stood up in and a small valise in which was the manuscript of the catalogue of my collection and one or two otheritems of little interest to anyone but myself. I was obliged toabandon my books and papers, and doubtless they are by now
with Lazenby who will already have a compositor at work on
double shifts. I regret now ever having introduced the pair.2 It
was fortunate that I had a friend in Holloway who was able tohelp me out with a little money and some clothes.

9

In the event, your letter was mislaid in the course of mymove but I do recall enough of its substance to be able to respond well enough to your questions.
You ask about Wm. Dugdale, and my dealings with him. It
is true we saw much of each other for many years, but I am
unable to say that I knew him well, or that he knew me any
better. He seldom asked after my existence beyond the work I
did for him, and likewise said little of himself except to boast
frequently of a youthful complicity in the Cato Street affair,which I doubt to be the truth although it is possible I supposethat he may have had a hand in printing up some of their pamphlets.3 When first hearing him speak of this I ventured to search
out Wilkinson’s book on the matter but found no mention of
him there.4 Nevertheless, D. did speak with great force of theexecution of the conspirators at Newgate, which leads me tothink that he may well have been a witness to the event. He
seemed particularly to relish describing the fate of Thistlewood
who was beheaded for his trouble.
D. did tell me that he came from Stockport and I seem tothink he had a Quaker background, which is another reason I
suspect his claims of complicity with Thistlewood.
I cannot recall when or under what circumstances I first met
D. although it could not I think have been much before 1841
for the first work I did for him appeared in The Exquisite whichbegan publication the following year. His appearance, early in
our acquaintance, was of a slim, robust man who walked andtalked at a rare pace difficult to match, all the while smoking a
Dutch cheroot. He was clean-shaven and I never saw him witha hat, but he favoured bright floral waistcoats that I thought
vulgar and for somebody in his profession questionably ostentatious. Towards the end of his life, he became overweight andslow, and the wit for which he was well known deserted him.
Several times he seemed to have seizures, and would shriek andpoint at nothing in particular. Once on such an occasion he fell
10

into my arms and I noticed that his gums had a purplish tinge
and his breath was most unpleasant and I suspected he was taking mercury for syphilis. Not long after this he was arrested in
his shop. He made no effort to resist, and was taken away forthe last time and died in November 1868 at Clerkenwell in theHouse of Correction.
D’s publishing practices I found to be strange and aggravating, although in fairness to his memory I should wish to say that
he paid up when he said he would, at least to me. I supplied
him with any number of stories of my own and translations I
made from the French and Italian, together with original tales
by others of my acquaintance, but they seldom appeared under
the names I or the other authors gave to them. Several times I
picked up a book new to me from its title only to discover that
it was something of my own composition, or that of a friend.
D. seemed puzzled or perhaps amused by my annoyance and I
saw that it was useless to protest and kept silent afterwards on
the topic.
At his insistence, I even let him have a large manuscript of
my own that I had written which was largely the story of mylife, although with some embellishment I need hardly add, andwas angered that he saw fit to publish it in parts with no clear
indication of the connecting narrative of the original. Indeed,some parts were re-written or changed to conceal this fact. Oneof the books was called Adventures of a Schoolboy and another
The New Ladies Tickler that I think you know. A third wasplanned that treated of my elder sister Mary, although I re-christened her Laura in the narrative, and I believe the type was already set up for it, but D’s arrest and passing prevented its completion. Fortunately, I had secured many of my manuscripts
from D. beforehand, but most I subsequently lost in Camden.
I should say that much of what D. published, particularly inthe last ten years of his life, came from me originally in one form11

or another, including some novels that Algy S[winburne] acquired from a visiting American admirer and passed on to me.
Speaking of S. I have to confess to having probably got him
excited a year or so ago when I mentioned to Solomon that aplan was afoot to bring out an Englished version of Sade’s Justine.5(5) As you may know, Solomon is not noted for his appreciation of a joke and so I doubt an hour went by before heset pen to paper to let Algy hear of it.
Ever Yours
James Campbell

