British Library's collection of obscene writing goes online

‘Private Case’ of sexually explicit books dating back to 1658 ranges from the hijinks of Roger Pheuquewell to pioneering gay porn in the 19th century

The sniggeringly pseudonymous Roger Pheuquewell’s contribution to a series of 18th-century erotic novels imagining the female body as land needing to be “ploughed” is among a collection of books from the British Library’s “Private Case” – a collection of obscene titles kept locked away for more than a century that are finally being shared with a wider audience.

First published in the 1740s, the Merryland books were written by different authors, all describing the female anatomy metaphorically as land ripe for exploration. Thomas Stretzer, who died in 1738, was the then-anonymous author of A New Description of Merryland, credited in a 1741 edition to one Roger Pheuquewell. In it, the author describes his “instrument” as “of a large radius … inferior to none”, writing of how “to say truth, the nature of the Soyl is very strange, so that if a man do but take a piece of it in his hand, twill cause (as it were) an immediate Delirium, and make a man fall flat upon his face upon the ground, where if he have not a care, he may chance to lose a limb, swallowed up in a whirl-pit”.

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