12

Letter no. 2

Bath, January 19th 1877 [Friday]
My Dear Ashbee,
Knowing that your book is ready for the press, if not alreadyin Gaball’s hands, I thought I should send you further details of
Dugdale and related matters in the event you will find them ofuse.
Some while ago I wrote, at your request, an account of how
Don Leon came to be published. I have nothing to add to what
I have already told you of the poem itself, except to bemoanthat the copy Dugdale allowed me to make of it, in which I had
corrected many of the blunders of the original, was lost in Camden. But I should say that my revelation to D. that it was a cleverforgery and not from Byron’s pen was the one time I ever saw
him truly angered. I remember it well and it makes a good story,and I will relate it as it happened.
Early in 1860, perhaps in April, I was summoned to meet D.
at the Café Riche by his boy who called on me at Islington
where I was then living. The venue for the rendezvous was unusual since D. was more usually to be found frequenting thenight houses and taverns in the Strand and on Fleet Street, andso I knew that whatever he had for me was something out of
the ordinary.
At the appointed hour I arrived at the Café Riche. Since theArgyll hadn’t turned out as yet, the place wasn’t crowded and I
saw D. at a corner table the moment I entered, sitting before adozen oysters with a bottle of champagne to his left and on his
13right a woman who certainly wasn’t his wife. I recall that his
waistcoat was even more ornate than usual.
No sooner had I sat down than he passed me a glass of champagne and slid across the table a card folder done up with ribbon
which at his eager insistence I opened. Inside I found perhaps acouple of dozen sheets of thumbed and grubby notepaper onwhich was written the poem we are speaking of. On the top
leaf was written simply Don Leon, and below this the stanza
which D. added to the title of his edition. I didn’t then recognize the poem, and since no author’s name was affixed to it, I
asked D. if he knew who had written it. As he was prone to do,he hesitated for effect and eventually said simply, “Byron” in ahushed voice and emptied his glass with a flourish.
I must have looked shocked or bewildered or a combinationof the two for he laughed mightily, and winked at me. “Yes,”
said he. “A man came into the shop on Wednesday last andasked to see something spicy. He was a stranger to me, and suspecting he might be acting for the Society6, I sold him somesongsters of no great indecency and seemingly pleased withthem he went on his way. The day following he returned in thecompany of another man who I also didn’t know. I sold themsome more songsters, but the pair stayed in the shop, looking at
the stock and making small talk, until at length the one who had
come in alone the day before approached the counter and asked
if I would be interested in purchasing the manuscript of a poem
he described as being ‘a great literary curiosity,’ adding that withcare I might make a good sum of money from its proper exploitation.
“I of course expressed interest, and asked to see the work inquestion whereupon he produced a single sheet of paper onwhich were several verses of a poem, and indicated that it was
but a fragment of a much larger work written, as he put it, by‘a noble man of letters, deceased near forty years.’ He madesome further remarks that at length led me to understand that14

he referred to the late Lord Byron, although he would not at
first admit as much.
“At last he did mention the name, saying that the fellow who
had accompanied him to the shop had in his youth held a clerical position in the offices of John Murray, Byron’s publisher,and had befriended Murray’s son who was of about the sameage as himself, which is to say about sixteen years or thereabouts.
The younger Murray had been present, together with Hobhouse, Moore and the others, at the burning of Byron’s memoirs, but had contrived to make a fair copy of a poetical work
accompanying the memoirs in the days prior to that episode.
“Some years later, the two still being friends, they re-copied thepoem and added notes, and it was this manuscript that thestranger now offered to sell to me. I pointed out to him that asa publisher who knew my customers and their tastes, I was wellaware that a poem, no matter how curious it might be or noble
its author, would not sell well, and asked how I might usefully
profit from its possession otherwise.
“The man became conspiratorial, leaning across the counterand lowering his voice. He suggested that I might approach
Lady Byron with the manuscript and offer it to her, for an appropriate recompense. I thought about this for a moment andthen asked why, if such a plan was as easy as he implied, they
had not attempted it themselves. He agreed this to be true
enough, but said that his friend was in an urgent need of readymoney and could not afford the time to negotiate such an undertaking, and for this reason was ready to part with the manuscript for 50 guineas cash.
“Again I thought, and then said that on receipt of the wholemanuscript I would pay him £45 and no more. He consulted
with his friend, and at last returned to say that the deal was done
and he would return the following day with the manuscript,
which he duly did.”15

Now Ashbee, I have to say that even without a close inspection of the manuscript I suspected that D. had been gulled by
the pair, but decided against suggesting such a thing at the time,and instead asked if I could take it away with me for a day or soand examine it in circumstances where I might better get ameasure of it. He hesitated, and I could tell that he was loathe
to let it out of his hands, and yet he eventually agreed to it, andI left for Islington where I set about reading the poem.
A brisk first reading confirmed my suspicions of the piece atonce. We had already established that even if the poem had been
by Byron, it was not in his hand, but whoever had made thecopy had little Greek or Latin for the quotations in the notes
were full of mistakes, and the English was not of the highest
order either. This in itself did not disqualify Byron as the authorof the poem, but when I came to examine it, the rhymes ‘soul’and ‘prowl’ in the first stanza and ‘noose’ and ‘refuse’ in thesecond quite took my breath away, and I additionally found references to events that I have reason to believe occurred after
Byron’s passing. I re-read the poem and notes again to be certain
and as I found nothing to change my initial reservations decided
to return the manuscript to D. in Holywell Street the next day.
D. was not at his shop when I arrived, but his boy directed
me to a divan in Fleet Street where I was obliged to pay sixpence to break the news to him. I suspected, correctly as it transpired, that I would not be reimbursed, but I did get a passable
cigar. I told D. as gently as I could of my findings, but no matter
how I carefully I might have chosen my words he would havefelt foolish and betrayed, and he dashed a heavy glass ashtray to
the ground with a cry, and uttered a string of oaths which caused
even the jaded customers at Grimes to look up in alarm. D.
exited the divan and stalked up Fleet Street cutting the air furiously with his cane, with Grimes shouting after him to settle up
for the ashtray. It was an ugly incident, which I found acutely
embarrassing, but worse was to come.
16

Some days later, in his shop, he told me that if the poem wasa fake it was unlikely that Lady Byron would be aware of it, andsomething could still be salvaged from the situation. I advised
strongly against making any representations to her, even supposing it to be authentic, but D. was determined. For perhaps
three weeks he did nothing but make draft after draft of theletter he proposed to send to her Ladyship, until about the middle of May when he was happy with what he’d written. But
before he could put his plan into effect, disaster struck in theform of announcements in The Times and elsewhere that she
had died on the 15th of the month. D. must have read it overdinner, for the incident at Grimes was repeated, this time at anight house in Newcastle Street from which he was ejected withsome force and told never to return. I am glad that I was notpresent.
About four years later, as we know, D. eventually publishedthe poem, and padded it together with another, Leon to Annabella, which had appeared first I believe about 1850 in Peeping
Tom,7 one of his periodicals. He made no effort to correct theblunders in the notes, nor did he ask me to do so, as I had somany other times previously with other books, and I suspect heheld me to blame in some way for his misfortune with this book.
I think he charged 10/6d. for it, but I doubt he made all his
money back.
Ever yours
James Campbell

17

Letter no. 3

Bath, January 21st 1877 [Sunday]
My Dear Ashbee,
I thank you for your kind letter of the 17th which reached
me just this morning. In response to your enquiry after myhealth, I am happy to say that in general I am feeling better sinceleaving London. The air here is much fresher, although it isabominably cold and I am obliged to keep a fire going in thegrate in my room around the clock to keep from freezing, an
expense I can well do without. However, as you may have deduced from my handwriting the problems I’ve been having withmy eyes have not abated. I read these days with the greatestdifficulty, but I am fortunate that my landlady here has a girlwho for a few coppers will read to me for an hour or two in theevening, although I have of course to be careful what books I
give to her for this purpose. It may surprise you to learn that I
have taken a liking to the novels of Walter Scott.
Whilst on the subject of my handwriting, I have decided topass over to you the catalogue of my books that I managed torescue from Camden. I have sent it under separate cover, and I
should hope that it would be with you by the end of the week.
As with my letters, I addressed the package to your Gray’s Inn
Square chambers. I doubt now that I will ever add anything toit, and aside from some sentimental attachment it has little value
to me anymore. You may be able to get it published, or use it
for your own reference if not. I would not care to see it destroyed, as it represents close to thirty years work. I said above
18

that it was a ‘catalogue of my books,’ but this is only partly true.
Many of the works listed are described from volumes in otherpeople’s collections, and I was always able to take down detailsof books that Dugdale acquired with a view to reprinting them.
The Camden business still chafes abominably, and I sometimes catch myself staring vacantly into space and pondering on
what I’d like to do to that damned little Italian if I wereyounger. You cannot imagine, Ashbee, what I lost. As you
know from your visits, I had many books among which weremost of Dugdale’s most incandescent volumes, but there weredozens of manuscripts, including Eddie Sellon’s memoirs.
Towards the end poor Eddie was in desperate financial straits
but I was able to help him a little by selling his memoirs to
Dugdale. By this time D. himself had become unpredictable andI was unwilling to cross swords with him on anything lest heturn ugly, and I am sorry to say that he paid far less for thememoirs than for another of Eddie’s manuscripts I sold him a
few years before, a novel that true to his practice he printed up
as two separate works, one stated to be a sequel to the other.
As Eddie wrote it, the MS of his memoirs was twice as longat least as the printed version, and all the real names were included. D. was really only interested in the spicy passages, and I
had the unhappy task of reducing the MS down to its publishedlength. Although much of the book is concerned with army life
in India, the MS contained a good deal more which I had toexcise. A pity, but D. had little time for Eddie’s reflections on
the society and religious practices of the Hindoos, curious
though they might be to us Westerners. Worse, if possible, I
was obliged to insert a few sentences of my own as a bridge, so
to speak, to conceal the loss of his adventures whilst driving theCambridge Mail, else there would have been huge unexplained
gaps in his narrative. I hated to work like that on Eddie’s book,and tried everything to get D. to do it complete in two volumes
and save on the venture by leaving out the lithos, but he19

wouldn’t hear of it. Eventually I had to buckle because it was
the only way I could scrape up the money to keep Eddie’s suicide out of the news.
That was a dreadful event. The night before, which would
have been sometime in April 1866 I think, Eddie wrote me aletter announcing his intentions, but by the time I received it
the deed was done. I arrived at Webb’s [Hotel] in Piccadilly andwent straight to his room and found him lying on the floor beside the bed. For some reason the poor fellow had wrapped his
pistol in a towel which presumably muffled the report and accounts I imagine for why nobody had found him before I got
there. I don’t believe you ever met him, Ashbee, but it was aterrible shock to me to see his once handsome features so brutally destroyed.
I managed to catch the attention of a ‘boots’ passing along
the hallway outside and without explaining why asked if hewould summon the duty manager to whom I had to give mylast half-sovereign to keep him quiet and persuade him to sendout for Albert Styles, D’s medical examiner friend attached tothe police. Once he was on the scene and had looked over boththe corpse and Eddie’s letter to me, he was amenable to assist incovering the event up, at least to the extent of keeping it out of
the newspapers. But being one of D’s kidney he of course
wanted recompense for the favour, hence my unpaid editorial
labours.
Eddie really was a most splendid fellow, and we were thegreatest of friends for a number of years. Despite some slightelaboration his memoirs were for the most part a reasonably
truthful account of a colourful life. I met his wife Sarah Ann on,
I believe, two occasions, once at the Olympic where the two ofthem were taking in a show, and the second time at their housein Hampshire. She was pretty thing as women go although I am
no judge on such matters, but it did seem to me that she concealed poorly an aggressive or difficult manner, as is most amply
20evidenced from Eddie’s account in his memoirs of the shinkicking he received from her.
Eddie was also an accomplished artist, although one would
be hard pressed to think so from the infamous litho reproductions D. made from them. He did the plates for my Adventuresof a Schoolboy and The New Ladies Tickler, but he was capableof excellent watercolour drawings of non-erotic subjects, and I
saw several of these at his Hampshire house shewing scenes inIndia, one in particular being very fine, a waterfront view withvendors and sailors and dhows in the background.
In closing, let me send you with this a letter I received fromEddie about a month before he died which I have kept as amemento of our friendship. It is very typical of him.8
Ever yours
James Campbell

21

Letter no. 4

Bath, January 21st 1877 [Sunday]
My Dear Ashbee,
This is by way of a short poscriptum to my missive of earlier
today in which I neglected to mention that in addition to his
books already known to you, Eddie Sellon wrote two othererotic works, but they were not published and little more thanlong short stories. One, called The Confessions of a Single Man,
as exemplified in the Erotic Adventures of a Gentleman, Dugdale was to have included at the end of The New Epicurean
and in fact its name appeared on the title page of that work as it
was originally printed, but in the event a new title page, withno mention of the Confessions, was substituted for it. D. later
advertised it as a separate work with ‘Rich Engravings’ and costing two guineas in a catalogue he added at the end of Lucretia,
a bad novel of mine that he brought out in 1864. The otherwork was called The Delights of Imagination, and also has notbeen printed. I used to have the manuscript of that tale, or rather, a copy of it.
My memory is as faulty as my eyesight, and thinking backon the letter I recently sent you in which I mentioned Dugdale’s
apparent fascination with the executions of the Cato Street conspirators, I quite forgot to say that another of his favourite topics
was the execution of John Lyons and the other Flowery Land
pirates early in 1864.9 I’m certain you remember it because it
was the talk of London, if not the whole country, for weeks. D.
had a broadside describing the event pinned to the door of his
22back room at the shop for months afterwards that was put out
by Disley of High Street, St. Giles, who also happened to be
one of his regular printers. The amusing thing about all this isthat D. took to his bed for a week following the executions as
much, I suspect, for the fact that his pocket was picked in thecrowd as the cold he caught in the rain that day.
Yours
James [Campbell]

23

Letter no. 5

Bath, January 26th 1877 [Friday]
My Dear Ashby [sic],
I had a telegram this morning from Fred Pike10 announcing
his intention of visiting me here in the next week or so. I am
much concerned about him. To judge from his letters, and also
his appearance at our meetings before I left London, he is far
from well, complaining constantly of chest pains and coughing
fit to burst a blood vessel. He’s as pale as a ghost and yet heworks like a damned coolie at that practice of his, and is now
about to endanger his health further by risking a trip to Bath ina draughty train. The weather here is quite dreadful, too. I’ve
not been out myself for days for fear of falling on the ice, and24

must rely on the landlady’s daughter for errands that under normal conditions I would undertake myself. I can’t imagine what
Fred is thinking of. If this letter arrives in time, perhaps you
could speak to him and try to dissuade him from leaving London, at least until the Spring when he’d be better off anyway inEastbourne at that peculiar hotel he likes so much. In caseyou’ve lost his address, he can be found at 26 Old Burlington
Street, otherwise at his chambers at 12 King’s Bench Walk. I
think he has a club, but I don’t recall which it is.
I don’t think I ever mentioned it to you, but Fred wrote a
truly splendid piece of ribaldry together with George Sala and,to a lesser degree, Algy Swinburne, in the manner of the Christmas pantomimes. Despite Algy’s hand in the proceedings, you’ll
be interested to learn that the work is remarkably free of references to the birch. Fred allowed me to make a copy his manuscript, which is called Prince Cherrytop11 by the way, and I attempted to get Dugdale interested in it, and Hotten as well, but
to no avail. It wasn’t erotic enough for the former, and too obscene for the latter, and so remains unpublished. It is a little like
Johnny Rochester’s play Sodom, but better written I think anda good deal funnier.
Fred once told me a good story about Hotten, or rather oneof his authors. So far as I can remember it, H. had published abook by an American named Bierce in 1873 and as was his usual
practice in these matters neglected to pay him.12 The author
tried all manner of approaches to get his due, even resorting toa threatening letter, and at length received a cheque. You may
imagine Bierce’s rage when it was refused by the bank for lackof funds. Since he happened to be in London at the time, Bierce
presented himself noisily at H’s office fully intending to resolve
the matter if necessary with violence. He was informed that H.
was not on the premises and was directed to his home where he
was confronted by a woman who blocked his entry. Waving hisvalueless cheque and roaring furiously, Bierce brushed her and25her protests aside and searched the house room by room until
he came upon his quarry dead in his bed.
Pursuing the subject of Dugdale, I thought it might divert
you to hear of a strange adventure he and I shared toward theend of the fifties, strange to me at all events, ‘though I haveevery reason to think he was a seasoned hand at what happened.
I have no precise recollection of when this took place, but it
must have been in ‘59 or perhaps ‘60 because Wilton’s had justrecently replaced the Prince of Denmark off Wellclose Square.
Since this is near where our escapade began you probably already have some intimation of what I’m to tell you about.
While I knew well enough of D’s love of the bas fonds, I
used to think that he seldom went further afield than the immediate neighbourhood of Holywell Street to savour them,with the notable exception of Leicester Square near where hehad a room for a while, but one day he surprised me by asking
if I was up for a jaunt to the Ratcliff Highway. As you may well
imagine I was at first hesitant to accept, and enumerated myobjections and concerns to him firmly enough, but he dismissed
them all, saying that he had obtained the services of a constable
who was familiar with the area and who knew how to look after
himself. I eventually agreed and the week following, as planned,
I was at the shop at six in the evening where he surprised mefurther by announcing that he’d engaged a fly for the trip, which
arrived soon afterwards with his younger brother already seatedinside.
This was I think the first time I’d met Jack Dugdale, who
was in the same line of business as his brother, but in a smaller
way. The two often used the same printer and frequently thesame impresses on their books, which made telling them apartdifficult. Jack was quite different to his brother I saw at once,
not near as excitable and very sober in his manner of dress.
Whereas William always looked as though he’d slep’t in his
clothes, which he may well have done since he was always at26

odds with his wife, John was very neatly turned out, and seemedso on my subsequent meetings with him. His one nod towardoddness of clothing was a weakness for the American stove-pipe
hats which had just recently made their appearance in London.
Dugdale senior made some sarcastic reference to Jack’s fecklessness with money in respect to the one he was wearing and intruth it was tall as such things go for he was obliged to wear it
at a perilously jaunty angle to avoid it catching the ceiling in thecab. I thought it enormously funny when Dugdale minor referred to his brother as ‘Willie’ in his riposte, but it failed toamuse Dugdale senior and he gave his brother such a glacialstare that the name wasn’t repeated, at least in my hearing.
Despite this minor incident, the trip went well and almost
before we’d passed through Temple Bar Jack and William werelaughing together over a rehash of the latter’s appearance a year
or two earlier before Lord Campbell when he’d created a memorable spectacle by at first shouting his innocence, then pleading
for leniency for the sake of his children, and finally brandishinga knife at his Lordship from the dock.
By the time we were within striking distance of Ratcliff
Highway, it was dark and if memory serves there was a slight
drizzle. We stopped at Leman Street where we picked up a constable from the police station, and then proceeded on to the
Highway.
The constable, who was not in uniform and presumably off
his shift, was a burly, whiskered fellow whom William called
Ned. The two spoke together for a few minutes, and I saw somecoins change hands. Ned then cautioned us, and me in particular as a novice to this sort of thing, that I should stay close tohim at all times, and take careful note of anything he said by
way of instruction. At his words my misgivings of the weekearlier came back at once to haunt me, but as we had at thatmoment passed Bluegate Fields and entered the western end of
Ratcliff Highway I decided to stick it out rather than make a27

damned fool of myself and stay with the driver of the fly who
was to wait back at Leman Street until the appointed time cameto return and collect us.
I cannot at this late date remember the names of the places
we visited that night. The first, a public house, was nearby toWellclose Square. I do remember, though, that to the left of thedoor we had entered was a wide flight of stairs leading up to thefirst floor where, so said a sign, there was a dancing saloon. We
had a round of drinks and as the place was passably spick & spanand quiet I began to think that my fears were groundless, but
the night was young and our guide, at D’s suggestion as he later
told me, was deliberately starting at a tame establishment for mybenefit.
From the snatches of conversation I heard from the few earlyrevellers at nearby tables, I deduced that the place had a Dutch
or German flavour to it, and catered to people of those nationalities. I mentioned this to Ned, and he agreed, saying that because of The Highway’s close proximity to the docks andwharfs, many of the night houses and dram shops in the area did
the same, as we would see, and it was true. As the night wore
on and we entered further into Ratcliff Highway, the class ofthe places we visited grew ever more deplorable. It was a veritable Babel, with every language imaginable being spoken andshouted and sung by sailors drunk on beer or Hollands. In an
alley alongside one public house we saw the start of a savage
fight with knives between a Lascar and a Greek which interested
William and Jack who dismayed me by seeming inclined to wait
and see the outcome; but Ned urged them to move on, advice
I was pleased they were eventually persuaded to take up.
Ned was a rare wonder. No matter how dissolute the establishment, he addressed the landlords by their first name and withthe greatest familiarity, as though they were bosom companions
of long standing. Indeed, more than once we had drinks

28

brought for us by these ruffians simply because we were in
Ned’s company.
The taverns and night houses were loathsome bear gardens,filled with drunkards of both sexes who danced to shrill, tunelessmusic scraped out on fiddles by musicians drunk as themselves.
In one tavern there was a back room into which we were allowed and saw on a small stage some tableaux vivants of a sortunimagined I suspect by Madame Genlis.13 There were several
tableaux, each more suggestive than its predecessor, with theparticipants dressed skin-tight in pale material so that theylooked quite naked. Cards on which the subject of the displays
were written told us that we were seeing ‘The Sabine Women,’‘The Sins of Messalina’ - spelled with two l’s I recall - ‘The
Rape of Lucrece’ and similar subjects.
Later there was a private show attended by just a few selected
friends of the publican, Ned as always being one of these, andwe were treated to the sight of a trollop frigging herself with abottle to the accompaniment of the sounds of doubtless pretended pleasure, and another who squatted down and produced
three hard-boiled eggs from her cunny, coloured successively
red, white and blue which elicited patriotic cheers from a quartet of sailors in the audience.
As you know, Ashbee, I’ve never shielded my own preferences from my most intimate friends, amongst whom you areof course to be counted. You will understand it then when I
tell you that aside from a slight academic interest these displays
did nothing for me whatsoever. But after a few more of these
little shows, I was more than a little interested in the appearance
at the back of the room of a tall nigger wearing a black cloak
that reached to the floor and with a hat on his head of such aheight as to give Jack Dugdale’s a run for its money. Indeed, thetwo looked at one another with such disdain that you might
have thought them a pair of women at a party by coincidence
wearing the same dress.
29

After a moment or two of this, the nigger moved to one side
and allowed the woman with the bottle to return to the stage
and then he doffed his hat, bowing to the small audience andpointedly avoiding Jack as he did so. He then placed the hat on
a nearby table and allowed his cloak to drop to the floor. The
old familiar stirring returned to my loins for the nigger was amagnificent sight, well proportioned, oiled and glistening in thelight of the lanterns and with a pego on him that would almost
put a donkey to shame.
There then occurred what Jack Dugdale afterwards referred
to enthusiastically as an ‘exhibition fuck.’ The nigger fell on the
woman and right there on the stage took her fore and aft and in
between, and this time there is little doubt in my mind that hercries of pleasure were quite authentic, and I suspected that thetwo of them had some sort of relationship outside the backroomof that damned night house. After the nigger had done with thewoman, or perhaps it was the reverse, there was some speculation that a brace of tribades would perform next with a godemichet, but if so we were denied the experience for Ned, on
checking his watch, declared it was time to be returning to
Leman Street else the fly would leave without us.

30

Notes1‘Pedroletti.’ Adamo Pedroletti was Campbell’s landlord at 26 Brecknock
Crescent, Camden Town. The first clues to this occur in a somewhat startlingcontribution to the November 1880 issue of The Pearl, a pornographic periodical published by William Lazenby. Titled “Memoradum from Mr. P–” itbegins “Mr. Reddie used to call me Petro, as a short familiar name; but whilst
he lodged with me in my house, Brecknock Crescent, Camden Town […] I
was continually afraid he would bring himself or both of us into trouble.”Peter Mendes checked the Post Office Directories of the period, andfound that Adamo Pedroletti was the owner-occupier of 26 Brecknock Crescent from 1873-1876. He further discovered an entry in Ashbee’s unpublisheddiaries indicating that Ashbee visited Campbell at Camden on June 26th 1875.
The entry provides Campbell’s precise address, clinching the matter. See: Peter Mendes, Clandestine Erotic Fiction in English 1800-1930. (Aldershot,
1993. p. 202.)
Adamo Pedroletti died in the first quarter of 1881, aged about fifty-five,which is interesting in view of the fact that his ‘Memorandum’ was therefore
published prior to his decease. The full text of the ‘Memorandum’ is as follows:
Mr. Reddie used to call me Petro, as a short familiar name; butwhilst he lodged with me at my house, Brecknock Crescent, Camden
Town (N.B.– This is where I first was introduced to Mr. Reddie), I
was continually afraid he would bring himself or both of us into serious trouble.
Once, I remember, we went to Margate for a few weeks at theseaside, and the landlady of the house where we stopped had a very
good-looking son, a youth not over fifteen, if quite so old. Mr. Reddie was in love at once, but how to win the boy over was the difficulty.
“Petro,” he would say, “I must fuck that boy or go out of mymind from frigging myself as I lie in bed and think of him. How can
we manage it, old boy?”
I recommended patience, and an opportunity would be sure toturn up.

31

“Treat him well, and let’s take him out for a bathe or a walk with
us whenever he will go,” I said.
My advice was taken. Young Frank was soon quite at home inour rooms and evidently pleased at being made such a favourite by
the lodgers, who were always treating him to cakes, wine or fruit.
We took several promenades with him as companion, and in a
few days he also regularly accompanied us and shared the same machine with us when we bathed.
How we joked him about his little doodle, asked him if it would
stand stiff and about boys playing with each other’s cocks at school.
This was of course done very carefully and gradually, and we began
to think him discreet enough as he had often assured us that he told
no tales out of school, when we gave him shillings or half-crowns.
His mother was a buxom woman of about eight and thirty, who
had been left a widow for some years, her husband having been in the
Civil Service, but died after they had been married about ten years.
Now Mrs. Glover was decidedly more to my taste than the boy.
So I made assiduous courtship of her on my own account, for Mr.
Reddie couldn’t even bear for a woman to touch him.
Her bedroom was next to mine, and I had a peephole so that I
could watch all her movements as she dressed or undressed, and hadoften noticed how she sometimes looked at her cunt in the glass andseemed to sigh as if thinking of past joys. One night in particular,
before sitting on the chamber-pot as usual before getting into bed, sheseated herself on the bedside drawing up her night-chemise to her
navel, whilst she at first gently frigged her clitoris with a couple offingers. I could see the little piece of flesh stand out quite excitedly.
Her fingers worked nervously for a moment or two, as her face began
to flush, and her bosom to heave with emotion, when all of a sudden,
she fell backwards on the bed in the act of spending, her legs wide
open, allowing me to see clearly a few pearly drops glistening on herbusy fingers.
Now was my chance. I had observed she never locked her door.
My prick was rampant for such a glorious fuck, as I believed she would
be, and having only my shirt and stockings on, I noiselessly opened
my door as well as her own so quietly as to be quite unperceived by
my luscious victim, as she lay gasping on the bed, from the effects ofher copious emission. I had previously well-oiled the locks of bothdoors on the sly.
Stooping down, so that she would not see my approach and having neither boots nor slippers on my feet, I soon was kneeling between
her open legs and gazing my fill at the delicious throbbing cunt of mylandlady. She still lay with two fingers right in, but not frigging. The
mark was fair and open, so, slowly32
rising, I brought the nose of myimpatient prick within an inch of the spot. It was then very gently
touched. There was a kind of spasmodic twitch of sympathy, but she
did not otherwise seem to notice it, and I could see her eyes wereclosed.
Mr. Peaslin went on gently to insinuate himself and fortunately
for my game-cock, the spending had oiled her so that I gained an inchor two, and then with a sudden plunge as I clasped her round the hips,
I was three-quarters entered in a moment.
What a start she gave, but seemed to have the presence of mind
not to scream.
“Oh, Heavens, sir, what are you about? I’m ruined! Leave me,
you wicked man, this instant!” she exclaimed, as I could see the tears
start to her eyes, and the deep blush of shame overspread her face.
“Not yet, my darling Mrs. Glover! I had a peephole and the sightof you fingering yourself drove me quite mad with desire. Now,
won’t you forgive me? I couldn’t help myself,” I replied, as I seized
the opportunity to push on to victory, and felt myself buried to thehilt in her throbbing sheath.
I lay on her kissing and imploring for forgiveness, making my
prick throb inside of her as I did so, and at last she faintly smiled mypardon. I need not tell you more, how we used to sleep together every
night, and that our liaison quite blinded her to our intentions regarding Master Frank.
We soon proceeded to all sorts of indecencies with the youth. Mr.
Reddie and myself would compare the immense difference in the sizeof our pricks before him in the bathing-machine (Reddie’s was a verysmall one, not five inches). We asked him to feel and judge for himself. The very touch of his delicate soft youthful hand made the seedshoot from me, which you may be sure immensely surprise the lad,and made him blush scarlet, so that we were afraid of having gone too
far.
Another morning Mr. Reddie gamahuched him till he spent in
his mouth and seemed to enjoy the sucking, after which we handledeach other’s pricks and he amused himself with them, until we emitted our juice, mine spurting all over his belly as he stood in front of
me. Then we went into the sea to refresh ourselves and afterwards
made him a present of half a sovereign, which his innocent mother, I
believe, thought was only a delicate way of pleasing herself.
A day or two after this, Mr. Reddie pretended to be obliged toreturn to town for two or three days and we easily persuaded Mrs.
Glover to allow Frank to go with us, and I promised to show him all
the sights, while Mr. Reddie was attending to his business; this she
also took as another kindness to herself and we started on our journey.

33

We took apartments in town at the house of a Mrs. Anderson (anold friend of Mr. Reddie’s where he was always safe to do as hepleased). They consisted of a sitting-room and bedroom adjoining,
the latter with two beds in it so that Frank had to sleep with either
one of us.
Then we showed him a fine collection of coloured plates of boys
and girls, boys with boys or men, etc., some of the latter plainly showing they had got their cocks in their partners’ bottoms.
“You’ll let him do it to you, Petro, won’t you?” appealed Mr.
Reddie as he whispered in ecstasy: “I shall soon be landed now!”
There was no object on my part; his little cock couldn’t hurt me.
Besides, I had a great fancy for it at the moment, and told him he must
put his arms around my waist and handle my cock and make it come.
Frank was quite pleased to try. His youthful affair was quite stiffand hard at the idea of having a man.
We threw off everything and I knelt down on all fours on thehearth-rug. Then, Mr. Reddie guided Frank’s prick to my arse-holeand he soon wriggled it in whilst his hand clasped and frigged my big
cock in front. It was so extraordinarily exciting to my ideas that I spentat once, and clasped one of my hands round each of his wrists to makehim frig quicker; also to secure him in case he flinched from Reddie’s
assault.
My friend had already got a finger well-greased with cold cream
up Frank’s fundament which the boy seemed to enjoy rather than not,as I might judge by the increasing activity of his little prick in my arse.
“Now, Frank,” said Mr. Reddie, “you will let me try to haveyou, won’t you, you dear boy? It won’t hurt.”
I had previously taken a looking-glass from the dressing-table andplaced it on the floor, so I could see every motion of both of mycompanions. With one hand Reddie was caressing the cock and ballsof the boy, as he fucked my bottom, whilst his right hand presents his
prick to the tight little pink arse-hole which kept bobbing towards
him.
Frank winced a little at the attack; but Reddie being small, as I
have said, had no difficulty in effectually getting into him. How his
face flushed and his eyes sparkled with delight as he almost screamed
out: “I’m in, oh, delicious! I’m landed at last, Petro, my dear fellow!
I’m coming – I can’t stop!”
This made me come again and I also felt Frank spend at the same
moment. We kept our places and had another splendid bottom-fuck
before separating.
My prick was too big to get into either of my companions but I
loved to have the boy fuck me, and frig me whilst Reddie had him.

34

The very thought of that adventure makes my old pego stand at
any moment.
The sentence “(N.B.– This is where I first was introduced to Mr. Reddie)” in the first paragraph of this Memorandum appears likely to have been
an insertion by William Lazenby, editor of The Pearl. Whether this meansthat Lazenby knew Pedroletti and met Reddie when visiting him, or whether
the two were introduced by a fourth party, is impossible to say.
2

William Lazenby, a major publisher of pornography in late 19th century
London who took over the reins of the trade from William Dugdale after his
death in 1868. The reference to Reddie abandoning his collection is interesting, since he is supposed to have sold it to Ashbee in 1877. It is perhaps possible that the bulk of Reddie’s collection was kept elsewhere, and that it was
this other stash that was purchased by Ashbee.
3‘Cato Street affair’. A plot in 1820 by radical disciples of Thomas Spence(1750-1814) to assassinate members of the British Cabinet whilst they weredining at Lord Harrowby’s house at 39 Grosvenor Square. Betrayed by double
agents and police spies, the conspirators were cornered at an address in CatoStreet (now Homer Street), off the Edgware Road, and in the affray that ensued a policeman was stabbed to death. Five of the conspirators, including
Arthur Thistlewood who killed the policeman, were hanged and then decapitated at Newgate on May 1st 1820.
4

Presumably George Theodore Wilkinson, An authentic History of the
Cato-Street Conspiracy; with the trials at large of the conspirators for hightreason and murder; a description of their weapons and combustible machines,
and every particular connected with… the horrid plot. With portraits of all
the conspirators… and other engravings (London: Thomas Kelly, 1820).
5‘Solomon.’ Simeon Solomon (1840 – 1905), an English Pre-Raphaelite
painter who, unusually for the time, lived an openly homosexual life-style. It
has been suggested that Solomon may have acquired the manuscript of Jack
Saul’s homosexual memoirs and given them on to Reddie, who was also gay.
From Reddie the MS seems to have passed to William Lazenby, who published them in 1881 as Sins of the Cities of the Plain.
6

Undoubtedly a reference to the Society for the Suppression of Vice,
founded by William Wilberforce, who is better known for his involvement in
the abolition of the slave trade. The Society began with King George III’s
Royal Proclamation of 1787, “For the Encouragement of Piety and Virtue,and for the Preventing and Punishing of Vice, Profaneness and Immorality,”
made at Wilberforce’s suggestion. The Proclamation led to the formation of a35

Proclamation Society, which became the Society for the Suppression of Vicein 1802. The Society was merged with the National Vigilance Association in
August 1885.
7
Peeping Tom. Wit, Fun and Facitia (London: H.Smith, 37 Holywell
Street, c.1850). It contains many adverts for Dugdale’s hardcore publications
and many fictional serial stories (semi-erotic) and poems, including ‘Leon to
Annabella’, where it’s alleged to come from an incomplete Byron manuscript.
8This is presumably the letter (dated March March 4th 1866) which isreprinted by Ashbee in Index Librorum Prohibitorum (London: Privately
Printed, 1877), pp. 393-396, although why, if Campbell and Sellon were such
good friends, the salutation is written as “My Dear Sir” I have no idea.
9“Flowery Land Pirates.” A reference to a case of piracy in which seven
sailors were convicted of mutiny and of murdering the captain and his brother,and a number of other crew members of the British ship on which they served.
They scuttled the ship and escaped, with some captives, in boats to Monte
Video. Two of the captives, the second mate and one of the crew, managed
to elude the mutineers and made their way to a settlement where they foundsomebody who spoke English. The authorities were alerted, and the mutineers
captured and returned to London. If their defence is to be believed, the mutineers may well have had provocation for their actions, but all seven weresentenced to death anyway. Two had their sentences commuted, and the fiveothers executed at Newgate on February 22nd 1864. It was the biggest public
execution since that of the Cato Street conspirators in 1820.
10

Frederick Popham Pike (1841-1877), a Barrister who wrote or cowrote a number of erotic works that were published by William Dugdale, andlater by William Lazenby. The ‘peculiar hotel in Eastbourne’ is identified as
the Morris Hotel in Peter Mendes, Clandestine Erotic Fiction in English
1800-1930 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1993), p. 10. Why Campbell characterised the hotel as ‘peculiar’ is unclear, but it was at there that Pike died on
September 15, 1877. Letters written by Pike to Richard Monckton Milnes,
Lord Houghton, suggest that the cause of his death may have been tuberculosis.
11
Harlequin Prince Cherrytop and the Good Fairy Fairfuck, or theFrig, the Fuck and the Fairy, to give its full title, was in fact publishedby William Lazenby in July 1879, although Reddie was unware of thefact having died in the year preceding. In its first edition it is a veryrare work, and the only copy known to exist in any major referenceor academic library is in Trinity College, Oxford, and is part of the36

Danson erotica collection. A reprint appeared in 1905, from Leonard
Smithers. Advertising material for this latter edition gives the initials‘G.A.S.’ as its author, which has led some to incorrectly believe that
Gilbert and Sullivan wrote the work. In fact the initials are those of
the journalist George Augustus Sala (1828–1895), no stranger to erotic
fiction.
12
This anecdote must refer to The Fiend’s Delight, by ‘Dod Grile’[Ambrose Bierce] which Hotten published in 1873, the year of hisdeath. In general, Campbell’s account of this incident is similar to thatgiven by Frank Swinnerton in The Bookman’s London (New York:
Doubleday, 1952, p. 43), who mistakenly states that the book in question was Bierce’s collection of short stories called In the Midst of Life.
However, in The Devil’s Lexicographer (Norman: Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1951, p. 104), Paul Fatout’s splendid biography of Bierce,
the events are re-counted quite differently. In this version, Hotten
gave Bierce a post-dated cheque and promptly died. Fearing that thenews might reach the bank before he did, Bierce rushed to cash thecheque but was met by Tom Hood, G. A. Sala and others who persuaded him to join them at a tavern for drinks. By the time heemerged, the bank had indeed learned of Hotten’s death and thecheque rendered worthless.
13
Tableaux vivants, or ‘living pictures,’ are scenes without movement in which people in costume portray historical or classical subjects. They are a close relative of the more disreputable poses plastiques. Madame Genlis was the reputed inventor of the tableaux vivants whilst she had charge of the children of the Duc d’Orléans.

37